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44 Nolley / John Ford John Ford and the Hollywood Indian Ken Nolley Thursday. "I don't see them, not a one." York:"Well, they're down there sir, among the rocks. " —Fort Apache History and Myth One of the most widely discussed topics in the criticism of John Ford's films is the relationship between history and myth. A newspaper editor at the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence has been widely quoted as speaking for Ford in saying, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." In a more troubling way, the John Wayne character in Fort Apache, Kitty York, makes a similar decision in electing not to expose the errors in the developing myth of his Custer-like former commander. Both decisions have often been widely accepted as representative of Ford's view of the necessarily difficult relationship between history and myth, as if his work ought to be evaluated more as epic poetry than as history. That anti-historical view of Ford's work has tended to restrict discussion of Ford's treatment of historical subjects, and no subject is so common in his westerns but so little discussed as his treatment of Native Americans. For years, it was common to assume that Ford's westerns were not "about" Indians, just as it was assumed that The Quiet Man was not "about" Irish politics or gender. But ten of his films—Stagecoach (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagonmaster (1950), Rio Grande (1950), The Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), Two Rode Together (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964) — involve Native Americans as significant elements of the plot, and Ford's participation in constructing the Hollywood portrait of the Indian certainly deserves serious scrutiny. More than most directors of westerns, Ford did tend to base his films at least loosely on historical incidents, particularly on specific Indian wars. Stagecoach} the military trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande); and Sergeant Rutledge are all loosely situated during the Apache wars of the 1870' s, although Fort Apache's treatment of Colonel Thursday echoes the story of Custer as well. Drums Along the Mohawk is set in New York during the Revolutionary War and centrally features the Battle of Oriskany, although the siege of the fort in the film was fictional. Ken Nolley is Professor of English at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He is currently working on a book on documentary film. Film & History, Vol. XXIII, No's. 1-4, 1993 45 Euro-Centered narrative focusing on Deborah Wright (Carroll Baker) in Cheyenne Autumn. Photo courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive. 46 Nolley / John Ford The precise date of Wagonmaster is not clear, but it is set during the Mormon migrations. The Searchers takes place between 1868 and 1873 and includes an event that is strongly reminiscent of Custer's massacre of Black Kettle's group of Cheyenne at Washita in the fall of 1868; Ford makes his group Comanche, but they are destroyed by the 7th Cavalry just as Black Kettle's group was. Two Rode Together is set sometime before Quanah Parker's surrender in 187 5, and Cheyenne Autumn, like Mari Sandoz' novel upon which it is based, treats the long trek of the Cheyenne from Oklahoma back to the Tongue River reservation in 1878-1879. But if Ford's westerns begin rooted in history, the usual argument is that they end in myth. Frank Nugent, who wrote the scripts for Fort Apache, Wagonmaster, The Searchers, and Two Rode Together, helped to perpetuate that view when he talked about the genesis of Fort Apache: He gave me a list of about fifty books to read—memoirs, novels, anything about the period. Later he sent me down into the old Apache country to nose around, get the smell and the feel of the land. . .When I got back, Ford asked me if I thought I had enough research. I said yes. "Good," he said, "Now just forget everything you've read, and we'll start writing a movie." (Anderson 77-79) At most, such a view suggests, Ford's films...

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