Cheyenne Autumn Trail | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ronald Saland |
Written by | Burt Sloane (created and written by) |
Produced by | Ronald Saland |
Narrated by | James Stewart |
Cinematography | Ross Lowell |
Edited by | Howard Kuperman |
Production company | A Professional Film Services Production |
Release date |
|
Running time | 19 minutes |
Country | US |
Language | English |
Cheyenne Autumn Trail is a 19-minute live action American film produced in color for distribution in late 1964, with narration by James Stewart. Structured as a complementary social and historical companion piece to John Ford's final western, Cheyenne Autumn , it intersperses clips from the big-screen epic with background information about the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878–79 and contrasts it with life on the Cheyenne reservation in 1964, as a tribal chief, a tribal beauty queen and a tribal adolescent take a drive along the route of the 19th-century trek. [1]
Commissioned by John Ford's and his producer Bernard Smith's Ford - Smith Productions, the short documentary was produced and directed by Ronald Saland of Professional Film Services. It was created and written by Burt Sloane and photographed by Ross Lowell [2]
After several seconds of Native American chanting and before the appearance of opening credits, James Stewart's voice is heard speaking the initial lines: "Some of the past is forgotten — some is remembered. Dull Knife remembered and honored... Little Wolf remembered and honored. They were the last of the Cheyenne warrior chiefs. They led their people's great struggle to freedom and this homeland in Montana. The land of the Cheyenne is a land of beauty and peace now, but the heroic trail that brought them to it almost a century ago was a bitter, bloody trail."
The opening credits appear, with the title, Cheyenne Autumn Trail, hand-printed in block letters on a wooden plank nailed to a tree. At the bottom of the plank, in small type, are the names of the states the Cheyenne crossed in returning to their native grounds: Oklahoma - Kansas - Nebraska - South Dakota - Wyoming - Montana.
Chief John Woodenlegs, at his desk as president of the Northern Cheyenne Council at Lame Deer, Montana, is described in Stewart's narration as an "executive looking after today's needs of nineteen hundred people on the reservation". Shown next, at her desk, is college-trained Williamette Youpee, Miss Indian America 1963 who, Stewart states, "has her pretty eyes on the future". [3] Shown next, riding his horse, is twelve-year-old Richard Roundstone, an honor student at the reservation school.
Stewart explains that "Chief Woodenlegs is guided by the story of the Cheyenne struggle for freedom in the old days and he wants Willi and Richard to know that proud story and to pass it on to generations that will follow and he's taking them from the Montana reservation to retrace the historic Cheyenne Autumn trail". At dawn, the trio departs in a small recreational vehicle and, along the way, Chief Woodenlegs unfolds maps as his voice is heard explaining that "the Cheyenne people were taken to Oklahoma and were getting sick and some of the younger people were dying and they wanted to go back to Montana... go back north fifteen hundred miles where they could live and hunt".
The first scene from Cheyenne Autumn, as narrated by Stewart, depicts the start of the journey on September 9, 1878. Chief Woodenlegs, Willi and Richard are shown visiting a remnant of 19th century network of army forts which Stewart names as "Scott, Randall, Larned, Robinson, Meade, Laramie...", explaining that "one by one, the garrisons were called out". The second scene from Cheyenne Autumn shows army wagons rolling across the plains.
As the vehicle continues along the highway, additional points along the route are examined as a third film clip depicts the cavalry tracking and pursuing the moving group of women, children and old people as they cross a wide river. Chief Woodenlegs and Richard find time to fish in the North Platte River where Chiefs "Little Wolf and Dull Knife outwitted a massive ambush and then found food for their people". In the present, Chief Woodenlegs and Richard bring the fish to the recreational vehicle kitchenette where Willi prepares their meal.
