Original subtitles

Yes, sir. Look right!

- Go, go, go! - Yeah! All right!

Well, Jake.

What do you make of it?

It's an Indian sacred place.

Like a church.

The hell you say.

You may tell your readers, gentlemen,

that this expedition has thus far exceeded

my most sanguine expectations.

We have discovered a rich and beautiful country,

abundant game, fertile land.

In short, all the bounties necessary for the establishment of civilization.

The Laramie Treaty of '68 made this Indian land, General Custer.

Part of the Great Sioux Reservation?

Now, the Sioux, they may not take too kindly to trespassers.

I shall recommend the extinguishment of Indian title

at the earliest moment practicable for military purposes.

If Congress should support

the settlement of the Black Hills,

rest assured, the Army will do its duty.

Gold!

Gold! Gold!

Jake, come on!

Pay dirt, boys.

Gold! Gold!

Gold!

Officially, the Army sent Custer into Black Hills

to map out the site of a new fort

to protect the northern railroad,

and though the gold he'd found

didn't amount to more than a 50-cent diggin',

it wasn't long before the newspapers

proclaimed the place "the El Dorado of America."

Every day, immigrants came in hope of striking their fortune.

Like so many before them,

most brought only their dreams and the clothes on their backs.

Some would make a new life for themselves.

Others would find only heartbreak.

With the people came the towns and the camps, hundreds of 'em.

For every man who got rich on gold,

another ten made a killing on the miners.

Nobody seemed to care that the land wasn't theirs to claim.

Some men of business, like Robert Wheeler,

found themselves in the right place at the right time.

The opportunities seemed downright endless.

One at a time, gentlemen. One at a time.

Please don't shove. There's enough to go around.

- How do you get to the Black Hills? - Freedom Trail.

$10 will get you a ride in my wagon.

- $10? - Yes, sir.

It cost me half that by train from Chicago.

Well, sir, you can wait until they build a railroad to the Black Hills,

or you can hand over $10 and hop on.

All right.

Here you go.

One over there on the left.

Yeah, that's it.

Who needs pans? There you go.

I trade with the Sioux at the agency.

They know me as a friend. They'll give us safe passage.

Whoa, whoa.

What about them?

They friends of yours too?

Those aren't Indians. Bushwhackers!

Red Cloud had won for his people

a protected place in the sacred lands.

Now the country promised forever to the Lakota

was being overrun with white men.

For hot bloods like Red Lance

and his brother Voices That Carry,

the time for fighting was drawing near.

"Gentlemen may cry peace, but there is no peace.

The war is actually begun."

Do you see this exclamation point

that Mr. Patrick Henry put there after "begun"?

A little stronger next time, Hans, but very good.

Mr. Kurtz?

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet,

as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Forbid it, Almighty God!"

Very good!

Very good. Very good.

I think that's enough for today, and you all need to be gettin' home.

I will see you next Sunday.

Oh, children, your gifts are so sweet but entirely unnecessary.

Please, just get and go.

Get. Shoo.

You put in paper like so,

touch the keys, and presto!

Out comes a letter with all the quality of newspaper print.

Behold.

With this device,

and a little manual prestidigitation,

the tedious labor of business correspondence

may be cut in half.

Most ingenious.

May I put the lady proprietress down for an order?

- I'll take one! - Yes, sir.

Pickings were good out there, Clara.

Better than I expected.

Ran out of supplies before I ran out of miners.

I figure it'll require a trip to Omaha,

maybe Kansas City, to restock.

I won't have you going back into those hills!

I couldn't sleep, not knowin' whether you were alive

or out moldering on the plains somewhere.

Hey.

Hey, hey, hey.

I didn't mean to cause you grief, Clara.

It's just...

I have ambitions.

For both of us.

One day, you'll have a proper gold band

and not some old saddle ring.

Iron is stronger than gold.

I wouldn't trade this ring for the world.

It was made for a simple purpose,

just like the man who gave it to me.

What's wrong?

Somethin' happened.

What happened?

I killed two men.

I looked down the barrel of my Sharps...

...and I thought I'd never see you again.

So I shot.

Even though I didn't have to.

