Original subtitles

Welcome back to 500 Nations. I'm Kevin Costner.

For a lot of us, the most vivid picture of the Indian world has come from movies...

...screen heroes fighting armies of hostile Indians.

The tide has changed in moviemaking, thankfully...

...but the image of Indian warriors riding across the Great Plains...

...still remains the universal symbol of all American Indians.

Yet even with this vivid image, we know little about the people...

...and the legendary individuals who led them.

Men who fought and sacrificed everything for their nations.

In this hour, we'll see the people of the Plains in a different light.

But first, we'll travel farther west...

...to a place where hundreds of thousands of Indian people...

...lived in one of the most beautiful and peaceful regions of the continent:

California.

Welcome to part seven of 500 Nations:

"Struggle for the West."

Three hundred thousand people lived in the diverse environments of California.

They spoke 80 languages...

...worked, worshiped and raised children on lands occupied by their ancestors...

...since before the dawn of European civilization.

Many California nations had evolved into highly structured societies.

Among them, one of the largest, was the Chumash...

...living on the coastal islands and along the coast...

...in the area of present-day Santa Barbara.

Large Chumash towns...

...supported a professional class of astrologers, priests...

...government leaders and healers.

Workers belonged to centuries-old craft guilds of basket- and canoe-makers.

Workers also manufactured the flat shell beads that were the currency of the region.

Production and control of the money supply placed the Chumash nation...

...at the center of the Southern California economy.

In the late 18th Century...

...this complex world of the ancient Chumash...

...and their coastal neighbors would be changed forever.

In 1772, Spanish missionaries...

...led by Father Jun�pero Serra, arrived in Chumash territory.

"Believe me, when I saw their general behavior...

...their pleasing ways and engaging manners...

...my heart was broken to think that they were still deprived...

...of the light of the Holy Gospel."

Father Jun�pero Serra, Spanish missionary.

Ignoring the beauty and complexity of Chumash society...

...the Spanish set out to convert them to Christianity...

...by whatever means necessary.

"I and two of my relatives went down to the beach to catch clams.

We saw two men on horseback coming rapidly towards us.

My relatives were afraid.

They fled with all speed.

It was too late.

They overtook me and lassoed...

...and dragged me for a long distance...

...their horses running.

When we arrived at the mission...

...they locked me in a room for a week.

The father told me that he would make me a Christian.

One day, they threw water on my head...

...and gave me salt to eat, and with this...

...the interpreter told me that now I was Christian...

...that I was called Jesus."

The building up of the mission into a coerced labor force...

...didn't happen overnight. It was gradual, but eventually...

...they forced Indians to remove from their free way of life in their home villages...

...and to be reduced to one central mission site to be controlled.

Once a family was taken into the missions...

...the missionaries separated children from their parents.

All the little boys and little girls at age of 6 were locked up in children's barracks.

So it was work, religion and work all day long.

Highly structured, highly supervised.

Indian people were put to work tanning, blacksmithing...

...and caring for the mission herds.

They made candles, bricks, tiles...

...shoes, saddles and soap.

Labor was strictly enforced under the discipline of the lash.

"And thus, I existed...

...till I found a way to escape.

But I was tracked.

They caught me like a fox.

They lashed me until I lost consciousness.

For several days, I could not raise myself...

...from the floor where they had laid me.

I still have on my shoulders...

...the marks of the lashes."

Janitil, Kumeyaay.

For over 50 years, the mission system...

...backed by Spanish arms, exerted control over the California coast...

...crushing every revolt.

Inside the missions...

...disease and harsh living conditions contributed to a genocidal death rate.

The average life of a mission Indian was less than 12 years.

For children, it was less than six years.

So there was a constant need to feed this beast with laborers.

And one of the sad legacies of the missions of California...

...is that when people go to them today, they don't think about Indians.

They say the padres built the missions. That's nonsense.

The California Indians built the missions.

At the Santa Barbara mission alone...

...over 4000 Chumash names filled the burial registry...

...their bodies discarded in large pits near the church.

In 1821...

...control of California transferred to Mexico...

...after it gained its independence from Spain.

The Mexican government secularized the missions.

Indian people were free to leave.

But 50 years had completely transformed their world.

Old villages were gone.

In their places were large Mexican estates.

Even the mission lands they had worked and lived on...

...became parts of vast private ranches.

"To stand by and watch these men take over the missions which we have built...

...the herds we have tended...

...to be exposed incessantly, together with our families...

...to the worst possible treatment and even death itself...

...is a tragedy."

Mission San Luis Rey, neophyte.

Homeless and left with few choices for survival...

...mission Indians were forced to exchange one master for another...

...becoming peasant workers on the rancher�as.

"Many of the rich men of the country...

...had from 20 to 60 Indian servants whom they dressed and fed.

Our friendly Indians tilled our soil, pastured our cattle...

...cut our lumber, built our houses, made tiles for our homes...

...ground our grains, slaughtered our cattle, dressed their hides for market...

...while the Indian women made excellent servants...

...took good care of our children, made every one of our meals."

Salvador vallejo, Mexican landowner.

In 1848, after the Mexican-American War...

...California passed from Mexican to American hands.

Soon after, gold was discovered in the north...

...bringing a rush of miners onto the lands of interior nations...

...who had been out of the reach of coastal missions and Mexican ranches.

"The majority of tribes are kept in constant fear on account of the indiscriminate...

...and inhuman massacre of their people.

They have become alarmed by the increased flood of immigration...

...much spread over their country.

It is just incomprehensible to them."

Adam Johnson, Indian agent.

Miners came into Indian communities looking for women.

Vigilante parties opened fire on men, women and children...

...wiping out entire villages.

It was open season on Indian people...

...derisively referred to as "diggers."

The Humboldt Times, Eureka, April 11.

Headline, "Good Haul of Diggers.

One White Man Killed.

Thirty-Eight Bucks Killed.

Forty Squaws and Children Taken."

January 17th. Headline:

"Good Haul of Diggers.

Band Exterminated."

In the 1850s...

...while the American nation was on the verge of civil war...

...over the issue of slavery...

...demand for agricultural labor in California was so high...

...that the state legislature passed an act...