The fourth film clip depicts excerpts from the farcical "Battle of Dodge City" with the townspeople, accompanied by a cynical Wyatt Earp (portrayed by the documentary's narrator James Stewart) and Doc Holliday (portrayed by Arthur Kennedy), ineptly setting out on an ill-conceived Indian hunt. In the present, sitting under the moon, Chief Woodenlegs chants the sounds of his ancestors. As the modern drive continues and modern trains are seen, the fifth film clip shows the ragtag tribe crossing at night under a high railroad trestle. The 1964 travelers stop at Bear Butte, a sacred place for generations of Cheyenne. Chief Woodenlegs is heard explaining that "medicine men of the tribe, they go up to the mountain to offer prayers to the spirits before war... go up there and fast and ask the spirits... the good spirits... for the blessings."
The sixth film clip is the snowy trek of the tribe towards Fort Robinson, as Stewart describes the privations they suffered that winter. Willi is heard saying that "John would tell us about the buffalo migration... for days ahead you could feel them coming... could feel the earth tremble... and then they would come and they would look like a black rippling carpet... as far as you could see there were buffalo running and the sky would be just hanging heavy with the dust that was raised from their hooves... and it would take about three days for them to pass and it was the end of the herd they hunted."
The seventh clip shows Little Wolf, Dull Knife and the hungry tribe finding only bones remaining from the mass buffalo slaughter. As Chief Woodenlegs, Willi and Richard watch buffalo at play, the eighth clip shows the most savage battle in the Dakotas... the Badlands. Finally, Stewart declares that "one hundred and ninety-seven days it raged... the Cheyenne Autumn struggle... and in the end, the people of Little Wolf and Dull Knife won their homeland. They could not be conquered. There's no finer story of human spirit than the will to be free."
The final stop is the annual All-American Indian Day Celebration in Sheridan, Wyoming where Miss Indian America is chosen. Scenes from the festival are shown as Stewart concludes, "Williamette Youpee, John Woodenlegs, Richard Roundstone... they're Americans of today, bound together by a memory of the old ways and the old courage... the memory will help them continue the great tradition forged along the Cheyenne Autumn Trail". [4] [5]
"Filmed with the cooperation of
United States Department of Interior,
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Custer State Park, South Dakota
Chevrolet Camper courtesy of
Chevrolet Motor Car Division
General Motors
Feature scenes from
the new Warner Bros. motion picture
John Ford's "CHEYENNE AUTUMN"
starring / James Stewart / Richard Widmark / Carroll Baker / Karl Malden / Sal Mineo / Edward G. Robinson
Copyright MCMLXIV by Ford - Smith Productions
& Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. All rights reserved
Cheyenne Autumn Trail is included as an extra feature on the Cheyenne Autumn DVD issued in 2006.
The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o and the Tsétsėhéstȧhese ; the tribes merged in the early 19th century. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. The Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family.
Lame Deer is a census-designated place (CDP) in Rosebud County, Montana, United States. The community is named after Miniconjou Lakota chief Lame Deer, who was killed by the U.S. Army in 1877 under a flag of truce south of the town. It was the site of a trading post from the late 1870s.
Little Wolf was a Northern Só'taeo'o Chief and Sweet Medicine Chief of the Northern Cheyenne. He was known as a great military tactician and led a dramatic escape from confinement in Oklahoma back to the Northern Cheyenne homeland in 1878, known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.
The Dull Knife Fight, or the Battle on the Red Fork, part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, was fought on November 25, 1876, in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming between soldiers and scouts of the United States Army and warriors of the Northern Cheyenne. The battle essentially ended the Northern Cheyennes' ability to continue the fight for their freedom on the Great Plains.
Morning Star was a great chief of the Northern Cheyenne people and headchief of the Notameohmésêhese band on the northern Great Plains during the 19th century. He was noted for his active resistance to westward expansion and the United States federal government. It is due to the courage and determination of Morning Star and other leaders that the Northern Cheyenne still possess a homeland in their traditional country in present-day Montana.
Two Moons, or Ishaynishus, was one of the Cheyenne chiefs who took part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and other battles against the United States Army.
Cheyenne Autumn is a 1964 American epic Western film starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, and Edward G. Robinson. It tells the story of a factual event, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878–79, told with artistic license. The film was the last Western directed by John Ford, who proclaimed it an elegy for the Native Americans who had been abused by the U.S. government and misrepresented in numerous of his own films. With a budget of more than $4 million, the film was relatively unsuccessful at the box office and failed to earn a profit for Warner Bros.
