Star Trek and History

by Reagin, Nancy

  No One Here but Us Noble Savages

  If we think of Star Trek as Wagon Train, it follows that Starfleet represents the (predominately white) explorers, pioneers, cowboys, and settlers of the U.S. frontier. All of the non-Federation aliens who reside in space, that “final frontier,” could be said to represent the Native, the Other. In this context many episodes can be viewed metaphorically as relating to Indigenous America in some fashion.

  It’s interesting to note, then, that the original series of Star Trek focuses on Native Americans only once. The result, the third-season episode “The Paradise Syndrome,” not only fails to live up to Star Trek’s generally progressive tone but also in fact represents a regressive step back to old and ill-informed stereotypes—stereotypes that contemporary Native Americans were actively fighting against at the time the episode aired.

  In “The Paradise Syndrome,” Captain Kirk and his crew discover a Native American village on the distant planet Amerind, which is threatened by an oncoming asteroid. When Kirk loses his memory and appears to the villagers, they identify him as a god and make him their medicine chief. He takes a wife, Miramanee, who becomes pregnant, and the couple seems to enjoy an idyllic existence. When the Natives discover that Kirk is not a god, however—a revelation that seems to take the gullible villagers quite some time—they turn on him, killing his wife and unborn child and nearly killing him. Fortunately, Commander Spock and Dr. McCoy save Kirk and restore him to “civilization” on board the Enterprise.

  Writer Margaret Armen originally called the episode “Pale Face,” but Gene Roddenberry insisted on changing the title to “The Paradise Syndrome” to make an explicit link to a theme developed by the celebrated U.S. author Herman Melville and others: contemporary man discovers the exotic and primitive life, but he tragically learns that he cannot be content there because he is too much a creature of progress and modernity. To this end, the Native Americans in the episode represent what Roddenberry called “that natural and simple and untroubled and happy life all of us dream of someday finding.”3 In short, they are noble savages.

  According to the episode, a highly advanced group of alien anthropologists (the “Wise Ones,” the villagers call them) visited Earth centuries earlier and took the ancestors of these Native Americans, transplanting them to this faraway planet to be preserved like a museum exhibit. As the inhabitants of this static exhibit, the Natives and their culture on the planet remained unchanged over time, with no appreciable discoveries, innovations, or developments; meanwhile, over the same centuries, all of the races on Earth matured, modernized, and eventually became space explorers. While Star Trek shows the descendants of many other ethnic backgrounds in the futuristic garb of Starfleet or various advanced communities, the only Native Americans viewers see, those from Amerind, appear in buckskin, as if they are still living in some idealized version of the seventeenth century. The future for Native Americans alone, it seems, looks like the mythic past.

  To add insult to injury, the Natives in “The Paradise Syndrome” don’t even receive credit for the historical accomplishments of their people (or, for that matter, for just having plain common sense). When scholar Sierra S. Adare invited a group of First Nations viewers to watch and to comment on the episode in 2001, one audience member expressed dismay that Miramanee and her people don’t know how to preserve food until Kirk instructs them. In the viewer’s words, “Where do you think jerky and popcorn came from? Our ancestors knew how to preserve food long before any white people showed up . . . people who don’t know how to preserve food don’t live long.”4

  Not only does the episode paint a portrait of Native Americans as noble savages incapable of progress, but it also suggests all Indigenous Americans comprise one homogenous culture. Preproduction fact-checkers from the Kellam de Forest Research Company advised Roddenberry about problems in the script, such as blending unlike (and warring) Native nations together and calling for costuming completely unrelated to any of those tribes.5 Rather than revise the script for accuracy, however, Roddenberry and the writers of Star Trek presented a generically bland and internally inconsistent “Indian” identity for the villagers.

