Hollywood et les Indiens

The fatalities at Wounded Knee are described as 300 Sioux. Around 250 Sioux died and about thirty soldiers (many from friendly fire). It was not a deliberate massacre, but the result of a series of mistakes, long and short term, on the part of officers. This is not to minimise what happened. The actions of many of the soldiers would be war crimes today.

Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance's story is tragic, but I have found little evidence his rejection by society was based on racism rather than resentment that he had lied extensively and received a lot of money for his lies. He was, after all, exposed by genuine Indian actors, and the studio to its credit did not publish the findings of the inquiry either for compassionate reasons or to cover up their mistakes. He was the original Pretendian, exposed almost a century before Buffy Sainte-Marie.

We should however, try and understand why a talented black man growing up in segregated North Carolina, who was likely interested in Indian Culture from a young age, and who could pass as Indian, would take an Indian identity which whites would admire more than his true black heritage.