...legalizing Indian slavery.

"A company of United States troops...

...attended by a considerable volunteer force...

...has been pursuing the poor creatures from one retreat to another.

The kidnappers follow at the heels of the soldiers to seize the children...

...when their parents are murdered and sell them to the best advantage."

W.P. Dole, Indian agent.

Only 30,000 native Californians survived the gold rush...

...10 percent of what had been the most densely populated Indian area...

...north of Mexico.

"Upon my last visit to ventura...

...I saw the last of the ventura Indians.

They were living in a tiny hut east of the mouth of the river.

One of the old men told me...

...they were very glad that I was not ashamed to talk the Indian language.

They told me to continue in the use of it...

...and keep the beliefs.

If I did so, I would live a long time."

Fernando Librado, Chumash.

Fernando Librado lived to be 111 years old.

"I once went over to Donaciana's house.

I wanted to learn the Swordfish Dance.

After the meal, I asked her to teach me the old dances, saying:

'For you are the only ones left who know the old dances.'

Donaciana began to cry...

...and I left, saying nothing more."

Fernando Librado, Chumash.

For thousands of years...

...the buffalo thundered across the Great Plains...

...a vast sea of grassland...

...rising from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.

Living off the herds were a scattering of nomadic Indian nations.

"My grandmother told me that when she was young...

...the people themselves had to walk.

In those times, they did not travel far nor often."

In 1680, the Spanish were driven out of the Southwest by the Pueblo nations.

As they fled, they left behind their horse herds...

...an animal that would change the way of life for Indian nations...

...across the continent.

"When they got horses, they could move more easily from place to place.

Then they could kill more of the buffalo and other animals.

And so they got more meat for food and gathered more skins...

...for lodges and clothing."

Iron Teeth, Cheyenne.

A new culture developed...

...based on the relationship between man and horse.

"My horse fights with me...

...and he fasts with me...

...because if he is to carry me into battle...

...he must know my heart, and I must know his...

...or we shall never become brothers.

I've been told that the white man...

...who's almost a god, and yet a great fool...

...does not believe that the horse has a spirit.

This cannot be true.

I have many times seen my horse's soul...

...in his eyes."

Plenty Coups, Crow.

With the coming of the horse...

...the nations of the Plains would become legendary:

The Crow, Cheyenne, Sioux, Blackfeet...

...Arapaho, Pawnee, Kiowa, Comanche.

And for generations, their way of life flourished.

Then, in 1858...

...gold was discovered at Pike's Peak, Colorado.

Four years later...

...the Homestead Act opened the region to white settlement.

Almost instantly, the invasion became a flood.

In one year alone...

...100,000 emigrants swarmed across the Plains over two main roads...

...spreading a wide swath of destruction.

To protect travel on the emigrant roads...

...the United States erected a network of forts across the Plains...

...and churned out cadets at West Point specially trained for Indian warfare.

It was the Army's mission...

...to force mobile nations who hunted over large territories...

...onto confined areas:

Reservations.

Indian people were faced with only two options:

To give up their homelands and way of life...

...or fight the American Army.

Although some chose armed resistance, many Indian leaders...

...responsible for the protection of large villages of women, children and elderly...

...saw little hope in fighting.

Among these were two Cheyenne leaders:

Black Kettle and White Antelope.

They were willing to give up lands to maintain peace...

...and bring their people safely through the dangerous era.

White Antelope and Black Kettle...

...had a duty to their people to try to protect them.

And to do this, they had to maintain peace.

So they felt that it was their duty to go out...

...and make peace with the United States, so they did.

Black Kettle and White Antelope...

...ceded vast Cheyenne lands to the United States in 1861...

...and agreed to confine themselves to a reservation...

...in exchange for protection from soldiers and settlers...

...and assistance of food and money to replace lost hunting lands.

They then traveled to Washington to meet with President Lincoln.

Lincoln presented Black Kettle with a large American flag...

...and White Antelope with a Medal of Peace.

But over the next three years...

...continued unrest on the Plains...

...fanned rumors of an impending Indian war.

In Denver, Governor John Evans inflamed public opinion...

...by fabricating stories of Cheyenne hostilities...

...and encouraged civilians to take up arms against them.

Seeking protection for their peaceful bands...

...Black Kettle and White Antelope undertook the dangerous trip...

...to Denver to meet with Governor Evans.

"All we ask...

...is that we may have peace with the whites.

I want you to give all the chiefs of the soldiers here...

...to understand that we are for peace...

...and that we have made peace...

...that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies."

Black Kettle, Southern Cheyenne.

Black Kettle and White Antelope were promised safety for their people...

...if they camped near Fort Lyon in southern Colorado.

But the military commander of Colorado...

...Colonel John Chivington...

...had no plans for peace with any Indian people.

"Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians.

I have come to kill Indians...

...and believe it is right and honorable...

...to use any means under God's heaven...

...to kill them."

Colonel John Chivington.

Black Kettle and White Antelope had been told where to camp...

...and that they had nothing to fear from the U.S. Army.

Why would they worry?

They were under the protection of the American flag.

They were under the protection...

...of the international peace sign, the white flag.

At dawn on November 29, 1864...

...Chivington's Colorado Volunteers rode through the snow...

...toward Black Kettle and White Antelope's sleeping camp at Sand Creek.

Two women were out picking up wood...

...when they seen what they thought was buffalo. But it wasn't.

They threw down their sticks and started screaming and running towards the camp.

Cheyenne George Bent was startled awake.

"I heard shouts and the noise of people running about the camp.

I jumped up and ran out of my lodge.

From down the creek, a large body of troops was advancing at a rapid trot.

I looked toward the chief's lodge...

...and saw Black Kettle...

...had a large American flag tied to the end of a long lodge pole...

...and was standing in front of his lodge holding the pole."

Chief Black Kettle, he was out in front protecting his people...

...to show them that he wasn't afraid.

And he was trying to tell them that we made peace. "We're at peace."

"Then the troops opened fire from two sides of the camps.

The women and children were screaming and wailing...

...the men, running to their lodges for their arms...

...and shouting advice and directions to one another.

White Antelope saw the soldiers shooting the people...