  By the 1960s, Natives across the United States were joining together to call for Native American self-determination and to protest the disastrous “termination policy” that the federal government had followed since the mid-1940s. Through the termination policy, the United States attempted to sever treaty relationships with and to end obligations to Native nations; the policy succeeded in ending the legal standing of multiple tribes. In 1968, the same year “The Paradise Syndrome” aired, the Indian Civil Rights Act was passed, making many of the guarantees in the U.S. Bill of Rights applicable to Native nations. In the same year, activists founded AIM, the American Indian Movement. AIM would lead highly visible and controversial protests in the following years, including the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 to 1971, the Trail of Broken Treaties (during which the group shut down the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C.) in 1972, and the stand at Wounded Knee in 1973.

  At the time, many activists, journalists, and scholars drew explicit comparisons between the Red Power movement and the civil rights/Black Power movements in the United States. While Star Trek’s original series addressed civil rights issues with what many critics have viewed as sophistication and sensitivity, however, it offered stereotypes of Natives that worked directly against similar activism by Native Americans. For that matter, the show supplied positive and powerful role models for many people who were considered the Other by mainstream white viewers, portraying a black woman, an Asian man, and a nationalistic Russian, among others, as accomplished crewmembers who are accepted as equals. When the opportunity arose to provide a similarly inspirational and encouraging vision of the future for Native Americans, the show failed.

  A Cartoon but Not a Caricature

  By the time Star Trek’s second series hit the airwaves, President Richard Nixon, in his “Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Recommendations for Indian Policy” in 1970, already had admitted the failure of the federal government’s termination policy toward Native Americans and named self-determination as a goal for future government policy. AIM was organized, active, and visible. Native American issues gained a moment of especially widespread attention during the televised Academy Awards ceremony in 1973. Marlon Brando, named Best Actor for his performance in The Godfather, sent activist Sacheen Littlefeather to the stage to refuse the award on his behalf in protest of both the U.S. government’s treatment of AIM members (at the ongoing siege at Wounded Knee) and U.S. film and television’s misrepresentation of Native Americans.

  Like its predecessor Star Trek series, The Animated Series devotes only one episode to Native Americans. The quality of the storytelling in the second-season episode “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” reflects substantial growth compared to “The Paradise Syndrome,” however. In fact, the creators of the episode submitted “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” as the episode to represent the series to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; the result was the 1975 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Entertainment in a Children’s Series, the only Emmy Star Trek received for any of its series. Perhaps one of the reasons this episode presents a more thoughtful and measured handling of Indigenous America is the fact that one of its two cowriters, Russell Bates, is a Kiowa.6

  “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” introduces the first Native American character to be a Starfleet officer in the Star Trek canon, although he’s only present for the one episode. Viewers know Ensign Dawson Walking Bear is a Comanche because he says so; visually, he appears to be like any other brunet crewmember, wearing both the standard uniform and the traditional haircut. Walking Bear saves the Enterprise when the ship encounters the alien Kukulkan, who resents the fact that Earthlings have forgotten him from his visit long ago. By recognizing the creature as the winged serpent god of Mayan and Aztec legend, Walking Bear persu
ades Kukulkan to give the crew a second chance at survival. By the end, Kukulkan tries to “collect” the crew as part of his menagerie, but they escape.

  A key discovery in the episode is that Kukulkan not only visited Earth but also shared knowledge with some of its ancient peoples. He gave the Maya their advanced calendar system, for example, and the blueprint for their cities. At first, this seems like another tired trope in stories about Native Americans: some outside force is responsible for providing the impressive achievements of their cultures, because Natives couldn’t have developed these technologies on their own. The episode avoids such implications, however, by noting that Kukulkan is the source of innovations by other world societies, as well, including the pyramids of the Egyptians. Rather than suggesting Native Americans needed outside assistance, then, writers Russell Bates and David Wise count the Maya among the advanced ancient civilizations of Earth who would have been considered worthy of the time and attention of a powerful alien entity.

  You Can Tell by Their Outfits

  Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) does not overtly address Native Americans through any specific character or plot point. In some of the wide, sweeping shots for which the film is remembered, however, viewers do see at least three crewmembers on board the new Enterprise who appear to be Native. One woman, for example, sports the standard Starfleet uniform, but she also wears a bone choker with a carved animal totem or fetish. Her hair is styled in two braids wrapped with what seems to be strips of leather with beaded trimmings.

