Using Non-Textual Sources by Catherine Armstrong

Author:Catherine Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury

* * *

Movies are an excellent resource for those wanting to research the nineteenth-century American West. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Hollywood’s most famous directors and actors were employed in making Westerns, a film genre that sought to depict a romantic version of the history of the conquest of the American West. It pitted white cowboys against savage Native Americans while simultaneously writing out of the story other minority groups such as the Chinese, African-Americans and even women. As such, these films are flawed in their depiction of the past and they reflect the values of a conservative and conflicted twentieth-century United States as much as telling the story of westward expansion.

The Searchers is one of the iconic movies of this genre. Made by director John Ford, whose name is synonymous with Westerns, and starring John Wayne, the actor most associated with the genre, the film represents both change and continuity when we consider the trajectory of the depiction of Native Americans in Westerns. It was considered enlightened for its time in its depiction of mixed-race natives, permitting them to become key characters and giving them agency and voices within the story. On the other hand, the character of Ethan, played by Wayne, is racist and cannot bear the thought of his sister, who has been kidnapped by the Comanches, having lived with them for five years. He would rather see her dead than the wife of a native. Ford intended the character of Ethan to be viewed critically by the audience, so that they might reject his ignorance towards the natives, but in casting John Wayne in this role, Ford made a hero of the character. Wayne had played the uncomplicated US hero in so many of his previous films that audiences assumed that he was doing so again here. Also Ford used the Comanches in the film to convey his message; he does not think about their portrayal, their history and their agency, in and of itself. However, liberal Ford reacted to the events of his time and allegorically depicted the fear of miscegenation arising from the Brown versus the Board of Education Supreme Court decision of the same year, which in effect desegregated US universities and schools.

Historically, the film does not purport to depict a real event, although similarities can be drawn with the kidnap in 1836 of Cynthia Ann Parker by the Comanche tribe when she was a child. She lived with the Comanches for twenty-four years and bore Peta Noconah, her Indian husband, three children, including a future chief, Quanah. She was taken against her will by the Texas Rangers aged 34 and never properly settled back into white US society. One of the film’s main themes is racial mixing and the fear of it. Mixed race relationships between natives and whites had existed since the first contact period and society’s concern about them fluctuated over time. It was often possible for the offspring of such relationships, such as Quanah Parker, to excel because they were able to move easily across both worlds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.