...and he did not wish to live any longer."

My great-great-grandfather, White Antelope...

...he felt heartbreak...

...that another treaty had been broken.

The peace that they had been seeking for a long time had been shattered...

...had been broken.

"White Antelope stood in front of his lodge...

...with his arms folded across his breast...

...singing the death song."

And he cried.

He sung his song:

"Nothing lives long." He raised his arms.

"Nothing lives long but the earth and the mountains."

White Antelope...

...wearing the peace medal given him by President Lincoln...

...was shot dead in front of his lodge.

Black Kettle and his wife ran toward the creek bed...

...where people were desperately digging into the sand for protection.

Before they could reach it...

...Black Kettle's wife was shot.

Believing her dead, he ran on without her.

"Most of us who were hiding in the pits had been wounded...

...before we could reach the shelter.

And there we lay all that bitter cold day...

...from early in the morning until almost dark...

...with the soldiers all around us keeping up a heavy fire most of the time.

They finally withdrew about 5:00.

As they retired down the creek, they killed all the wounded they could find.

That night will never be forgotten...

...as long as any of us who went through it are alive.

Many who had lost wives...

...husbands and children or friends...

...went back down the creek...

...and crept over the battleground among the naked...

...and mutilated bodies of the dead.

Few were found alive...

...for the soldiers had done their work thoroughly."

George Bent, Southern Cheyenne.

Over 500 Southern Cheyenne people died.

Black Kettle found his wife...

...with nine bullet wounds in her body.

But miraculously...

...she was alive.

The survivors straggled into another Cheyenne camp...

...while Chivington returned to Denver with over 100 Cheyenne scalps.

My people were massacred.

Terrible thing.

Their spirits are still there at the massacre site.

They'll never rest.

Despite his loss...

...Black Kettle saw no hope in resistance.

In 1868...

...his beleaguered band was camped along the Washita River...

...on a government reservation.

At dawn on November 27, 1868...

...almost four years to the day after the Sand Creek massacre...

...U.S. Army troops, under the command of George Armstrong Custer...

...attacked the sleeping village.

Black Kettle, his wife...

...and over 100 of his people were killed.

The Cheyenne leader's quest for peace...

...had come to a final, bitter end...

...costing him his lands, his freedom...

...and the lives of the people he had tried so desperately to protect.

"I was born upon the prairie...

...where the wind blew free, and there was nothing...

...to break the light of the sun.

The white man has the country which we loved.

We only wish to wander on the prairie...

...until we die."

Ten Bears.

South of the Cheyenne...

...the Goi'gu, or Kiowa nation...

...lived on lands including parts of present-day Texas...

...Oklahoma and Kansas.

They were also being pushed onto reservations...

...by treaties and the United States Army.

But the message of Black Kettle's betrayal...

...resounded across the Plains.

"The good Indian...

...he that listens to the white man, gets nothing.

The independent Indian...

...is the only one that is rewarded."

Satanta, Kiowa.

To many, the only path open...

...was armed resistance.

A growing number of Kiowa...

...rallied behind an uncompromising leader:

Satanta.

"A long time ago, this land belonged to our fathers.

But when I go down to the rivers, I see camps of soldiers on its banks.

These soldiers cut down my timber...

...kill my buffalo...

...and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting."

Satanta, Kiowa.

Satanta was a deepening thorn in the War Department's side.

In 1871...

...after leading a raid on a mule train in Texas...

...he was brought before General Sherman.

Satanta defiantly accepted responsibility for the raid.

"I led about 100 men to Texas to teach them to fight.

This is our country.

We have always lived in it.

We were happy.

Then you came.

We have to protect ourselves.

We have to save our country.

We have to fight for what is ours."

Satanta was placed under arrest...

...shackled and held in the crawlspace below a Fort Sill barracks...

...for 12 days.

Finally, he was taken to Texas for trial.

There, he was imprisoned.

It would be two years before the Kiowa nation was able to barter his release...

...by surrendering their guns and horses.

When Satanta returned to the reservation where his people were confined...

...he found that the money, food and supplies...

...promised by the government as payment for their lands...

...had not come through.

And the lifeblood of the nation...

...the buffalo, were fast disappearing.

Everything the Kiowas had...

...came from the buffalo.

Our tepees were made of buffalo hides.

So were our clothes and moccasins.

We ate buffalo meat.

The buffalo were the life of the Kiowas.

The U.S. Recognized...

...that without the buffalo, the Plains nations could not survive...

...and would have little choice but to remain on reservations...

...and live off the meager government rations.

White buffalo hunters with high-powered Sharps rifles were encouraged in...

...and the slaughter began.

"Has the white man become a child that he should recklessly kill and not eat?

When the Kiowa slay game...

...they do so that they may live and not starve."

Satanta, Kiowa.

The slaughter proceeded at an astonishing pace.

Thousands of animals were killed every day.

"The buffalo hunters have done more to settle the vexed Indian question...

...than the entire regular Army.

For the sake of lasting peace...

...let them kill, skin and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated."

General Phil Sheridan, U.S. Army.

In a desperate struggle for survival...

...the Southern Plains nations went to war to save the buffalo.

In the summer of 1874...

...thousands of Indian people flooded off the reservations.

And in that moment of freedom...

...Satanta and others led an allied Indian force...

...in an attack on a buffalo hunters' camp at Adobe Walls, Texas.

But they were no match for the hunters with their powerful buffalo guns.

Defeat was followed by massive military expeditions by the United States Army...

...to force the Southern Plains nations back onto reservations.

In the fall, Satanta was forced to surrender...

...and was returned to the penitentiary at Huntsville, Texas.

Later, it was reported...

...that he had committed suicide by leaping out of a window.

The Kiowa believed he was murdered.

They killed Satanta.

They killed him. He didn't kill himself.

He's too much of a man...

...to do anything like that. He's too much of a chief.

Chiefs don't do that.

By winter, all Kiowa bands...

...had been forced back to the reservation.

The following spring, the last of the Cheyenne surrendered...

...followed soon after by the last free Comanche.

Determined to break the Southern Plains nations forever...

...the Army rounded up 10,000 Indian horses.

Almost 1000 were shot...