So much for purpose, I suppose.

It will be very hard for our government

to keep the whites out of the hills.

To try to do so will give your people

and my government...

...great trouble.

Because the whites

who may wish to go into these hills are very numerous.

I want our Great Father to send us meat.

And flour and coffee.

And sugar and tea... and bacon.

And corn and beans.

And tobacco.

I want this for all the people

and for the children and seven times their children.

Firm offer is $400,000 a year

for the mineral rights.

Now if you should wish

to sell the Black Hills outright,

the price will be $6 million, payable in 15 annual installments.

I will go to the White Father

in Washington and smoke pipe with him.

You have heard his words,

which cannot be altered even to the scratch of a pen.

What kind of harvest?

Just shy of a hundred.

Been a while.

Buffalo harder to find than a job.

Southern herd's almost gone.

What are you asking?

Three dollars per. You buyin'?

I can offer you a dollar per hide,

and I consider that more than fair.

- I'll take one more. - I consider that to be robbery

with a smile under a high top hat, Hillman.

Last time the price was $6.

The rage for buffalo bedspreads

and other accoutrements back east has ended.

Most definitively.

Leave the buffalo to their extinction, sir.

They've served their purpose.

On the train from New York to Hillsgate,

I saw the future.

Bones.

Bones?

Buffalo bones.

The detritus of sporting men lured by a $3 rail pass

and the promise of game there for the taking.

Carcasses left to rot create a mighty stench.

But in that smell,

an enterprising man may detect the odor of money.

Bones can be ground to make fertilizer and fine china.

And that's only the beginning.

A man can earn himself eight, nine,

perhaps as much as $10 a ton.

Damn it!

I broke away from my father

so that we could have a life together,

and I mean to make it a good one.

I know, but your dreams are not your own.

They're your father's.

Clara, all the money we made on the miners,

we lost on the hides.

- I wouldn't be gone long. - You're gone often enough.

Give me a reason to stay.

You spend all your time wet-nursing those squareheads.

Robert...

It makes me sick to my stomach

to see... to see you teaching those damn kids

when you're too afraid to have another child of your own!

I'm sorry.

- I didn't mean it. - Yes, you did.

Come on.

I can't afford to feed them I've already got,

and now the government sends me more.

- Sign here to accept custody. - Yeah.

Since the time of Washita,

Margaret Light Shines remained a prisoner of the Long Knives,

who herded their captives from camp to camp

like so many cattle.

She became mother to the many children

left orphaned by war.

They were her blessings,

and she promised to never leave them unprotected.

Get in one line!

You understand me? Back up!

Against the wall.

Ain't buying any more hides.

Not buying?

Not selling 'em.

Watch it.

Go on.

I commend you, sir.

Captain Pratt, 10th Cavalry.

Robert Wheeler.

Allow me to say, Mr. Wheeler, that...

...you are the exception that proves the rule.

And what rule is that, captain?

I find the majority of traders

to be unprincipled, unscrupulous rogues.

A pack of veritable scoundrels, if you don't mind my saying so.

That's a fine sentiment...

...coming from a man who makes widows and orphans his stock-in-trade.

Call me a rogue?

Perhaps we both are, Mr. Wheeler.

We've denied these people fraternity.

We've driven them from their ancestral homes.

It has cost our people hundreds of millions of dollars

and led to the present shameful impasse.

Just can't stop progress, captain.

What is progress but what men do?

Most men do what they will.

Others, what they deem to be right.

Where do you stand, Mr. Wheeler?

To be honest with you, sir, sometimes I'm not so sure.

Now that is a promising beginning to a man's education.

Good day, Mr. Wheeler.

This is the best I can do for you.

Rations are the first of every month.

No. We will not beg.

You suit yourself.

But you be damn sure you and these other squaws stay put.

Orders went out

that any Indian that's not on agency land

by January 31

will be considered a hostile.

Are you savvy?

- We will not make trouble for you. - Well, you already have.

Sitting Bull sensed the spirits of the Long Knives,

who had been sent to capture him and his people

and force them to live like white men.

He sought a vision to prepare himself for the great struggle.

He promised a scarlet blanket of his own blood

to Wakan Tanka.

