Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #18
Tells the true story of the U.S. war against the Lakota Souix tribe, from the book by Dee Brown. We see a lead up of escalating events until there is the banning of the harmless "Snake Dance", and an eventual historical event the U.S. would rather forget - I won't spoil it here for those who don't know or haven't seen the film.
This intermingles the stories of three historical characters: Charles Eastman, aka Ohiyesa, a college-educated Sioux doctor, 'living proof of the success of assimilation'; the proud Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. policies designed to strip his people of their identity, dignity and their sacred land - the gold-laden Black Hills of the Dakotas, promised to them in a treaty, to 'remain untouched'; and Senator Henry Dawes, who was one of the architects of the government policy on Indian affairs.
This film goes even further by showing how we indoctrinated Native American children into our society - by forcing them to drop their Indian names and choose a "Christian" one out of a big book of approved biblical names. They were forced to denounce their heritage and change names and learn Christianity or they were not given an education.
Stars Aiden Quinn, Anna Paquin, Fred D. Thompson, Chevez Ezaneh, and August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull.
won 22 awards out of 42 nominations, including 6 Emmys out of 17 nominations, including best tv movie.
Note: What most historical records won't say it that it was really just a matter of gold, which was discovered on sacred Souix grounds in the Black Hills, home of their sacred ancestors. The U.S. was in one of its regular bankruptcies or depressions, the government having just borrowed 500 million from J.P. Morgan in 1875 - suddenly there was easy gold in land they could just take back from the Souix, conveniently ignoring any prior treaties.
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