'Bounty' reveals government-backed scalp bounties on Maine's indigenous people during 1700s
Read a review based on a conversation with filmmaker Dawn Neptune Adams.
“A documentary produced by members of Maine’s Penobscot Nation is bringing attention to atrocities committed against Native Americans.
The film “Bounty” brings to light the government-placed scalp bounties placed on the Penobscot people in the 1700s.
“I'd like you to know that history is not what you were taught, and there is a lot more to know,” co-producer Dawn Neptune Adams said.
Adams cautions that the lessons the film teaches could be disturbing to some.
“Film contains potentially upsetting conversation,” Adams said. “Viewers are going to be introduced to information that they've probably never heard before,” Adams said.
In addition to being Bounty’s co-producer, Adams is one of the film’s key Penobscot figures, along with her son.”
Continue reading at WMTW.
266 years ago, New England colonists were legally allowed to kill Penobscot people
“Things like this live in the collective consciousness of the community,” Adam Mazo said. “We deserve to know the full truth of our history.”
“Difficult conversations are exactly that — difficult. But, more often than not, they are vital to have, so that all parties involved can learn, atone, heal and grow.
That’s one of the reasons why Maulian Dana, Dawn Neptune Adams and Tim Shay, all members of the Penobscot Nation, decided to collaborate with the filmmakers at the Upstander Project on a short film, “Bounty,” that details one of countless painful chapters in the history of Indigenous people in North America.
“Bounty,” available to watch for free online at bountyfilm.org, shows Dana, Adams and Shay reading aloud to their children the Phips Proclamation of 1755, one of the dozens of government-issued bounty proclamations that directed colonial settlers to hunt, scalp and kill Indigenous people for money.”
Continue reading at Bangor Daily News.
The View From Here: Native history is American history
“In “Bounty,” Dawn Neptune Adams, another co-director, tells about the scientific research that suggests that traumatic events can change DNA, leaving traits that are passed from one generation to the next. The terror of being hunted like an animal could be part of their descendants’ consciousness, whether they know the story or not.”
“When you walk on the Freedom Trail in Boston, the line between the present and the past can get hazy.
Stand on the corner where British soldiers fired on an angry mob, or sit in a pew at the Old North Church, you realize that the Boston Massacre and the midnight ride of Paul Revere are not just stories in books, but also messy events involving real people whose choices still affect our lives today.
One stop on the tour is the Old State House, which the guides will tell you is the oldest public building in Boston and was once the seat of power for the king’s vast New England holdings.”
Continue reading at Central Maine and The Portland Press Herald.
Indigenous film+ online 2021
“Unique in the US, Maine’s Peace and Reconciliation aims to heal the results of damaging policies of foster care of Indian children. Independent Lens”
“MORE ONLINE for NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH
Why not take time to watch Native American film productions and to talk about what you watched with family and friends. This month some major features and numerous outstanding short films—genres include documentary, fiction, and experimental media— mostly streaming for free. Go to the online film festivals or link to PBS, Vision Maker Media, or the National Portrait Gallery. These are varied works, but they frame issues, and accomplishments, and histories in unique ways that reveal the special outlooks and contemporary presence of Native Americans and Alaska Natives and other Indigenous peoples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand/Aotearoa, South Africa, Mexico, Peru and Sapmi in Arctic Europe.”
Continue reading at Indian Country Today.
Required Reading
A shout out to a recent article about Bounty featured in The Guardian.
“Contrary to Thanksgiving mythology, two Penobscot Nation citizens and their collaborator/co-writer (Dawn Neptune Adams, Maulian Dana, with Adam Mazo) explain in the Guardian how the settler government actually offered cash for dead Native American children:
According to our research, there were at least 69 government-issued scalp edicts across the Dawnland from 1675 to 1760, and at least 50 scalp edicts issued elsewhere in the United States until 1885. The proclamations targeted specific tribes by name – and occasionally marked specific tribes safe because they were “allies” of the authorities. But neither scalpers nor authorities had much way of knowing the tribal affiliations of the people whose scalps they took, so for centuries bounties were a license to kill all Indigenous people.”
Continue reading at Hyperallergic.
Documentary film 'Bounty' confronts government-issued scalp bounties against Indigenous people
Maulian Dana and Dawn Neptune Adams are interviewed by Maine Public Radio’s Robbie Feinberg about Bounty.
“In the new short film, "Bounty," three Penobscot Nation families highlight a disturbing and little-known chapter of colonial-era history: the bounty system used to reward white settlers for the scalps of indigenous men, women and even children who had been declared their enemies.
To make the film, co-directors Maulian Dana and Dawn Neptune Adams took their children and other family members to Boston's Old State House to read the death warrant that was issued for their Penobscot ancestors in 1755. Their research has found that there were nearly 70 government-issued bounties for indigenous people in what is now New England.”
Continue reading and listen at Maine Public Radio.
New film “Bounty” shifts documentary filmmaking by centering Indigenous voices
A review and interview with Adam Mazo, Dawn Neptune Adams, Maulian Dana and Carmella Bear.
“Documentary filmmakers at the Upstander Project have become deeply committed to a different way of filmmaking, according to the Boston-based nonprofit’s co-founder and director Adam Mazo. Central to that mission is overcoming indifference to social injustice by creating compelling documentary films that center the voices of those most impacted to reach the heart of social issues. The accompanying learning resources distributed alongside the film are part of a broad impact strategy that contextualizes the films for educators and general audiences while pointing them toward action-oriented campaigns for social change.”
Continue reading at The Scope Boston.
Documentary 'Bounty' confronts colonial death warrants against Indigenous people
WBUR reviews Upstander Project’s short film Bounty and interviews filmmakers and participants about the importance of the film. “Adults often fear saying the wrong thing, or teaching the wrong thing and upsetting other parents, acknowledges co-director Adam Mazo.” That is why Upstander Project aims to educate and mobilize people against injustice.
“It may be buried history. But the atrocity of colonists’ bounty proclamations against Native American people also occupies the present. In the potent new documentary “Bounty,” members of the Penobscot Nation read one such death warrant to their family members, including their children, in order to share the truth.
The nine-minute film takes place in Boston’s Old State House, where in 1755, colonial settlers signed the declaration of a cash reward, in descending value, for the scalps of Penobscot men, women and children.”
Continue reading at WBUR.