Listen to this:

"General George Armstrong Custer,

dressed in a dashing suit of buckskin,

is prominent everywhere, taking in everything connected with his command

with the keen, incisive manner for which he is so well known."

Yeah, well, ain't every command's

got its own pet newspaperman tagging along.

I want you, Reno and Benteen

to follow their trail up the Rosebud.

Gibbons and I will march up the Yellowstone

to a blocking position here at the mouth of the Little Bighorn.

Now don't be greedy, Custer.

There's Indians enough for all of us.

Wait for us.

No, I don't think I will.

Answer me something.

If you think Custer's so infernal bad,

why do you ride with him?

It's better to know a devil and confound his purpose

than to just leave him be.

Sitting Bull's vision inspired many warriors to leave the reservation.

They pledged themselves to the death to defend the sacred Paha Sapa.

Sitting Bull moved the people

to the banks of the river called the Greasy Grass,

where the game was plentiful.

There the warriors readied themselves.

They waited for the day the sky would rain Long Knives.

What did you see, Mr. Wheeler?

Horses.

Horses?

More than I can count, sir.

Looked like a brown wave across the hills,

just on the other side of Little Bighorn.

We will strike the village immediately.

Sir, with all due respect,

I think it best that we wait for our reinforcements to arrive.

I will not risk the chance of our quarry escaping.

Major Reno will lead his men across the river

to flush out the hostiles.

I will lead five companies north to cut off the Indians' retreat.

Yes, sir.

If I go to other side,

I go as crow, not white man.

Deliver this to Captain Benteen on our left flank.

He is to join the attack after we have engaged and routed the enemy.

Yes, sir.

What are they doing?

Bad omens.

They see death.

You've done your work. You found the Sioux.

If you're so afraid of them, go now.

Leave the fighting to us.

Looks like us Reno boys get the honors today, Jake.

Major's offering 30 days furlough to the man who takes the first scalp.

I want you to take this.

If anything happens, make sure it gets delivered to my folks.

Sure thing, Jake.

Hey, Jake.

Least we ain't ridin' with ol' hard-ass Custer.

Good luck to you.

You too.

That day there would be many battles.

First came the man Reno.

Indians, they had told him,

would run at the fearful sight of his horse hooves.

But these Indians did not run.

The scouts had spoken to the long hair, Custer,

but he had no ears.

He was certain of his great victory.

He led his men towards those he knew would be escaping the battle

but met only warriors.

The hunter was about to become the hunted.

Please, God, not like this.

The fighting on the ridge

lasted no longer than a hungry man takes to eat his meal.

The vision of Sitting Bull had come to pass.

The Long Knives had fallen into his village.

The people did not heed Sitting Bull's warnings

to leave the soldiers' possessions untouched.

Sitting Bull knew these matters weighed heavily with Wakan Tanka.

While many celebrated,

others sang death songs.

No.

Congress and the Army better do something,

and damn quick too!

Kill every one of them bloodthirsty heathens!

This town's been sitting on a powder keg better part of a year.

Only a matter of time before it exploded.

Storekeep! You give me a gun and all the ammo you got!

We're closed, sir, out of respect for the dead.

I wish he'd open and let us take care of this. He wouldn't open.

We'll get 'em somewhere else.

It's horrible to think of children coming into such a world.

What happened to the baby wasn't your fault.

- We need more ammo! - We'll make them pay!

You're a good mother, Clara.

Yes.

Only...

...don't shut me out.

The baby was...

He was my son too.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

So am I.

You.

Those poor boys.

I salute you, sergeant. You're a hero.

- Thank you. - Let me give you some food.

- Thank you kindly. - Sir? Here you are.

Here you go. Good job.

- For you. - Thank you, ma'am.

God bless you.

- Godspeed, boys. - Water your horses.

This town got a postmaster?

That'd be me.

You're first civilization we've seen since...

What can I do for you, trooper?

I... promised a friend...

...his folks would get this.

I'll see to it.

He was a good man.

He always spoke well of his family.

Please take this.

Thank you kindly, ma'am.

Dearest mother and father,

I'm off on a fool's mission and cannot be certain of the outcome.