The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation is the federally recognized Northern Cheyenne tribe and a Plains tribe.
Wooden Leg was a Northern Cheyenne warrior who fought against Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer is a 1931 book by Thomas Bailey Marquis about the life of a Northern Cheyenne Indian, Wooden Leg, who fought in several historic battles between United States forces and the Plains Indians, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where he faced the troops of George Armstrong Custer. The book is of great value to historians, not only for its eyewitness accounts of battles, but also for its detailed description of the way of life of 19th-century Plains Indians.
Chief Dull Knife College is a public tribal land-grant community college on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana. It is an open-admission college with about 141 students. On average, more than half of its graduates move on to four-year colleges.
Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation were the lands granted the Southern Cheyenne and the Southern Arapaho by the United States under the Medicine Lodge Treaty signed in 1867. The tribes never lived on the land described in the treaty and did not want to.
The Northern Cheyenne Exodus, also known as Dull Knife's Raid, the Cheyenne War, or the Cheyenne Campaign, was the attempt of the Northern Cheyenne to return to the north, after being placed on the Southern Cheyenne reservation in the Indian Territory, and the United States Army operations to stop them. The period lasted from 1878 to 1879.
The Fort Robinson breakout or Fort Robinson massacre was the attempted escape of Cheyenne captives from the U.S. army during the winter of 1878-1879 at Fort Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. In 1877, the Cheyenne had been forced to relocate from their homelands on the northern Great Plains south to the Darlington Agency on the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). In September 1878, in what is called the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, 353 Northern Cheyenne fled north because of poor conditions on the reservation. In Nebraska, the U.S. Army captured 149 of the Cheyenne, including 46 warriors, and escorted them to Fort Robinson.
John Woodenlegs was a Native American writer, educator, and the tribal president of the Northern Cheyenne from 1955 to 1968. In 1975, he founded Chief Dull Knife College, a community college located in Lame Deer, Montana.
Red Armed Panther, or Red Sleeve, was a Northern Cheyenne Scout at Fort Keogh during the late 1870s. He was brought into the Chiefs Council of Forty-four during the summer of 1864. He actively participated during Chief Little Wolf’s trail back to the homeland, which is now the Northern Cheyenne Reservation located in the south eastern part of Montana. He put his life on the line to save his comrade, Black Horse, during a horse stealing raid. He had a large family growing up, with six sisters and a brother. He had two children, Shell Woman and “Man Bear,” known as John Red Sleeve. The exact date of his death is uncertain, but he died in his home of electrical shock in the Muddy Cluster district on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.
The Battle of Punished Woman's Fork, also called Battle Canyon, was the last battle between Native Americans (Indians) and the United States Army in the state of Kansas. In the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, 353 Cheyenne, including women and children, fled their reservation in Oklahoma in an attempt to return to their homeland on the northern Great Plains. In Kansas, they fought soldiers of the U.S. Army at Punished Woman's Fork, killing the army commander. After the battle the Cheyenne continued northward. Some were successful in reaching their relatives in Montana. Others were captured or killed near Camp Robinson, Nebraska.
Porcupine was a Cheyenne chief and medicine man. He is best known for bringing the Ghost Dance religion to the Cheyenne. Raised with the Sioux of a Cheyenne mother, he married a Cheyenne himself and became a warrior in the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers.
Marie Elena Brady Sanchez, was an American Cheyenne, Chief Judge of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, a human rights activist for indigenous people and a linguist.
The Battle of Turkey Springs was the last battle between Native Americans (Indians) and the United States Army in the state of Oklahoma. In the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, 353 Cheyenne Indians, fleeing their reservation in Oklahoma in an attempt to return to their homeland in the northern Great Plains, fought a unit of the United States Army, killing three soldiers. After the battle the Cheyenne continued northward skirmishing with the army along the way. Some were successful in reaching their relatives in Montana. Others were captured or killed near Camp Robinson, Nebraska.
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