White Fawn's Devotion (1910)

Although it’s a western, James Young Deer shot White Fawn’s Devotion in the east; it was in fact the first movie to be shot at Pathé’s new studio in New Jersey. The French outfit, then one of the largest production companies in the world, started filming in the States after receiving criticism for the lack of realism in their European-made Westerns. For many years, historians believed White Fawn’s Devotion was the earliest surviving film directed by a Native American, but recent research has suggested its director was a mulatto (a person of mixed white and black ancestry).

The plot bears some resemblance to The Squaw Man, a 1905 play written by Edwin Milton Royale that Cecil B. DeMille filmed three times. It tells the story of Combs, a British trapper in America, who learns he has inherited an immense fortune in Britain and must return there to claim it. Fearing he will not return to her and their small daughter, White Fawn, his native wife, stabs herself. Combs finds her and removes the knife only for their daughter to assume he has killed her mother when she sees him with the knife in his hand. She runs to the nearest tribal village, and several braves pursue Combs. After a lengthy chase, they catch him and return to the village, where he faces execution for his crime.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this ancient Western is that its matter-of-fact depiction of a mixed-race marriage provoked no reaction from critics or audiences. The following year, Young Deer’s Red Deer’s Devotion reversed the relationship, prompting Moving Picture World to remark, “Another feature of this film will not please a good many. It represents a white girl and an Indian falling in love with each other. While such a thing is possible, and undoubtedly has been done many times, there is still a feeling of disgust which cannot be overcome when this sort of thing is depicted as plainly as it is here.”