  This portrayal represents a step away from the wholly assimilated look of Ensign Walking Bear in The Animated Series. These characters stand shoulder-to-shoulder with crewmates of various races, and it’s clear they are accepted as part of the larger group. Yet they signal their individual ethnic backgrounds with instantly recognizable visual cues, as if to promise that in the late twenty-third century, Native American identity will still be alive and well.

  This middle-ground approach—depicting Native Americans as “one of us” instead of the Other, while still remaining identifiably Native—reappears in the Pocket Books Star Trek tie-in novel The Entropy Effect by Vonda McIntyre, published in 1981, just two years after Star Trek: The Motion Picture. McIntyre creates an original character named Captain Hunter, a woman she describes as wearing her long, straight, black hair braided, bound by a leather thong with an eagle crest feather (proof, Hunter explains, that “the eagles accept me as a friend”).7 Hunter’s friendship with Kirk goes back to their academy days, when Kirk defended her right to wear the feather as part of her freedom of religion after a senior-class student took exception to “her family’s tradition.”8 Once again during this time, Star Trek suggests that a Native background is compatible with and respected by the Federation and the future it represents.

  Boldly Going . . . a Step Backward

  The Next Generation did more than any of its predecessors to establish a comprehensive future history for at least one major community of North American Indians. The seventh-season episode “Journey’s End” considers Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s dilemma when he receives orders to remove by any means necessary a community of Native Americans who have established a home on the planet Dorvan V. Unfortunately for these colonists, the Federation’s negotiated peace with the Cardassian Union includes a redrawing of boundaries that puts Dorvan V on the wrong side of the Cardassian border. In other words, through no fault of these Federation citizens, their world has been negotiated right into the hands of the enemy. The episode’s treatment of Indigenous America is important in three key ways: its revisitation of the removal theme, its consideration of generational guilt, and its handling of Native spirituality.

  First, viewers learn the future history of the colonization of Dorvan. According to the leader Anthwara, a group of North American Indians left Earth and searched for “over two hundred years” for a suitable site to create a home. (Since this episode takes place in the year 2370, we can assume these emigrants left the planet in the mid- to late twenty-second century.) They decided to settle on Dorvan V, which they found to hold “a deep spiritual significance” for them, and for the past twenty years they built a life there. Viewers thus see a united Native American community of the future seeking sovereignty and self-determination in the stars, presumably because they’ve found it impossible to achieve it on their home world.

  The proposed evacuation of the colonists seems to represent a repetition of history, yet another removal: the first occurred by force in North America due to white encroachment, the second by choice in the decision to leave Earth, and the third is in the hands of Picard and Starfleet. As Picard notes, “There are some very disturbing historical parallels here. . . . Once more they are being asked to leave their homes because of a political decision that has been taken by a distant government.” The good news is that Native identity, culture, and community survive to the twenty-third century, if in a bland, homogenized, general form; the bad news is that Native Americans are still the victims of the same familiar injustices they have endured for centuries, and they once more face the possibility of losing their lands.

  Not only does the episode provide a future history (that, alas, seems very reminiscent of past history) for this Indigenous group, but it also invokes past history in order to raise the question of generational guilt. Anthwara brings to Picard’s attention the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when Natives defended their land against the Spanish, and the resulting Spanish response a few years later, which he calls “savage.” It so happens that one of the Spanish soldiers responsible for the slaughter of Native Americans was an ancestor of Picard’s. By doing the right thing and defending the colonists’ rights now, Anthwara suggests, Picard will erase the stain of his familial guilt. Picard privately claims not to hold himself responsible for the deeds of his forebears, but the situation disturbs him greatly. In the end, however, salvation comes from the Natives themselves, not Picard; they choose to renounce their Federation membership and remain without representation or advocate in Cardassian territory.