There's not time for me to write all the things I wish to tell you.

Many a time have I thought to abandon my charge here

rather than submit to the willfulness of others

who have been placed above me.

I have always tried to act according to the lessons of duty and honor

that have been your legacy to me.

I've traveled far and seen too much,

but always I think of home.

You are both in my prayers.

I remain forever your loving son, Jacob.

Can I help you, ma'am?

Yes. We're looking for the person who sent this.

Robert?

He was your son?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

The man who gave you the letter.

Did he tell you anything?

Only that your son was a good man,

and he loved his family.

Thank you.

I want to see the place where it happened.

Battlefield's two days by wagon, ma'am.

That's perilous country.

Army can't vouch yet for its security.

And there's no telling where your son might lie.

We'll pay you anything you ask.

Please?

Keep your money.

Do you have any children?

I had a son.

A beautiful boy. William.

A fever took him.

Life is very fragile.

Most of the things I ever loved have been taken from me.

Do you love your husband?

With all my heart.

Then always hold that love close to you.

Let it sustain you.

Like this.

I heard tell of a Jacob Wheeler.

Well, there are Wheelers

scattered all over this country.

They say that this one...

...took off with a mountain man.

Married an Indian woman.

Grandfather used to tell me stories about him.

What kind of stories?

About how he rode with Fremont to California.

Struck it rich.

Well, if a man lives long enough,

he gets to hear the stories and the legends

folks tell about him.

I reckon I've lived that long.

Maybe too long.

I need some tobacco.

Find my son, Wakan Tanka.

Take his hand and lead him on his journey across the hanging road.

Let his spirit...

...and the spirits of all these young men

who died before their time...

...shine like the stars in the sky.

There may we mothers find them and say,

"There.

That is my son."

Many Long Knives came

to avenge the death of the man called Custer.

Because they could not find Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull,

their anger fell on those already on the reservations.

The great council in Washington

declared all Indians to be prisoners of war.

The Lakota, they said,

had broken the promise of the treaty paper.

The most sacred of sacred lands,

the Paha Sapa,

promised forever to the Lakota people,

now belonged to the white man,

and he would never give it back.

Loved by the Buffalo had begun to see the truth

of Growling Bear's vision,

and it pained his heart.

He felt the loss of the power of Wakan Tanka

and knew that the time was soon coming to return to his people

without having found the answers he had sought for so long.

Mr. Wheeler.

Captain Pratt.

You remember.

Well, not likely to forget our last encounter.

"Exception to the rule," I believe you called me.

Not only that, I see, but a man of many skills.

Nah, this just keeps breath and bone together.

I come from a family of wheelwrights.

Your business prospers?

Ice storm killed most of the cattle last year.

Destroyed most of the wheat.

Drought finished off the rest.

Farmers who bought goods on credit,

they had nothing left to sell or barter.

Nature can be a stern taskmaster.

The idea of a general store's becoming obsolete.

Man can find everything he needs nowadays in Montgomery Ward

or Sears and Roebuck catalogs.

Everything but purpose, Mr. Wheeler.

I guess.

Can I offer you a brandy and cigar, captain,

or do you abstain from ardent spirits?

I should, but I do not.

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler.

I had occasion to observe your classroom today, Mrs. Wheeler.

Your way with children is commendable.

Well, thank you.

The parents bring so many of their old ways and prejudices.

If you don't help the children early on,

they'll never adjust to their new lives.

My view precisely.

- Thank you. - You mentioned a proposition.

Yes.

Indeed.

It is a great mistake

to think that the Indian is born an inevitable savage.

He is born a blank, like the rest of us.

Left in the surroundings of savagery,

one naturally becomes a savage.

But transfer the savage-born infant

to the surroundings of civilization,

and he will grow to possess a civilized language and habit.

President Hayes and the Congress

have granted me the use of barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

for a model Indian school

and authorized me to recruit 125 children

from here and the territories

for its inaugural class.

That's so far away.

Surely the reservation is a better place.

The reservation works to colonize the Indian,

not individualize him.

If the Indian is to be assimilated,

he must be gotten into the swim of American citizenship.

