Video and Article "The Daughter of the Dawn" (USA, 1920) and "Silent Enemy" (Canada, 1930) - Silent Films with all-Native American / First Nations Cast

"Silent Enemy" movie still (Canada, 1930)

"Daughters of the Dawn" movie still Kiowa Village (USA 1920)

(Image Credit: Oklahoma Historical Society)

UK Article: "Daughter of the Dawn" photos and restoration information of the film made in 1920

History Blog article "Daughters of the Dawn"

Watch 11 minutes of "Daughter of the Dawn"

"Silent Enemy" TCM article (1930) "Given the film's respect for their tribal life and ways, it's perhaps the first revisionist Western, before the genre veered off into depicting Native Americans as target practice for cowboys and colonizing armies. It is, in short, a major rediscovery."

How a silent film featuring an all-Native cast came to be made, lost (seemingly forever), discovered nearly a century later (in shambles), then restored and shown to the cast’s descendants is one of the most fascinating stories in the annals of American filmmaking. The Daughter of Dawn had its world premiere in Oklahoma City, and may be the only all-Native America cast silent film ever made. In the autumn of 1919 Norbert Myles was hired to direct a film for Richard Banks, owner of the fledgling Texas Film Company. "Silent Enemy", made in 1930, is a Canadian silent film depicting Ojibwe living in Quebec and Ontario.

"Silent Enemy" movie still, 1930