1923: How the series managed to tell the most shameful side of American history

Many are the stories that are buried or died years before technology allowed us universal access to information. That’s why dramatic series like Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923 help to see a part of American history that has been forgotten.

Strive for authenticity is something that has clearly been important to showrunner Taylor Sheridan when it comes to yellowstone and all its derivatives. It’s one of the reasons so many stars have been drawn to it, not to mention the millions of audience members. But the fact that Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923 show some truly identifiable situations and relationships, it doesn’t mean that any of it is based on real events.

The truth is that the world of yellowstoneand hence 1923, is not based on real-life characters, but it does contain a number of historical accuracies, including one that is deeply disturbing. For example, the period in which the derived series takes place 1923 it has many historical ones, this includes how the prohibition and the Great Depression that affected the state of Montana, in the United States.

The latter was extremely prominent in Montana, as the Depression hit the state nearly a decade before the rest of the country. This is something that is explored in the show, as farmers (naturally) were among the hardest hit by the economic crisis. “The pressures on Jacob Dutton at this point are considerable,” explained Harrison Ford on how the writers used real events to impact her character arc in the first season of 1923.

“Economic pressures. Banks are not lending to ranchers as they have suffered losses. Business has not become as efficient as it needs to be just to make steady profits. The railroad head is not close enough so cattle still have to be driven. They lose weight and suffer casualties on the way to market.”

One of the most uncomfortable truths that delves into in 1923 by Taylor Sheridan, is how Native Americans were treated during that period. The writer explores this in current times in yellowstone, but in 1923the treatment of Native Americans was even more direct and insidious, which is why Aminah Nieves was tempted to take on the role of Teonna Rainwater.

1923 shows the cruel history of Native Americans in the United States

In a recent interview, Aminah Nieves explained how scared she was reliving the experiences of her ancestors in the brutal scenes of the boarding school, in 1923. Ultimately, it was her mother who convinced her to accept the role of her in order to shed more light on a largely ignored part of America’s complicated history. While it was “traumatising” for Nieves to emotionally explore these dark truths, she said it was rewarding in the end. “These are stories that my family has shared for generations,” said Aminah Nieves.

When you think about what happened to Teonna Rainwater and the other Native American characters in 1923it’s really horrible to recognize that these moments are experiences that countless people actually lived through. The purpose of the schools, as explained in 1923, was to eradicate the variety of Native American cultures in the United States and replace them with Western and Christian perspectives. The result of the government-funded mandate was truly inhumane, and the series gets a lot of this right, including rampant physical and sexual violence within schools.