The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ is a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 American epic Western film starring, directed, and produced by Kevin Costner in his feature directorial debut. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 novel Dances with Wolves, by Michael Blake, that tells the story of Union Army Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Costner), who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and who meets a group of Lakota.
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, producer, and director. He has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Kiowa or CáuigúIPA:[kɔ́j-gʷú]) people are a Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
Cynthia Ann Parker, Naduah, Narua, or Preloch, was a woman who was captured by a Comanche band during the Fort Parker massacre in 1836, where several of her relatives were killed. She was taken with several of her family members, including her younger brother John Richard Parker. Parker was later adopted into the tribe and had three children with a chief. Twenty-four years later she was relocated and taken captive by Texas Rangers, at approximately age 33, and unwillingly forced to separate from her sons and conform to European-American society. Her Comanche name means "was found" or "someone found" in English.
Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles as Stands with a Fist in Dances with Wolves and May-Alice Culhane in Passion Fish. McDonnell is well known for her performances as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, First Lady Marilyn Whitmore in Independence Day, and Rose in Donnie Darko. She was featured as Captain Sharon Raydor during seasons 5–7 of the TNT series The Closer and starred as Commander Sharon Raydor in the spin-off series Major Crimes on the same network. In 2023, she had a main role as Madeleine Usher in the horror limited series The Fall of the House of Usher by Netflix.
Floyd Westerman was a Sisseton Dakota musician, political activist, and actor. After establishing a career as a country music singer, later in his life he became an actor, usually depicting Native American elders in American films and television. He is also credited as Floyd Red Crow Westerman. As a political activist, he spoke and marched for Native American causes.
The First Battle of Adobe Walls took place between the United States Army and American Indians. The Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache tribes drove from the battlefield a United States Expeditionary Force that was reacting to attacks on white settlers moving into the Southwest. The battle on November 25, 1864, resulted in light casualties on both sides but was one of the largest engagements fought on the Great Plains.
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874 to displace the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes from the Southern Plains, and forcibly relocate the tribes to reservations in Indian Territory. The war had several army columns crisscross the Texas Panhandle in an effort to locate, harass, and capture nomadic Native American bands. Most of the engagements were small skirmishes with few casualties on either side. The war wound down over the last few months of 1874, as fewer and fewer Indian bands had the strength and supplies to remain in the field. Though the last significantly sized group did not surrender until mid-1875, the war marked the end of free-roaming Indian populations on the southern Great Plains.
The Antelope Hills expedition was a campaign from January to May 1858 by the Texas Rangers and members of other allied Native American tribes against Comanche and Kiowa villages in the Comancheria. It began in western Texas and ended in a series of fights with the Comanche tribe on May 12, 1858, at a place called Antelope Hills by Little Robe Creek, a tributary of the Canadian River in what is now Oklahoma. The hills are also called the "South Canadians", as they surround the Canadian River. The fighting on May 12, 1858, is often called the Battle of Little Robe Creek.
Michael Lennox Blake was an American author, best known for the film adaptation of his novel Dances with Wolves, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ralph Byrd was an American actor. He was most famous for playing the comic strip character Dick Tracy on screen, in serials, films and television.
Dances with Wolves is the original soundtrack of the 1990 Academy Award and Golden Globe winning film Dances with Wolves produced, directed, and starring Kevin Costner. The original score and songs were composed and conducted by John Barry.
Custer's Last Stand is a 1936 American film serial based on the historical Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn River. It was directed by Elmer Clifton, and starred Rex Lease, William Farnum and Jack Mulhall. It was produced by the Poverty Row studio Stage & Screen Productions, which went bust shortly afterwards as a victim of the Great Depression. This serial stars many famous and popular B-Western actors as well as silent serial star Helen Gibson playing Calamity Jane, Frank McGlynn Jr. as General Custer, and Allen Greer as Wild Bill Hickok.
The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th-century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.
Petalesharo was a Skidi Pawnee chief or brave who rescued an "Ietan" girl, that is Comanche girl, from a ritual human sacrifice around 1817 and earned publicity for his act in national newspapers. In 1821, he was one of numerous Great Plains tribal chiefs to go to Washington, D.C. as part of the O'Fallon Delegation where they met President James Monroe.
Jonathan of the Bears is a 1995 spaghetti Western film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. It was coproduced and filmed in Russia, where it was released as Месть - белого индейца.
American actor, director, and producer Kevin Costner started his acting career in 1981 by starring in the romantic comedy independent film Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. He went on to appear in the films Testament (1983), and Shadows Run Black (1984) before co-starring in the 1985 ensemble western film Silverado alongside Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Danny Glover. The same year, he starred in the comedy film Fandango with Judd Nelson, as well as American Flyers with David Marshall Grant. In 1987, Costner starred as Eliot Ness in the crime film The Untouchables with Robert De Niro and Sean Connery. The following year, he starred as Crash Davis in the romantic comedy sports film Bull Durham with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. The film is on AFI's 10 Top 10 for Greatest Sports Movies. Costner then starred in the sports fantasy drama film Field of Dreams with James Earl Jones. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It's also on AFI's 10 Top 10 for Greatest Fantasy Movies.
John Dunbar (1804–1857) was a missionary who tried to Christianize the Pawnee Indians of Nebraska during the 1830s–1840s.