...the rest sold at auction.

By 1890, the buffalo population of 50 million had been reduced...

...to fewer than 1000.

The war to save the buffalo and a way of life had been lost.

The Kiowas were camped on the north side of Mount Scott...

...those of them who were still free to camp.

One young woman got up very early in the morning.

The dawn mist was still rising from Medicine Creek...

...and as she looked across the water...

...peering through the haze...

...she saw the last buffalo herd appear...

...like a spirit dream.

Straight to Mount Scott, the leader of the herd walked.

Behind him came the cows and their calves...

...and the few young males who had survived.

As the woman watched...

...the face of the mountain opened.

Inside Mount Scott...

...the world was green and fresh...

...as it had been when she was a small girl.

The rivers ran clear, not red.

The wild plums were in blossom...

...chasing the red buds up the inside slopes.

Into this world of beauty, the buffalo walked.

Never to be seen again.

Sometimes at evening, I sit looking out.

The sun sets, and dust steals over the water.

In the shadows, I seem again to see our Indian village...

...with smoke curling upward from the lodges.

And in the river's roar, I hear the yells of the warriors...

...the laughter of the little children, as of old.

It is but an old woman's dream.

Again I see but shadows and hear only the roar of the river.

And tears come into my eyes.

Our Indian life, I know...

...is gone forever.

"What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken?

Not one.

What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept?

Not one."

Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa.

The Northern Plains mirrored the South...

...with Indian nations being driven onto reservations.

Yet a handful of leaders refused to sign treaties...

...and were determined to remain free at any cost.

These defiant leaders became heroes to Indian people across the Plains.

Among them, two men from the Sioux nations stood alone:

One was the venerated Hunkpapa holy man, Sitting Bull.

The other was a young Oglala fighting man whose fierce military genius...

...struck fear into his enemies and inspired fervent followers.

His image would never be captured by photographers or artists...

...but his spirit of pride and resistance would be carried on by his people.

His name was Crazy Horse.

In the summer of 1876, thousands of Cheyenne, Arapaho...

...and people from many Sioux nations...

...fled the reservations to join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse...

...in a great encampment along the Little Bighorn River...

...in present-day Montana.

The gathering, possibly the largest in Plains history...

...swelled to 8000, with camp circles stretching for miles.

The Indian people were well aware that this could be...

...their last great celebration of freedom.

There, far from any white settlements...

...they would hunt the last remaining buffalo...

...feast, race ponies, visit with old friends and relatives...

...and join in a massive sun dance that would be remembered for generations.

On June 25, 1876, as the United States...

...prepared to celebrate 100 years of freedom...

...five companies of the 7th Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer...

...advanced on Sitting Bull's camp.

It was not until the dust from the 7th Cavalry rose over the hills...

...that the startled encampment learned of the troops.

Two Moons, leader of the Northern Cheyenne, was swimming in the creek.

"I looked up the Little Horn toward Sitting Bull's camp.

I saw a great dust rising.

It looked like a whirlwind.

Women were screaming, and men were letting out war cries.

We could hear old men calling, 'Soldiers are here!

Young men, go out and fight them!"'

Crazy Horse rode through the camp gathering his men...

...as Custer's surprise attack stirred panic among the women and children.

"Children were hunting for their mothers.

Mothers were anxiously trying to find their children.

The air was so full of dust, I could not see where to go."

Wooden Leg, Northern Cheyenne.

While the young men rode into battle, Sitting Bull rallied the men still in camp...

...to protect the women and children.

The Hunkpapa, under Gall, and the Oglala, under Crazy Horse...

...quickly rode out and counterattacked.

"Many hundreds of Indians on horseback were dashing to and fro...

...in front of a body of soldiers.

The soldiers were on the level valley ground and were shooting with rifles.

Not many bullets were being sent back at them...

...but thousands of arrows were falling among them."

Wooden Leg, Northern Cheyenne.

"A big dust was whirling on the hill...

...and then the horses began coming out of it with empty saddles."

Black Elk, oglala.

The battle was over in less than half an hour.

Custer, 260 men of the 7th Cavalry...

...and as many as 150 Indian people lay dead.

Cheyenne survivors of the massacre of Black Kettle's people...

...along the Washita River exalted in the death of Custer...

...the man they called "woman killer."

But that night, Sitting Bull was reflective:

"My heart is full of sorrow that so many were killed on each side.

But when they compel us to fight, we must fight.

Tonight...

...we shall mourn for our dead...

...and for those brave white men lying on the hillside."

Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa.

The next day, firing the grass as cover...

...the Indian forces broke camp and headed toward the Bighorn Mountains.

News of the battle reached the outside world on July 4, 1876...

...dampening a giddy U. S. Centennial celebration.

The next morning's newspapers, ignoring all evidence, called it a "massacre."

"We felt that it was a great battle, not a massacre.

The soldiers were going to compel us to stay on our reservation...

...and take away from us our country.

We were trying to get away from them."

Runs the Enemy, Cut Head Sioux.

Outraged by what was seen as an affront to their national pride...

...the American public cried out for immediate reprisal.

Punitive expeditions were sent out, mercilessly hunting down...

...the last free bands of the Northern Plains.

Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa escaped into Canada...

...where they received political asylum.

Crazy Horse's Oglala took refuge in the Black Hills...

...where the full force of the United States Army was turned on them.

For months, the army was unable to defeat or capture the Oglala leader.

Finally, the U.S. Made peace overtures to Crazy Horse...

...promising land, generous subsidies and protection...

...if he and his starving people turned themselves in.

On May 5, 1877...

...after nearly a year of successfully eluding the all-out manhunt...

...Crazy Horse led nearly a thousand followers to surrender at Camp Robinson.

Oglala, already at the agency, lined the route, singing and cheering.

One U.S. Army officer marveled that it was:

"A triumphal march, not a surrender."

The leader, who had known nothing but the freedom of the Plains...

...was stripped of his horse and gun.

Then, four months later, on September 5, 1877...

...believing he was going to a meeting with the commander of Fort Robinson...

...Crazy Horse was led past an armed guard to the doorway of a building.

Inside was a small barred cell, 3 feet wide by 6 feet tall.