  Both the framing of the future history and the discussion of past history suggest a commitment by the writers (the story is by Shawn Piller and Antonia Napoli; the teleplay is by Ronald D. Moore) to confront some of the more complex issues surrounding Native American history. Part of the effect of this more informed and mature approach is counterbalanced, however, by the manner in which the episode handles spiritual issues. Wesley Crusher, the genius son of Dr. Beverly Crusher, returns on leave from Starfleet Academy unsure of his path in life. While on the surface of Dorvan V, he encounters a “holy man” among the Native Americans named Lakanta, who claims that he has been waiting for Wesley. Under his guidance, Wesley undergoes a vision quest; Lakanta then reveals himself to be the Traveler, a shape-shifting alien who can alter time and space with his thoughts, who wishes to teach Wesley how to realize his remarkable potential.

  This story line raises two problems. First, the generic and rather flippant portrayal of the vision quest ignores the sacred aspects of the practice; Wesley enters into it ignorant, unprepared, and for selfish reasons, which make it seem not only inauthentic but also disrespectful to some First Nations audience members.9 Second, some of the most profound insights viewers seem to learn about the colonists—the way they hold all things sacred, the way their religious understanding of the spiritual world includes not only Earth animals but also the various alien species of the universe—are spoken not by a Native leader, but rather by an advanced alien impersonating one (an alien who, in fact, appears to be white). The Native Americans are not allowed to speak for themselves, and ultimately we are left uncertain whether we should attribute these ideas to the community’s Native culture or to the Traveler himself.

  The casting of Chitimacha actor Ned Romero as the colonists’ leader Anthwara and Cree actor Tom Jackson as the “holy man” Lakanta marks the first time in Star Trek that Native characters—at least those with speaking roles—were portrayed by actors of Native ancestr
y. Romero later portrayed another Native character, Commander Chakotay’s great-grandfather, in the Voyager episode “The Fight.”

  Does Out of Sight Mean Out of Mind?

  The Next Generation also builds upon the foundations laid by The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and The Entropy Effect by showing how Starfleet recognizes and includes Native Americans as part of its own identity. In turn, Deep Space Nine develops this further. Not only do Native officers serve in Starfleet, but Starfleet also honors great Native Americans and their nations by naming ships after them. The first example we have of this comes in The Next Generation’s sixth-season episode “Descent,” which introduces the USS Crazy Horse, named for the legendary Oglala Lakota warrior. Crazy Horse appears again in the seventh-season episode “The Pegasus,” and the USS Pueblo, named after the Native American tribe, appears in the same season in “The Eye of the Beholder.”

  Deep Space Nine includes references to three additional Federation ships named for Indigenous subjects: the USS Lakota (“Homefront” and “Paradise Lost”), named for the Sioux tribe; the USS Malinche (“For the Uniform”), named for the Nahua adviser/interpreter/mistress of the conquistador Hernan Cortez; and the USS Tecumseh (“Nor the Battle to the Strong,” “In the Pale Moonlight,” and “Image in the Sand”), named for the Shawnee resistance leader. In Voyager, one of the ship’s shuttles is named the Sacajawea (“Coda,” “Macrocosm,” and “Rise”), after the Lemhi Shoshone guide of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Such references suggest that the awareness and knowledge of Native American history survives into the twenty-fourth century, and Indigenous American culture is one of the many claimed and celebrated by the Federation.

  No single episode of Deep Space Nine focuses on Native characters or subjects. The second-season two-part episode “Maquis” updates viewers on what has happened on Dorvan V and other planets in the Demilitarized Zone since The Next Generation’s “Journey’s End,” however. A group known as the Maquis has formed, made up of Federation-born colonists and rogue Starfleet officers who oppose the Cardassian occupation of their homes (which was made possible by a treaty between the Federation and the Cardassian Union). The Maquis consider themselves to be independent of both the Federation and the Cardassians, thus drawing opposition from both. An unnamed and unspeaking Maquis representative appears to be of Native American descent; the representative is dressed similarly to the Native American colonists in “Journey’s End,” which suggests he may be from Anthwara’s community on Dorvan V.