by G. Jack Urso
Red Sunday (1976), produced by the
Montana and North Dakota historical societies' Bicentennial commissions, is a
30-minute documentary profiling the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25,
1876. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the battle. In the course of my research
into the battle in the past (see Aeolus 13 Umbra: The Mystery of the Little Bighorn Battlefield), I reviewed a lot
of documentaries and this one of the best. Using archival photographs, location
footage, historical reenactments, excellent writing, and narration provided by
John McIntire, an actor best known for his roles on The Virginian and Wagon Train,
all these elements combine to create a compelling narrative of the events that
led up to the battle.
The battle
itself was a disaster entirely of the U.S. government’s own creation. It wanted
the gold-laden Black Hills of Dakota, ceded to the Sioux in the Red Cloud treaty
of 1868 (following a war in which the United States lost). The Sioux refused to
sell the Black Hills, so the government issued an order for all non-reservation
natives to return to reservations by January 1976 — in the middle of a Dakota
winter. For people who traveled by horse and foot, this was impossible. As a
result, the government declared the tribes would be forced by the military to
return, no congressional approval needed. It was ethnic cleansing by administrative
fiat. Despite the Sioux and Cheyenne victory that day, the government would
eventually defeat the tribes, seize the Black Hills, and then carve the faces
of four presidents on it. For the Sioux, it was, and remains, a sacrilege.
In the wake of
the Civil Rights movement, the 1960s and 1970s were a time of revaluation of the
way we treated the Native American. Still, America then was split of how it regarded
George Armstrong Custer, with the tug between hero worship in the 1967 TV
series The Legend of Custer and insanity
in the 1970 film Little Big Man. While
the truth is often somewhere in between the two extremes, and 150 years of
research has brought us closer to the truth of what happened on June 25, 1876, the
last 30 minutes of the battle remain a mystery.
I discovered
this film during my visit in 1990 to what was then still known as the Custer Battlefield
(since renamed the Little Bighorn National Battlefield). One can see the production
style that would later be reflected in Ken Burns’ documentaries, and the
writing, combined with John McIntire’s stentorian narration, captures the mystery
and legacy of the battle and comes together to create a powerful and sublime
ending.
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