About the Director:
Sheldon P. Wolfchild is a member and former Tribal Chairman of the Lower Sioux Indian Community who has appeared in a number of feature films and television shows. Wolfchild researched the history of Dakota people in Minnesota and interviewed elders for 15 years for his documentary film "STARDREAMERS" - "The Spirit Water People." The film weaves oral and written history and traditional Dakota beliefs together to offer a telling of the Dakota story in a way that the text books he grew up reading never did.
The Doctrine of Discovery unmasking The Domination Code
“The Doctrine of Discovery unmasking The Domination Code ” created by filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild. This film focuses on a little known subject traced back to Christopher Columbus’s so-called “discovery” of the lands now commonly known as “the Americas.” The “right of discovery” was adopted and used by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1823 in the case Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh. The first Christian people to discover lands inhabited by non-Christians or “heathens” had asserted the “ultimate dominion” to be in themselves. On the basis of that religiously premised argument, the Supreme Court defined the land title of the Indians as a “mere right of occupancy.” The Christian power that claimed “ultimate dominion” could grant away the soil while yet in the possession of “heathens.” And this doctrine remains the Supreme Law of the Land in the United States.
Theologian Luis Rivera, who was interviewed for the film, points out in his book A Violent Evangelism: The Religious and Political Conquest of the Americas (2008), that an accurate history must account for the theological and religious justifications for claims of domination over the Indians. Shawnee-Lenape author Steven Newcomb, whose book Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Discovery (2008) is foundational to the film, points out that the language code of domination, metaphorically modeled after the Old Testament, is found in fifteenth century Vatican documents. It is that dominating language code which serves as the basis of the religious racism of U.S. federal Indian law and policy to this day.
Sheldon P. Wolfchild is a member and former Tribal Chairman of the Lower Sioux Indian Community who has appeared in a number of feature films and television shows. Wolfchild researched the history of Dakota people in Minnesota and interviewed elders for 15 years for his documentary film "STARDREAMERS" - "The Spirit Water People." The film weaves oral and written history and traditional Dakota beliefs together to offer a telling of the Dakota story in a way that the text books he grew up reading never did.
The Doctrine of Discovery unmasking The Domination Code
“The Doctrine of Discovery unmasking The Domination Code ” created by filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild. This film focuses on a little known subject traced back to Christopher Columbus’s so-called “discovery” of the lands now commonly known as “the Americas.” The “right of discovery” was adopted and used by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1823 in the case Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh. The first Christian people to discover lands inhabited by non-Christians or “heathens” had asserted the “ultimate dominion” to be in themselves. On the basis of that religiously premised argument, the Supreme Court defined the land title of the Indians as a “mere right of occupancy.” The Christian power that claimed “ultimate dominion” could grant away the soil while yet in the possession of “heathens.” And this doctrine remains the Supreme Law of the Land in the United States.
Theologian Luis Rivera, who was interviewed for the film, points out in his book A Violent Evangelism: The Religious and Political Conquest of the Americas (2008), that an accurate history must account for the theological and religious justifications for claims of domination over the Indians. Shawnee-Lenape author Steven Newcomb, whose book Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Discovery (2008) is foundational to the film, points out that the language code of domination, metaphorically modeled after the Old Testament, is found in fifteenth century Vatican documents. It is that dominating language code which serves as the basis of the religious racism of U.S. federal Indian law and policy to this day.
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About the Film: The Indian System
This film was created by filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild, which traces the mid-1800s interaction of Dakota with the United States Government. This history, especially the 1850s, was a period when treaties were forced upon the Dakota people, and were manipulated by such noted Minnesotans as Henry H. Sibley and Alexander Ramsey so as to cheat the Dakota out of many of their supposed benefits. After the Dakota were removed to their reservation, corrupt agents and their Indian Department superintendents embezzled as much Dakota treaty money as they could. In 1858 the Dakota were forced into another treaty. They sold the "ten mile strip" and received so little money in return, that traders' claimed virtually all of it. In late 1861, a government investigator, George E. H. Day, discovered the "massive corruption," but Commissioner of Indian Affairs William P. Dole refused to let him see the official records in Washington. In early 1862 missionaries Thomas S. Williamson and Stephen R. Riggs addressed the Minnesota congressional delegation regarding the complaints of the Dakota and the possibility that there could be an outbreak. In the summer of 1862 the treaty annuities were delayed because money needed to be taken from the following year's fund to replace money already taken out. This delay caused the Dakota to fear that the North was being defeated by the Confederacy. On top of this consternation, Agent Thomas J. Galbraith refused to release annuity provisions in government warehouses on the reservation. The Dakota were beginning to starve to death. On August 14 the Brown County residents informed Governor Ramsey that the Dakota were threatening war if they did not get their food and cash annuities. Finally, Galbraith's fear of being exposed in his corruption caused him to think of resigning his office to enlist in the Union Army. He abandoned the reservation on August 15, breaking promises to Little Crow to release the food in the warehouse. After the war broke out Minnesota senator Morton S. Wilkinson as well as Cyrus Aldrich and William Windom protected Galbraith.Galbraith's post-war report blamed Little Crow and the Soldiers Lodge for the war. Historians, until recently, have failed to uncover the truth behind the causes of the war. Sheldon interviewed historians and authors Dr. David Nichols and Mark Diedrich to produce this film. Historian, Mark Diedrich provides commentary in the film.