Crazy Horse resisted.

A soldier thrust a bayonet into his back.

That night, as Crazy Horse lay dying, he told his father:

"Tell the people it is no use to count on me anymore."

Crazy Horse was laid to rest near the creek called Wounded Knee.

As Americans or people in any free society, we cherish our independence...

...and know the cost to secure this hard-won commodity...

...is often measured in human lives.

Think for a moment what would happen if your freedom was placed at risk.

Is it any wonder then that Indian nations fought to preserve theirs?

Now imagine the unthinkable, being conquered.

You're forced onto barren land and have no choice...

...but to live under the control of the conquering government.

In this last hour, we'll take you to the reservations of the 1800s...

...to the stark, bitter truth about the loss of freedom.

But first we go to the epic struggles of two impassioned leaders...

...whose resourcefulness and daring are synonymous with courage...

...leaders whose words remain among the most moving...

...in the history of the world:

Chief Joseph and Geronimo.

"My father sent for me. I saw he was dying.

I took his hand in mine.

He said, 'My son, never forget my dying words.

This country holds your father's body.

Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.'

I pressed my father's hand...

...and told him I would protect his grave with my life.

I buried him in that beautiful valley of winding waters.

I loved that land more than all the rest of the world."

Chief Joseph, Nez Perce.

Upon his father's death, 31-year-old Inmutooyahlatlat...

...known as Chief Joseph...

...became head of a band of Nez Perce, whose home was the Wallowa Valley...

...250 miles east of present-day Portland, Oregon.

Famed for their selective breeding of horses, particularly the appaloosa...

...the Nez Perce had always been friends to the Americans.

But with the opening of the Oregon Territory and the end of the Civil War...

...white settlers, cattlemen and gold miners came to covet the rich Nez Perce land.

Ignoring their long friendship with the Indian nation...

...the U.S. Government supported the settlers' claims.

In 1877, General Oliver Howard entered the Wallowa Valley...

...with orders from Washington to remove the Nez Perce...

...by treaty or by force.

I did not want to come to this council...

...but I came hoping that we could save blood.

The white man has no right to come here and take our country...

...and we will defend this land as long as a drop of Indian blood...

...warms the hearts of our men.

Joseph was faced with a terrible choice:

To betray his father's dying wish or to commit his people to war.

Finally, he reluctantly agreed to relinquish his Wallowa Valley homeland.

Despite Joseph's concessions, tensions remained high.

As the Nez Perce were preparing to move onto the reservation...

...a youth, whose father had been murdered by settlers...

...gathered several friends and killed four settlers...

...who were known to have committed atrocities against Nez Perce people.

"I know that my young men did a great wrong...

...but I ask...

...who was the first to blame?

Their fathers and brothers had been killed.

Their mothers and wives had been disgraced.

They had been told by General Howard that all their horses and cattle...

...were to fall into the hands of white men.

I would have given my own life...

...lf I could have undone the killing of white men...

...by my people."

Chief Joseph, Nez Perce.

When seven more whites were killed...

...General Howard sent a military force against the Indian nation.

Nez Perce leaders responded by dispatching a truce delegation under a white flag...

...to meet Howard's advancing army.

Howard's men opened fire.

So began Chief Joseph's famous flight for freedom.

Over 700 men, women and children, with sick and elderly...

...enduring a 1800-mile fighting retreat.

The struggle would capture the imagination of the American public.

Newspaper accounts made Chief Joseph a household name.

With a military genius born of desperation...

...the five Nez Perce bands outwitted and outmaneuvered...

...one military force after another...

...as they made their way toward Sitting Bull's camp and political asylum in Canada.

Circling through the mountains, canyons, and plateau prairies of Idaho...

...crossing the high ridges of the Bitterroot mountains into Montana and Wyoming...

...colliding with frightened tourists in the newly created Yellowstone Park...

...the Nez Perce fought off, in turn, four armies...

...commanded by veteran Civil War officers.

After 105 days of constant pursuit...

...the Nez Perce reached the Bear Paw Mountains in Montana...

...one day from Sitting Bull's camp and freedom.

They knew they had put safe distance...

...between themselves and the pursuing armies and stopped for a last rest...

...before moving across the border.

What they did not know was that a new army...

...had been dispatched by telegraph and was surrounding them as they camped.

The Nez Perce were taken completely by surprise.

The fighting was intense, and in the first moments...

...Chief Joseph and 70 others were cut off from the rest of the camp.

With a prayer in my mouth...

...I dashed unarmed through the line of soldiers.

My clothes were cut to pieces, my horse was wounded...

...but I was not hurt.

As I reached the door of my lodge...

...my wife handed me my rifle, saying:

"Here's your gun. Fight."

They ran up the hill when they were fighting.

"They're tearing the camp down there."

She had this little baby and her girl by the hand...

...and they said there was kind of a tree, like.

There was a big log there, so they crawled under that log...

...to kind of hide from the soldiers that might come...

...and probably shoot them down too.

And they just stayed there till everything was quiet.

The battle raged throughout the first day, with heavy casualties on both sides...

...including the leaders of three of the five Nez Perce bands.

By the second day, the Nez Perce were dug in and fighting from trenches.

The army could not mount an attack without heavy losses.

Finally, on October 5th, General Nelson A. Miles...

...called Chief Joseph to peace talks under a flag of truce.

Chief Joseph went to General Miles and gave up his gun...

...only one day from Sitting Bull's camp and Canadian asylum.

I am tired of fighting.

Our chiefs are all killed.

The old men are all dead.

The little children are freezing to death.

I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find.

Maybe I shall find them among the dead.

Hear me, my chiefs.

I am tired.

My heart is sick and sad.

From where the sun now stands...

...I will fight no more, forever.

But the United States would not honor the terms of Chief Joseph's surrender.

The captured Nez Perce were shipped south...

...to a malaria-infested reservation at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas...

...before final relocation to Oklahoma Territory.

Chief Joseph had put down his gun...

...but he had not given up the struggle for his homeland.

He would devote the rest of his life to honoring his promise to his father...

...and fighting for his people.

He traveled to Washington, D. C...

...where he passionately argued his case before Congress.

I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done."

