6/11/2005

An actress muses on the Carlisle Indian School

From the article in the Grand Rapids Press interviewing an actress who played the part of an Indian School teacher at Carlisle:
"And how the impact of arbitrary events affected both," Kole added. "I certainly learned a lot about Native American culture. A lot slips through the cracks of the history books."

In "Into the West," Cook plays a seamstress.

"We own a general store together before that, and we both go on to teach at a place that existed that I didn't know about," Cook said. "It was called the Carlisle Indian School and was founded by Capt. William Pratt, who believed that if you just divorce the American Indian children from their culture and stripped them of their traditions you could make them into regular functioning members of society."

In the six-part miniseries' final episode, Cook's character is played by Joanna Going, and Kole's character is taken over by Craig Sheffer.


I wonder which of the hundreds of Native American Cultures did the actress who played Mrs. Cook learned about? And how can we get a message through to the writers of this episode that the person who founded the Carlisle Indian School was Richard Henry Pratt, not WILLIAM Pratt? I'm concerned about what we're going to see in the Carlisle episode of INTO THE WEST.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tonight, July 15, 2005, I had the opportunity to view the six-part mini series, "Into the West." Oh how the de-Inianizing of Native Americans so reminds me of the de-Africanizing of Blacks! This is truly the "American way," isn't it?