White Fawn's Devotion: A Play Acted by a Tribe of Red Indians in America is a 1910 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 short dramatic

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

. The film, which features Princess Red Wing as "White Fawn", was shot in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 at 24fps.

White Fawn's Devotion is the earliest surviving film directed by a Native American, and also the first film shot in America by the French company Pathé

Pathé

Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...

. In 2008, it was added to the United States National Film Registry

National Film Registry

The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

When a settler in the Dakotas gets word that he is to inherit a large fortune, his Native American wife is upset. Believing that she will lose her husband if he returns east, she stabs herself with a knife. Her husband finds her and removes the knife, only to have their daughter see him with the knife in his hand and her dead mother.

Production

James Young Deer

James Young Deer

James Young Deer , born J. Younger Johnston and also known as Jim Young Deer, was an early Native American film actor, director, writer, and producer. With his wife and partner, Lillian St. Cyr, they were an "influential force" in the production of one-reel Westerns during the first part of the...

 (also known as J. Younger Johnston), the uncredited director and writer of White Fawn's Devotion, was the first documented Native American film director. A member of the Winnebago tribe, Young Deer was hired by Pathé Frères as a director and scenario writer, and frequently worked in collaboration with his wife Lillian St. Cyr, also known by her stage name Princess Red Wing. Out of the more than 100 films he made, White Fawn's Devotion is one of fewer than 10 films of Young Deer's to have survived.