Good words do not last long unless they amount to something.

It makes my heart sick...

...when I remember all the good words...

...and all the broken promises.

In 1885, after eight long years...

...and a massive campaign launched by Eastern philanthropists...

...Chief Joseph's people won the right to return to the Northwest...

...but not to their beloved Wallowa Valley.

The cattlemen who occupied it...

...threatened to kill Chief Joseph if he returned.

Forever banished from his country, Joseph and 150 members of his band...

...were taken under military escort to a reservation in Washington Territory.

There, in exile, Chief Joseph would die.

The doctor that was there...

...to examine the Joseph...

...his plea was that Joseph lost his life...

...account of his broken heart.

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian...

...he can live in peace.

Treat all men alike.

Give them all an even chance to live and grow.

You might as well expect the rivers to run backward...

...as that any man who was born a free man should be contented...

...when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop...

...free to work...

...free to choose my own teachers...

...free to follow the religion of my fathers...

...free to think and talk...

...and act for myself."

Chief Joseph, Nez Perce.

"When I was young, I walked all over this country, east and west...

...and I saw no other people than the Apaches.

After many summers, I walked again...

...and I found another race of people had come to take it."

Cochise, Chokonen.

When California became part of the United States in 1848...

...a new flow of military and civilian traffic headed West.

Many, bound for Southern California, took a route near the Mexican border...

...that went through the lands of Apache nations...

...the Chokonen, Bedonkohe, Nednhi, and Chi'enne Apache.

The Apache had a long and successful history...

...of defending their lands against aggressive Spanish and Mexican invaders.

But as the newest arrivals, the Americans, crossed their lands...

...most Apache held no grievances against them...

...and their leaders made every effort to accommodate the travelers.

"At last, in my youth, came the white man.

Under the counsel of my father...

...who had for a long time been the head of the Apaches...

...they were received with friendship.

Soon their numbers increased, and many passed through the country.

We lived in peace."

Cochise, Chokonen.

In February of 1861, a charismatic Chokonen leader, Cochise...

...was summoned to a meeting with an inexperienced army lieutenant...

...named George Bascom.

Bascom accused Cochise of kidnapping a child from a nearby ranch.

"Cochise denied that any of his band had done the kidnapping.

Bascom accused the chief of telling a lie.

Cochise was very proud of making his word good...

...and no greater offense could have been offered him."

Daklugie, Nednhi.

Bascom ordered Cochise arrested.

But the Apache leader escaped through heavy gunfire.

The men who accompanied Cochise were held by Bascom and executed soon after.

"At last, your soldiers did me a great wrong...

...and I and my people went to war with them."

Cochise, Chokonen.

Cochise cut off passage through Apache Pass.

The United States responded by sending General James Carleton...

...to establish Fort Bowie in Apache Pass.

There is to be no council held with the Indians.

The men are to be slain whenever and wherever they can be found.

The women and children may be taken as prisoners.

I trust that these demonstrations will give those Indians a wholesome lesson.

But the long and intense efforts of the United States Army...

...would have little success.

Based at his stronghold high in the rocky Dragoon Mountains...

...Cochise fought a successful guerrilla war against the U.S. Cavalry...

...for the next nine years.

Finally, in 1872...

...General Oliver Howard traveled to Cochise's stronghold to sue for peace.

Cochise agreed to lay down his arms for a promise...

...that his people would be allowed to live on their own land in Apache Pass.

Howard's promise would hold true through the remaining two years of Cochise's life.

Then, in 1876, the United States dissolved the Apache Pass reservation...

...and ordered the people to the barren San Carlos Reservation.

The creator did not make San Carlos.

It is older than he.

He just left it as a sample of the way they did jobs before he came along.

Take stones and ashes and thorns...

...and with some scorpions and rattlesnakes thrown in...

...dump the outfit on stones, heat the stones red-hot...

...set the United States Army after the Apache...

...and you have San Carlos.

Of those ordered to relocate, two-thirds refused...

...preferring to follow a new generation of Apache leaders...

...leaders committed to freedom at all costs.

Among them were Juh, Nana, Loco, Victorio...

...and Geronimo.

"Juh told him that he could offer them nothing but hardship and death.

As he saw it, they must choose...

...between death from heat, starvation and degradation at San Carlos...

...and a wild, free life in Mexico. Short, perhaps, but free.

Let them remember that if they took this step...

...they would be hunted like wild animals...

...by the troops of both the United States and Mexico.

All of us knew that we were doomed...

...but some preferred death to slavery and imprisonment."

Daklugie, Nednhi.

Geronimo's strength of will had been forged much earlier...

...when his wife, children and mother were killed in a Mexican raid on his village.

He had been away from home and came back and found his entire family...

...scattered all over in the yard, dead.

The Americans and the Mexicans rode horses with shoes...

...and so he knew that they were the ones that had come and destroyed his family.

And he made a vow then...

...that he would kill every Mexican and every American that he saw.

Now he would lead the Apache through their greatest test.

The final Apache resistance was a monumental expression...

...of human pride and love of freedom.

"We are vanishing from the earth...

...yet I cannot think we are useless...

...or God would not have created us.

For each tribe of men God created, he also made a home.

In the land created for any particular tribe...

...he placed whatever would be best for the welfare of that tribe.

Thus it was in the beginning, the Apaches and their homes...

...each created for the other by God himself.

When they are taken from these homes...

...they sicken and die.

How long will it be until it is said:

'There are no Apaches'?"

Geronimo, Bedonkohe.

For a decade, the Apache surmounted overwhelming odds.

By 1886, Geronimo's tiny band was being hunted across the mountains...

...by 8000 troops from Mexico and the United States.

He was losing all his warriors and his family.

He could never beat them because there was always somebody there...

...and there were so many.

And he was losing his own people.

And he said, "If I keep fighting, there will never be any more of us."

"At that time, Geronimo's band consisted of 17 men.

He had also Lozen, known as 'the woman warrior.'

Geronimo was handicapped by the presence, too...

...of women and children who must be defended and fed.

Nobody ever captured Geronimo.

I know. I was with him.

Anyway, who can capture the wind?"

Daklugie, Nednhi.