He must feel the touch of it day after day

until he becomes saturated with the spirit of it.

Immerse the Indian in the waters of civilization

and hold him there until he is thoroughly soaked.

In short, sirs, by being placed in good schools,

taught our language and industries and going out among our people,

your children can become useful Americans.

You see yourselves the evidence

that this is now the white man's land.

There's nothing left for you but to become a part of it all.

White man smart.

He speak many promises.

More and more.

White man keep one. He say he take our land.

Now he take our land.

And why was that land taken?

Because you can neither read nor write.

Because you are not educated.

These mountains, valleys and streams have passed from you.

The people who take these mountains,

these valleys, these streams,

they steal, they lie.

If you were all as smart as the white man,

you would've known that there was gold in the Black Hills

and dug it out.

You leave your affairs in the hands of the white man.

This is why you come to grief.

The white man will walk right over you

unless you get up and stand in front of him as his equal.

The way to do this is to get his education.

You see that I do not come with soldiers

to take your children from your very arms.

I believe there are wise men among you

who will themselves allow their fortunate sons and daughters

to partake in the white man's learning.

You believe that much in Pratt's idea?

I believe in us.

I believe in what we can do together.

After all that's happened?

I want to stop dwelling in the past.

Everything I have that's precious

is right here in this moment.

Fortitude, Mrs. Wheeler.

Our task awaits.

Move 'em out!

Keep moving.

Do what Mr. Mortensen says. Stay in line.

One behind the other.

I'll take that.

There.

You're gonna be all right.

Come on, boy.

- Easy, child. - Hey.

- Don't make this more difficult. - He's just scared.

Do you see these marks?

Each word is a white man's name.

You will choose one of these names for your own.

Begin, please.

Hiram.

Meredith.

Walter.

Pearl.

George.

Abigail.

Come along, children.

Get your clothes.

Right this way.

- Move. - For you.

Find a bed. Keep moving.

- Take these and put them on. - Move along.

- Trousers. - Find a bed.

This is for you.

Get your clothes. Keep moving.

Move.

Move along.

Keep moving.

Go in that room. Find a bed.

Get your clothes.

Go in that room. Find a bed.

Stop that boy, Mr. Wheeler!

There he is!

- Don't let him get away! - Come on, now!

I got him! I got him! I got him!

Hold on to him!

This is to be expected.

Stop struggling, you!

An Indian man only cuts his hair in times of great mourning.

- If it's their tradition... - Old habits must be unlearned.

The sooner the better.

Got the devil in him.

- Enough of that. - No where to go now.

Thank you, everyone.

Back to your duties.

- Quickly now. - Come on, now.

We won't have to go through that again.

You too, Mr. Wheeler.

Something wrong with his hair.

Mrs. Wheeler.

Is it right what we're doing?

It all made so much sense.

We have to give it more time, Clara.

Captain Pratt's a decent man.

He knows what he's doing.

The universe is made of circles.

No beginning and no end.

The cross touches the circle four times.

Yesterday, you were Indians.

Today, you are Americans.

Hereafter, you will not speak in your native tongue.

You will speak only English.

Our purpose here

at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School

is to make you ready to take a useful place

in the white man's world.

There are four directions, four virtues.

Remember, there is no shame in hard work.

In work, there is freedom.

Make the most of your time here.

You have no right to waste your own.

Still less, the time of others.

Each of us is born with one of these.

All of you must find the other three within you.

Dismissed.

My great grandfather made and fixed wheels

as he marched with Washington.

George Washington?

Potomac?

Cherry tree.

Forget it.

Let me show you how a wheel's made.

- Hub. - Hub.

Spokes.

- Spokes. - All right?

- Wheel. - Wheel.

George, why don't you give it a try?

All right.

Now find "A."

Now "B."

Good.

Please, continue.

And "C"?

Go ahead. You were doing so well.

Outside.

Now you listen to me, young man...

Unbutton your jacket.

Now!

He stole barbed wire from your shop and made these for other boys.

If we succeed, Mr. Wheeler,

Carlisle will be the model for dozens,

perhaps hundreds of other Indian schools all over the country.

I believe that if we can turn George around,

we can turn around the most recalcitrant of them.

