Native American and Indigenous People's Resources

Beneath the mystique of The Hamptons, among one of the wealthiest zip codes in the U.S., lies the history of the area's original inhabitants. The Shinnecock Indian Nation were edged off their land over the course of hundreds of years, pushed onto an impoverished reservation, and condemned to watch their sacred burial grounds plowed to make way for mega-mansions and marquee attractions like the exclusive Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. CONSCIENCE POINT tracks this fractured history alongside the path of one woman determined to make a stand: Shinnecock activist Rebecca “Becky” Hill-Genia who, together with other tribal members and allies, has waged a relentless, years-long battle to protect the land and her tribe’s cultural heritage from the ravages of development and displacement.

Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) was a driven, charismatic, obsessive artist, a pioneer photographer who set out in 1900 to document traditional Indian life. He rose from obscurity to become the most famous photographer of his time, created an enormous body of work — 10,000 recordings, 40,000 photographs, and a full length ethnographic motion picture — and died poor and forgotten. His work was rediscovered in the 1970s and is now synonymous with photography of Indians. Coming to Light tells the dramatic story of Curtis' life, the creation of his monumental work, and his changing views of the people he set out to document. The film also gives Indian people a voice in the discussion of Curtis' images. Hopi, Navajo, Eskimo, Blackfeet, Crow, Blood, Piegan, Suquamish, and Kwakiutl people who are descended from Curtis subjects or who are using his photographs for cultural preservation respond to the pictures, tell stories about the people in the photographs, and discuss the meaning of the images.

This classic, timeless film documents the extraordinary celestial calendar created by ancient North American Indians, and rediscovered by artist Anna Soafer, high on a butte in New Mexico. The 'dagger' is presently the only known site in the world that marks the extreme positions of both the sun and moon.

In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes.

For decades in the 19th century, Apache tribes resisted the westward advance of pioneers and the threat they posed to traditional ways of life. Fighting the longest was Geronimo—one of the most famous, feared, and misunderstood Native American warriors in history.