On September 3, 1886...

...Geronimo turned himself in to General Miles...

...who had already made his reputation as the man who finally caught Chief Joseph.

As a condition of surrender, Miles promised Geronimo...

...that his band would be taken into custody for only a short while...

...before being released to a reservation in the Southwest.

But Miles lied.

Geronimo's people...

...and even Apache peacefully settled at the San Carlos Reservation...

...were shipped to Indian prisons in Florida.

I was born as a prisoner of war.

They promised us in the beginning that we would be held prisoners for two years...

...which went into 28 years.

And I'm almost sure we're the only tribe...

...that ever served that many years in prison.

Geronimo would not live to be a free man.

After 23 years as a prisoner of war...

...he died in 1909.

What is the matter that you don't speak to me?

Why don't you look at me, smile at me?

I am a man.

I have the same feet, legs and hands...

...and the sun looks down on me a complete man.

I want you to look and smile at me.

By the late 1800s, reservations had become virtual concentration camps.

Most were on barren lands, useless for farming and devoid of game.

Indian people were forced to live off of U.S. Food rations...

...promised in treaties in return for their lands.

Providing subsidies and food for over 200,000 Indian people...

...was big business.

The distribution system quickly became a corrupt network...

...of government agents and their partners, known as the Indian Ring.

"If they bring any goods for the Indians, the agents live off of them.

And pay has been taken by the agents...

...and they have put money in their pockets.

The steamboat came in the night and took away boxes of goods...

...so that the Indians would not know it."

Struck By The Ree, Yankton.

Robbing nations of their meager government subsidies...

...the Indian Ring left the people in abject poverty.

And they hoped, it seems to me, to take away the spirit of the people...

...so that we'd become more docile, so to speak.

We would then only depend upon them for the way to be.

We would have to go to whoever brought out the rations.

"I noticed a small group of Indians who sat under a tree.

All were dirty, ragged and lean.

Soon an Indian woman and a young girl hurried into the group...

...laid down packs and opened them.

I could see spread out there some dingy meat...

...evidently waste from a butcher's shop...

...and some discarded scraps of stale bread and other stray odds and ends of food.

I felt a wave of fury toward our government's whole Indian policy."

Thomas Tibbles, reporter.

Many Eastern reformers were determined to break the Indian Ring...

...but they believed that the only lasting solution was change...

...not only for the bureaucrats, but for the Indian people themselves.

Indian ways were judged as backward and wrong...

...that for their own good, their cultures had to be erased.

Indian people were to be remade in their reformers' image.

"The Indians' only safe future can be found in merging their interests with ours...

...and becoming part of the people of the United States.

Their safe course is to quit being tribal Indians...

...to go out and live among us as individual men...

...to adopt our language, our industries and become a part of the power."

Richard Pratt, director, Carlisle Indian School.

The policy of stripping Indian people of their cultures...

...became official with the 1887 passage of the General Allotment Act.

The act broke apart communal land holdings...

...assigning plots to individuals in an effort to force them to live like white farmers.

"As long as Indians live in villages...

...they will retain many of their old and injurious habits:

Heathen ceremonies and dances, constant visiting.

I trust that before another year is ended...

...they will generally be located upon individual land or farms."

Government commissioner.

Supported by an alliance of Eastern reformers and Western land speculators...

...allotment attacked both the sovereignty of Indian nations...

...and the fundamental concept of land belonging to all the people.

"This is only another trick of the whites to take our land away from us...

...and they have played these tricks before."

Hollow Horn Bear, oglala.

The allotment system was ripe for massive fraud.

Corrupt agents declared small children, dogs and horses as allottees...

...then seized their lands and sold them.

Indian orphans were shuffled off to white families...

...who adopted them to obtain title to their allotments.

After allotment plots were handed out to Indian people...

...the U.S. Government was free to sell the remaining reservation lands to whites.

During the allotment period...

...Indian nations would lose two-thirds of the little land that remained in their hands.

Two years after the passage of the Allotment Act...

...Oklahoma Indian Territory was officially open to settlers.

What followed were the famous land rushes.

The territories of the Creek, Cherokee and other nations were overrun...

...lands which had been promised them as permanent, unassailable refuges...

...in exchange for their lands east of the Mississippi.

But of all the government policies designed to end Indian cultures...

...the cruelest was yet to come.

Indian people would be robbed of even their children.

Across the country, Indian children, some as young as 4 years old...

...were taken from their parents, often by force...

...and sent to boarding schools.

At the boarding schools, children were stripped of all outward appearances...

...linking them to their Indian past.

"Our belongings were taken from us...

...even the little medicine bags our mothers had given us to protect us from harm.

Everything was placed in a heap and set afire.

Next was the long hair...

...the pride of all the Indians.

The boys, one by one, would break down and cry...

...when they saw their braids thrown on the floor."

Lone Wolf, Blackfeet.

Children were forbidden to speak of their traditions...

...and severely punished if they used their native languages.

Fed distorted images of evil Indians...

...many came to doubt their own identity.

I remember, growing up...

...that I never really felt good about myself.

We were taught to be ashamed of who we were...

...and who we are.

And it hurts when you're young, and you're trying to understand.

"We all wore white man's clothes and ate white man's food...

...and went to white man's churches and spoke white man's talk.

And so after a while, we also begin to say, 'lndians were bad.'

We laughed at our own people...

...and their blankets and cooking pots and sacred societies and dances."

Sun Elk, Taos.

Many boarding schools were set up in converted military posts...

...where, for decades, soldiers had been trained to fight Indian people.

Students slept on cots in cement barracks...

...and were drilled daily in strict military regimen.

It was like an army barrack.

They marched us like they do when you first go into the army.

We marched to school. We marched to eat.

They took us to church, we marched to church.

We lived kind of an army-style life...

...and we went to school that way.

If we thought the days were bad, the nights were much worse.

This was a time when real loneliness set in.

Many boys run away...

...but most of them were caught and brought back by the police.

We were told never to talk Indian, and if we were caught...

...we got a strapping with a leather belt.

I remember one evening, when we were all lined up in a room...

...and one of the boys said something Indian to another boy.

The man in charge caught him by the shirt and threw him across the room.

