Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
This movie covers the Cheyenne journey back to their homelands from their reservation in 1878. They were moved to a reservation a year before the story starts and the white men made promises to them that were supposed to be fulfilled. The Congressional Committee failed to appear to fulfill these promises, so the Cheyenne decided to move and leave the reservation. The army pursues them and kills them, but they are eventually granted the right to live in their homeland. Through a white character, a Quaker called Deborah (who is fictional), we learn that the Cheyenne desperately need food and medicine; they have died from smallpox, measles, malaria, and starvation and have gone from around 1,000 members to only around 250. The film never expanded upon what promises were made to the Cheyenne when they were moved to the reservation, but it can assumed that the government has at least failed to give them food and resources. Upon further research, the Cheyenne had asked officials to move North before due to starvation and disease but were denied. General George Crook had promised them a year prior that if they continued to dislike living in Indian Territory, they could return home.1 This seems to be the broken promise that the movie referred to.
The film also never directly showed the suffering of the Cheyenne on the reservation, it was just explained to the audience through the Quaker character. It would have been more impactful to have seen how bad the situation was on the reservation or at least have it explained from the perspective of a Native character. More context on what promises the government failed to fulfill would have also increased the audience’s understanding of the situation. I think part of the reason this was left out is because the movie mostly wanted to focus on the journey, not the context that led up to it. Some important context includes that the Cheyenne were forcibly removed to Indian territory shortly after their victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn. As we talked about in class, though this seemed like a great victory, it actually increased the amount of military action against Native Americans. Five months after Bighorn, the Northern Cheyenne were attacked and forcibly removed to Indian Territory, to join the Southern Cheyenne.2
One of my main criticisms of the film is that it is shown all through the perspective of white characters. The narrator, though very sympathetic to the Cheyenne, is a white soldier. The majority of the film showed the American army and government. A substantial part of the film also focused on Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday, who were involved in the settler attack against the Cheyenne. Some of these scenes were important, especially to give more context, but they were at the forefront of the story and it almost felt as if the Cheyenne were just the background. I think it should have been framed the opposite way.
Deborah, the Quaker schoolteacher, also decides to join the Cheyenne on their journey home, mostly due to her concern for the orphan children. She was concerned about who would look after them. I can see where she is coming from, as the Cheyenne do not have a lot of resources but it also came across as she didn’t think that the Cheyenne could properly take care of their own. Throughout this journey, she didn’t have any particularly big role and was really no help to the Cheyenne. I feel that she was only included as a character in order to show the Cheyenne side of the story through the lens of a white character, especially considering she is fictional and had no real purpose as a character. There was also one scene that I think was supposed to make the audience sympathetic to Deborah. Two Cheyenne members tried to take her horse, presumably to eat as they were starving, but she stopped them. The focus was on how sad she was that someone tried to eat her horse (which is a valid reason to be upset), but it didn’t go into the desperation the two Cheyenne must have had for food in that they were willing to kill and eat her horse. This illustrates how much the story is told through the lens of the white character.
The other major problem has to do with the casting. All of the Native characters with any lines were played by non-Native actors, including white and Mexican actors. There were a lot of Native actors, but they had no lines and were just there to fill the scene. Considering this movie was made in 1964, it’s not necessarily that surprising but it is still upsetting to see non-Native characters act Native.
The film did well in making the audience sympathize with the Cheyenne, as well as criticizing the actions of white settlers, the army, the government, and the media. It also did show instances of Native action and resistance (rather than the white characters saving them), without portraying them badly. One example included when they broke out of the fort and made their way back to the other members of the Cheyenne. None of their actions, including engaging in battles, are construed as being unjustified. In the first battle between the Cheyenne and the army, 9 American troops died. Through narration the movie explained how the news reported it as 29 casualties, then 59, then 69, then 109. The news sort of spread into a frenzy in a similar way to the Ghost Dances. I think the film did a good job of criticizing the exaggeration and lies of the media.
One of the most powerful scenes was when the Cheyenne came across a giant field filled with buffalo skeletons. The narrator also gave sufficient context, in that white settlers killed buffalo for their hides, not the meat. The contrast in the environment from the start of the film to the end was also powerful. The reservation was in a desert-like dry landscape, while their homelands were covered in green grass.
Even without knowing the history of this particular event, I can still tell that at least some of it is historically accurate as it touches on things we have learned in class, such as the mass killing of bison, forced movement to reservations, government breaking promises, violence by white settlers, and lies by the media. After researching a bit into the history, a major aspect that the movie left out was the raiding that the Cheyenne participated in. The movie talked about how the Cheyenne begged settlers for food and were killed/raided by settlers but failed to mention that the Cheyenne also raided. There was one three-day period, in which the Cheyenne raided and killed 40 settlers and raped several women.3 I think the movie did not include these facts mostly due to the fact that it was sympathetic to Native Americans. Portraying these acts of violence would not make the audience as sympathetic.