AllMovie

The glamorous myths of the Hollywood Western fade as the truth about the reprehensible treatment of American Indians comes to light in a thoughtful and soul-searching documentary that picks up where most history books leave off. With the grip of Manifest Destiny tightening in the New World, the Apache, Sioux, Comanche, and countless other native tribes were stripped of their dignity and robbed of the plentiful land they once called home. A remarkable story told through still photographs and telling excerpts from personal diaries, the tragic effort of a proud people to preserve their way of life is poetically recounted by narrator Walter Brennan in this look at the escalation of events that would lead to such historical conflicts as Wounded Knee and Little Big Horn.