Celebrating Native American Heritage Month: The Daughter Of Dawn, first silent film with all Native American cast

The Daughter of Dawn, released in October 1920, is probably the first and only silent film to feature an entirely Native American cast.  It was shown only a few times and then vanished from history in the 1920s.  

In 2005, a private investigator offered the film to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for $35,000.  In 2007, the Oklahoma Historical Society purchased it for $5000.  They digitized the film and re-released it in 2013.

The film took place in the Wichita Mountains in southern Oklahoma, and focuses on a love triangle between a Kiowa chief's daughter, a Kiowa and a Comanche, during conflicts between the Kiowa and Comanche tribes.

Over 300 people from the Kiowa and Comanche tribes acted in the film. 

It starred Hunting Horse, Oscar Yellow Wolf, Esther LeBarre, White Parker, and Wanada Parker, both children of Quanah Parker.  

In 2013, The Daughter of Dawn was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.