I agree. I wonder if a slower transition wouldn't be...

There is no time left for half measures.

To save the child, we must kill the Indian,

fully and completely.

Use your spoon. Very good.

Remember what you learned.

I cannot abide that man.

How can he be so right and so wrong at the same time?

Bite it. Bite it!

Bite it! Chew!

Chew! Chew!

Never speak Indian again! Never!

You got your spokes set. Now attach your felloes.

Make your rim.

Where's George?

George?

"Lesson 24: The Storyteller.

Peter Parley was a great storyteller.

This is known to all children

who have read his books."

I thought they might be sick.

Are you sick, boy?

The younger boys were no doubt corrupted.

But George is a different matter.

With all due respect, you might be asking too much of these children.

Too much?

You demean them.

We don't demand the Germans, for instance,

become thoroughly American before we admit them to this country.

They arrive on our shores old and young,

and must become Americans at once.

We don't feed our civilization to immigrants.

We feed immigrants to our civilization.

So let it be with the Indian.

Give me a chance to bring George around.

I think I may have some currency with him.

Very well, Mr. Wheeler.

I have come to the regrettable realization

that you no longer share my views on education.

But I'm willing to accede to your methods.

This once.

Captain Pratt reminds me of my father.

He's an immovable wall.

I wonder that he may not be right in the end.

Will our child say that about you?

George.

You are welcome.

I know you can understand some of what I say...

...and whatever you think,

Captain Pratt means well for your people.

No.

I'm a simple man, but I know this:

Knowledge is power.

And if you don't study our ways, how will your great grandchildren

know the meaning of your holy wheel?

How will they know of your history?

Of your great victories?

We tell these things.

That's not enough, George.

See, 'cause what we call history

is written by those who win the battles.

So you must make your voice heard.

You must preserve your culture.

You must write it down.

In English.

Not for Pratt,

but for your children and their children.

Why I do what you tell me?

White men say many things,

mean nothing.

That is true of some white men...

...and some Indians, I expect.

You're a young man, George.

Believe me, I know the nature of a young man's dreams.

Don't stop dreaming.

But remember, when you wake up,

you're back in a white man's world.

You have dream?

I still got a few left.

Maybe it's not too late to make them happen.

And it is my considerable pleasure

on this signal occasion to introduce

our commencement theatrical, Columbia's Roll Call,

presented by the students of Mrs. Clara Wheeler.

A round of applause, please.

Are we the same boys who, with trinkets and toys,

moccasins, blankets and paint, and a costume most quaint,

on the sixth of October, the long journey over,

came to this friendly roof six months ago?

Yes, we are the very same

who to these good barracks came,

where kindly friends a welcome gave us,

did all they could to teach and save us

from idle habits and bad ways

and carried us safely through the maze

of reading, writing and of talking,

and even improved our walking.

Heralds of fame and history,

unroll your scroll of mystery.

Then with your silver trumpets blast,

unloose the shut gates of the past

and call Columbia's heroes forth,

proclaim them East, West, South and North.

Then boomed the Pinta's signal gun,

the first that ever broke the sleep of that new world.

The sound echoing to forest depths,

a continent awoke.

I see a train of exiles stand amid the desert desolate,

the fathers of Massachusetts land,

the daring pioneers of fate

who braved the perils of sea and earth...

You've taken our rivers and mountains, the plains where we loved to roam.

Banish us not to the mountains and the lonely wastes for home!

Our clans that were strongest and bravest are broken

and powerless through you.

Let us join the great tribe of white men

as brothers to dare and to do.

And still the ways of peace we would follow,

sow the seed and the sheaves gather in.

Share your labor, your learning, your worship,

a life larger, better to win.

Then foeman no longer nor aliens,

but brothers indeed we will be.

And the sun find no citizens truer

as he rolls to the uttermost sea.

You disappoint me, Mr. Wheeler.

Comes from me trying to please people too much.

But a man's gotta stand for something,

or he doesn't count for much.

And what do you stand for, Mr. Wheeler?

Do you even know yourself?

I do... now, sir.

It's time for me to go home...

...where I can do some good...

...my own way.