Latest news with #NativeAmericanHistory
Geek Tyrant
12-05-2025
- Geek Tyrant
Leonardo DiCaprio Producing Powerful Doc NINE LITTLE INDIANS About Abuse in Native American Boarding Schools — GeekTyrant
Leonardo DiCaprio and his Appian Way banner are backing a new documentary that digs into one of the darkest corners of American history, abuse at Native American boarding schools. The film is titled Nine Little Indians , and it's directed by Shannon Kring and has been nearly a decade in the making. It's now in post-production, and what it's set to reveal is harrowing. At the heart of the story are the Charbonneau sisters, nine siblings who, along with their childhood schoolmates, suffered years of trauma at St. Paul's Indian Mission School in Marty, South Dakota. The documentary traces their nearly 20-year-long legal battle against the Catholic Church, demanding accountability for the abuse, cover-ups, and the lives lost in silence. Jennifer Davisson, Appian Way's President of Production, says the company is all in on telling this story: 'We are delighted to partner with Tony Robbins and Shannon Kring on this profound film, which sheds light onto the egregious crimes that took place at St. Paul's Indian Mission School. 'We hope this documentary honors the surviving victims and those who tragically perished at the hands of the people who were supposed to protect them the most.' Nine Little Indians also includes interviews with two former nuns from the school and the abbot who oversaw priests accused of rape and murder. One of the most heartbreaking stories is that of Geraldine 'Gerri' Charbonneau's child, conceived through rape and later lost. Kring began documenting the story in 2016, after tribal members asked her to film the discovery of children's remains found during construction at the still-active school grounds. Kring said: 'Over the past two decades, I've been entrusted with hundreds of hours of searing testimony on the effects of colonization. Always, the most tragic stories can be traced to the Indian boarding school system—an extension of the Great American Land Grab and thus a tool of genocide. It is time that we as a nation atone for this horror of the not-so-distant past.' Nine Little Indians also includes a subplot following a Northern Cheyenne cemetery surveyor searching for more unmarked graves at the school. Tony Robbins, who has spent time with the survivors, sahred: 'It is an honor to produce this film alongside Shannon Kring and Leonardo DiCaprio, and to have spent time with the Charbonneau sisters and their classmates in South Dakota. 'Their stories outraged me and are a testament to the unbowed courage and resilience of our country's original inhabitants. I hope that Nine Little Indians inspires you as much as the St. Paul's Indian Mission School survivors have inspired me.' American Indian boarding schools were once tools of forced assimilation, operating from the mid-17th century into the 20th. Their brutal legacy has only recently begun to be acknowledged in media and seen in series like 1923 and indie films like The Only Good Indian . A project like this could finally give a voice to these tragic stories. Source: Deadline
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Tehama County Museum Lecture
The Tehama County Museum will host its third lecture on Saturday, May 10 in its 2025 Lecture Series. The presentation will feature Steve Schoonover speaking on 'Before Ishi: The Life and Death of the Yahi,'. Schoonover will be speaking about his book by the same title, which he describes as an effort to unravel the history of the Yahi from the myths that have been woven around Ishi. The presentation will begin at 1 p.m. in the Marty Graffel Annex of the Museum at 275 C St., in the City of Tehama. The Museum will be staffed and open to the public from 1-4 p.m. Admission to both the museum and the presentation is free and donations will be greatly appreciated. Schoonover is a long-time Northern California newsman, spending about 40 years with the Chico Enterprise-Record. A resident of Chico since 1963 and a 1975 graduate of Chico State University. His book is an attempt to reconstruct the history of the Yahi Indians of Northern California, a history the author feels was mangled by a common infatuation with the myths surrounding Ishi, the 'last survivor of the tribe.' The focus on Ishi has allowed the Yahi's remarkable adaptation to a hostile environment to be ignored. The author also believes the facts of the destruction of the tribe have been replaced with yarns which have been widely accepted, even though in his view, they don't make any sense. For decades, Schoonover, aided by his wife and fellow reporter, Laura Urseny, have been in search of Ishi's heritage and the fate of his people, the Yahi. They 'backpacked in 1995 from the Sacramento Valley floor near Red Bluff to Childs Meadow, in a bid to replicate the Yahi annual migration.' Schoonover's dogged investigation of the historical record challenges claims made in books about Ishi, and paints a nuanced picture of gruesome violence against native populations in the mid-1800s in Butte, Tehama and Shasta counties. He attempts to burst the 'Ishi myth,' that he was starving, that he and the Yahi were part of the Mill Creek Indians, 'the last survivor of a tribe that had terrorized Northern California for years. The book focuses on the life of the Yahi and surrounding tribes, and the coming of white settlers. There will be opportunities to ask questions at the end of the presentation. The Tehama County Museum may be reached by phone at (530)384-2595, and by email at tcmuse@