Later, we found out his collarbone was broken.

The priest would take a leather harness strap...

...and he would beat my husband.

And every time that strap would come down on him...

...how he would repeat to himself, "I'll never forget my language."

He was thinking that, "I will never forget my language."

"The boy's father, an old warrior, came to the school.

He told the instructor that among his people...

...children were never punished by striking them...

...that that was no way to teach children.

Kind words and good examples were much better."

Lone Wolf, Blackfeet.

Each day stretched into another endless day...

...each night for tears to fall.

"Tomorrow," my sister said.

Tomorrow never came.

And so the days passed by...

...and the changes slowly came to settle within me.

Gone were the vivid pictures of my parents, sisters and brothers.

Only a blurred vision of what used to be.

Desperately, I tried to cling to the faded past...

...which was slowly being erased from my mind.

For traditional cultures, the effect was devastating.

Boarding-school graduates returned to the schools...

...and encouraged new students fresh from the reservations...

...to give up their traditions.

"Don't look back.

All that is passed away.

This country through here is all improved.

You saw when you were coming, cities, railroads, houses, manufactories.

Boys, this was once all our country...

...but our fathers had not their eyes open as we have.

Now the only way to hold our land is to get educated ourselves."

Henry Jones, Creek.

But the home cultures were not altogether powerless against boarding-school invasion.

Many held firmly to their traditions...

...and returning graduates who did not readapt...

...found they had no place in their old world.

"It was a warm summer evening when I got off the train at Taos Station.

The first Indian I met, I ask him to run out to the pueblo...

...and tell my family I was home.

The Indian couldn't speak English, and I had forgotten all my Pueblo language.

Next morning, the governor of the pueblo and two war chiefs...

...came into my father's house.

They did not talk to me. They did not even look at me.

The chief said to my father:

'Your son, who calls himself Rafael, has lived with the white men.

He has been far away.

He has not learned the things that Indian boys should learn.

He has no hair. He cannot even speak our language.

He is not one of us."'

Sun Elk, Taos.

These things that made life for us the most important thing...

...these were the things they took from us.

And today, so many of our Indian children have forgotten their language...

...even here on our reservation...

...because they took that language away from us. Our language...

...that God gave us.

When we started this series, we wanted to make sense...

...of how a continent of some 500 Indian nations became what it is today.

What we found was an ironic path...

...newcomers, looking for freedom and tolerance...

...but showing little of those virtues to the people they encountered.

Many Indian nations have survived.

Today there are over 10 million Indian people in North America...

...with 2 million in the United States alone.

They no longer face conquistadors or invading settlers...

...but they continue to deal with the complex struggle...

...to maintain their cultures and quality of life.

It's difficult to explain. Like, the native people...

...are like a root. You know?

Where everything grows there. It's their community, it's their land.

That's where they live. That's where they're born.

That's where they have their grandparents buried.

Their ancestors were there.

Their language is there. Everything is there.

And then you ask them to change their way of life...

...so you carry them away.

I say it's just like when you try to plant a tree...

...let's say a spruce tree, in a desert land.

Even though you put water in it, it's gonna dry. It's gonna die.

Our people, our families had been telling us...

...all these stories all these many years, and at last...

...we finally set foot and walked in the areas and slept in the country...

...where our grandmothers and grandfathers started from.

And I can just imagine...

...how my grandmothers and my grandfathers would have felt...

...if they had come back like I did.

And I saw those places for them.

I was able to return.

I think a lot of times the general public doesn't understand...

...where the Native Americans... Their feelings...

...of what's happened to them in the past, and where they're coming from.

And why they're sometimes withdrawn.

Why they haven't really jumped into the mainstream life.

I think what present-day Americans have to learn...

...is that our heroes are not their heroes, and their heroes are not our heroes.

And when I went to school, just as you and everyone else in this land...

...we've all been exposed to the same value system...

...the same perspective on history.

The lesson that is there, the very important lesson, today, for all people...

...is to realize the value of an alternative perspective...

...and that is why we are here.

That is why the creator allowed some of us to remain...

...in spite of all the attempts to destroy us.

Every tribe has had their Great Swamp in that process.

Every tribe has had their Sand Creek.

Every tribe has had their Wounded Knee.

The list is endless, and we've all shared in that same experience.

I went to a meeting at Wounded Knee...

...in November, when there was snow all over...

...all over the ground.

And we were on our way to the burial site.

I could not help but think back.

And there was a feeling there.

There was a feeling...

...that those that were there in a grave...

...were trying to tell me something.

And it brought tears to my eyes.

And I stood there, and there was a spirit that came over...

...and I could feel that spirit.

It was the spirit of God.

There is a mightier power...

...than kings and presidents...

...who guides the minds of the people.

A higher power.

The mandates are very simple, you know...

...that we must live in the land that the creator give to us...

...and look after his gifts so that our great-great-grandchildren...

...will be able to enjoy the same things that we enjoy today.

If you look at natural laws in a very simplist form...

...is that you must drink water to survive.

So if you pollute the water so that you can't drink it...

...then you will perish. And there's no...

...appeal to this if you violate the natural laws.

Someday I fear that...

...the land that we have here now will be taken...

...because some of the treaties state that as long as the water flows...

...and the grasses grow, that we will be here.

But our rivers are drying up...

...and when the water's gone...

...what will happen then?

What's gonna happen to my children?

Our cultures have been assaulted, our lands have been stolen.

But we're still here as a people.

And we're fighting the same battles that have been fought for the last 300 years.

They're unresolved.

It's up to us to resolve them...

...in a fair and honorable manner.

Destiny is not a matter of fate.

It's a matter of choice.

And we have some choices to be made here.

We have the choice of continuing to survive on this planet as Indian people.

That's our goal, and we're gonna accomplish that.

We're gonna be here...

...for many, many years to come.

Tall oak of the Narragansett nation said it was his destiny...

...perhaps that of all native people, to be the conscience of America...

...to see that the tragedy of the past would never be repeated.

Hopefully, now that we've had a glimpse of the other side of the American story...

...we too can be a part of that collective conscience.

Thank you for joining us.

Subrip by Tantico, Croatia (03.2012)