Buffalo Nation: The Series
The Land | The Legend | The Legacy
About Buffalo Nation: The Series
The first season of Buffalo Nation pushes the audience into the “deep end” of the Great Plains struggle by focusing on the choices made by a group of Lakota called the “Bad Face” band. This band is the catalyst to events that will unfold in the West for the next four decades. At the apex of its culture and capabilities, the audience will see the Lakota way of life, its understanding of war, its internal politics, and its view of the plains on the eve of White encroachment. Set for ten episodes but easily expandable to thirteen, the first season dramatizes the challenges and choices facing the Lakota and sets “the board” upon which conflict plays.
Location
The Great Plains, a vast expanse of grasslands stretching across the heart of America, bordered by the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Missouri River to the east. Blue skies dominate the landscape of rolling hills, unimpeded by any man-made structure, cast in a limited palate of greens, gold, and khaki. Meandering streams and rivers snake across the prairie, making their ways to and from the lakes that freckle the land. In the north, rising abruptly from this subtle landscape, are the Black Hills, verdant forests and rocky outcrops that carpet the sacred “Heart of Everything That Is.” It is a landscape that is both boring and magical, subtle and stark.
Although taking place in the American West, this is everything but a show steeped in the “western” genre. Rather than depicting the lawlessness and bravado that so often accompanies a man on horseback, the series depicts the very real, and often brutal, civilization – steeped in magic and visions - that existed for centuries on the American plains. It is only when European society and norms begin encroaching when real conflict ensues. Faced with challenges and problems that were beyond their normal avenues of social control and alleviation, the Lakota took significant action to preserve their way of life – a way of life never before seen or explored on film.
Era
Not expressly identified to viewers, Buffalo Nation begins in Spring 1863, after the largest mass execution in American history led to the death of 38 Dakota Indians in Minnesota and the eviction of the related Lakota from the territory. This was but one of the sparks igniting turmoil and bloodshed that would spread across the plains, from Minnesota to Colorado, over the next five years. Each season’s story arc will interweave key historical figures (e.g. Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Spotted Tail) with fictional characters as a tribe of Lakota, known as the “Bad Face Band,” confronts ancient Plains enemies, the forces of nature, and the onslaught of American expansion (see About the History). Each of these conflicts brings with it risks and rewards the Lakota leadership must weigh – and it was never a uniform decision.