Posted a review of Education of Little Tree.
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ETA: Review is now on the site.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119052/Anyone looking for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, look elsewhere. I'm also aware that most of those who love this film will go into denial. They'll likely downvote my review without reading it, as will racists. This review is for the thoughtful and open minded only.
Education of Little Tree was written by Asa Carter AKA Forrest Carter. Carter was NOT, as one review suggested (hopefully with sarcasm) simply "a little prejudiced." And he was not just "alleged" to be a segregationist writer. It's proven beyond all doubt and widely accepted by historians and journalists. Anyone doubting this can read the Salon article "Education of Little Fraud." Or the research by Henry Lewis Gates. Or the NY Times notice of Carter's death.
Carter was not just a KKK member, he was a chapter founder and leader. He was also clearly a violent psychotic. He bombed several Black churches. There's clear evidence he actually beat a civil rights demonstrator to death with a club. Finally, he led an attack on famed singer Nat King Cole when Cole tried to tour the south.
But his greatest fame came from his writing. He wrote George Wallace's notorious "Segregation Now and Forever" speech, given when Wallace tried to block Black students from enrolling in the University of Alabama. Carter broke with Wallace a few years later, feeling that Wallace while still white supremacist was now "too moderate" because he wanted to avoid violence.
Carter invented a new identity. He wrote not only Little Tree, but also The Outlaw Josey Wales. He wore tanning makeup and would go into mock "Indian war chants" in public. None if it worked.
Little Tree was exposed as pure fiction. Natives and academics denounced it and Carter as phony the same year it was published. That didn't matter to Hollywood. Clint Eastwood made Josey Wales into a film. Disney did the same with Little Tree. Both enriched the Klansman and made him into a household name until his death.
The more naive would like to believe that Carter changed his ways or beliefs. No, both books are deeply racist. As Native author Sherman Alexie argued, "Ultimately I think it is the racial hypocrisy of a white supremacist." In part of Josey Wales, the author seriously claims Native women have sex with horses. In Little Tree, Carter claims that making moonshine is part of Cherokee tradition.
What Carter tried to do in both books was make public admiration and sympathy for American Indians serve the white supremacist, and especially the white southerner and KKK causes. Josey Wales is a fantasy of a Confederate guerilla as being just like the best Native warriors. In Little Tree, Carter tries to claim white southerners were heartbroken to see their Cherokee neighbors removed the Trail of Tears.
This is as false as can be. White southerners were the ones pushing for forced removal. They wanted Five Tribes' land. They elected Andrew Jackson to force Natives out of their homelands. Jackson was himself a southerner and supremacist, the most racist president alongside Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump (who admires and paid tribute to Jackson.) White mobs cheered Cherokees being forced out. Racist vigilantes and Georgia state militias took part in rounding up Cherokees being put into concentration camps. White racist southerners looted Cherokee homes, businesses, even graveyards, and murdered Cherokees who tried to resist.
But according to Carter and Little Tree, whites shed tears. No Natives did, because white racists believe Natives to be stoic and show no emotion. This is all pure nonsense. It was Cherokee who named this "The Trail Where We Cried." Anyone Native and anyone whose ever been around or known Natives knows the stoic stereotype is false.
Both Carter books were deeply racist, and openly so. Were the films? Josey Wales the film kept the "Indian women sex with horses" smear. The film is derogatory in spite of Native actor Dan George's efforts to make the film less insulting.
Little Tree is still offensive in parts, but less so than the book. One can compare the book and film to the changes Gone With the Wind went thru. The book GWTW is nakedly proudly racist. It glorifies the KKK, showing Scarlet's first husband as a member. It has extended passages defending slavery and denigrating Blacks. The film GWTW leaves out the worser more blatant racism. But the film GWTW still is racist. Butterfly McQueen's character is still a stereotype, and it shows all slaves as happy being slaves.
The same is true of Little Tree, less racist than the book but still racist. It softens the tragedy of the Trail of Tears. It tries to shift the blame from racist white southerners' greed for land and blame only the federal gov't. Of course most southern racists today are strongly anti gov't, as was Carter.
The film also, for supposedly being about Natives, has almost no Natives. Just two tokens, Greene and Cardinal, who are given almost no lines and no scenes. The film obscenely insists on having a white man tell about the Trail of Tears. It also features an "Indian boarding school" with no Indian students. All of them are played by white children.
The film also invents a fictional Indian boarding school and makes it far softer than the real experience. There were no such schools near Cherokee lands in GA or NC. Students were routinely beaten, locked in closets, chained to work stations or desks, made to work 14 hour days, and sometimes sexually abused. They were banned from speaking their languages and practicing their religions, and punished harshly for either.
The death toll was high. Many died from disease and poor medical care. Some of the beatings resulted in deaths. There was a high suicide and alcoholism rate among former students. Many were alienated from family and community by forced assimilation.
Students fought back. Most ran away or tried to. Many spoke their languages or practiced ceremony in secret. Older students tried to protect the younger ones. Some students protested with letters or editorials. Many ex students led campaigns against the abuse.
Absolutely none of this is in the film. Viewers get the impression these are ordinary boarding schools. In Canada and Australia there were similar schools. In both nations they recognize these schools as outright genocidal. Both nations have gov'ts that issued apologies. Australia actually has National Sorry Day.
Is the film still any good at all? It's still a nice enough sentimental child's story. It still has a little OK bits about a child feeling lonely at a new school, and growing up with grandparents in the woods.
Absolutely no one should take the film as a true or accurate view of Cherokees, Natives, and especially not Indian boarding schools or the Trail of Tears. There are far far better, more accurate, and frankly better films all around on Indian boarding schools. And yes, most of these were written by actual Natives, not KKK imposters.
Please see them:
Indian Horse
Older Than America
The Only Good Indian
Rhymes for Young Ghouls
We Were Children
Windigo Tale
The Cherokee Nation also made their own documentary, The Trail of Tears.
The mini series Into the West also has quite good parts of it on both the boarding schools and Trail of Tears.
Thanks for reading this far.
Dr. Alton Carroll
US, American Indian, and Latin American History
Northern Virginia Community College
