History is the most fickle of the sciences. To record it objectively is an exercise in futility; to assume omniscience in the record is to be a fool. Still, the origin myths of the United States are peddled as self-evident truths, so when a group of artists and educators offer up a contribution that reassesses that record, they make it a priority to ensure as many people as possible rethink what they believe their histories to be. At least, that’s the case with the Upstander Project and their new documentary short Bounty, with a world premiere on November 10.
Bounty centers on the bounty system established by colonial Massachusetts to incentivize settler-colonists to exchange the scalps of Indigenous people for substantial pay. It’s the latest film from the Upstander Project, an organization that engages in activism through documentary films, educator workshops and land recognition initiatives.
The Upstander Project was founded in 2009, in tandem with the release of Coexist, their documentary focusing on the healing of Rwanda’s ethnic communities in the wake of the genocide there. Even though the film was a success, and teaching materials (developed in tandem with the project) connected young students with global events in a relatable way, the Upstander Project team had a nagging feeling that their future work should concern itself with justice on the homefront.
Bounty Learning Director Mishy Lesser described how she “started to feel morally uncomfortable focusing on genocide in a faraway place where I'd never visited or lived when there is genocide deep in the history of this country that we were not focused on.” So explains the focus of 2018’s Dawnland, a film about the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and this year’s Bounty.
The ideas that would lead to Bounty first began to circulate during the production of Dawnland. Lesser recalls listening to a story on Maine Public Broadcasting Network about the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, which set her and fellow Upstander Project co-founder Adam Mazo, as well as frequent collaborator (and Bounty filmmaking team member) Ben Pender-Cudlip on a path to document the committee’s progress.
After Dawn Neptune Adams, a filmmaker and activist who is also a member of the Penobscot Nation, gave a public statement about her own experience as a child forced from her community into what she describes as the “racist and abusive” foster system of non-Native Americans, Mazo and Pender-Cudlip approached her to get involved in Dawnland. On the same trip when the filmmakers met Adams, they also came across a copy of an 18th century document at a Wabanaki tribal office.
“What it was was a copy of the original document signed in 1755, which put a bounty on my ancestors’ heads,” said Adams. “It's the Spencer Phips proclamation, which listed different prices for men, women and children, with men being worth about the equivalent of $12,000 in today's money.”
Scalp-bounty systems weren’t unique to New England during this time. “It started in Lower Manhattan; the Dutch were the first ones to encourage scalping against the Lenape … there was scalping in the Pequot war of 1637 in Connecticut,” explained Lesser.
But it was in New England — and specifically Boston — where the action was most prevalent. Lesser identified the city as a focal point of bounty aggression, with 69 bounty acts issued between 1675 and 1760. From there, she says, the practice spread both westward and south, covering the continent. Bounty systems were showing up as far away as California. (There, in “1849, the average daily wage was 25 cents,” said Lesser. “And the promise of $5 per scalp was considerable for day laborers.”) Sometimes, wealthy landowners would pool their money together into pots to be paid out to participants who were encouraged to enter Indigenous peoples’ territory and play their part in eradicating the population.
And that’s one of the takeaways Lesser wants viewers to learn from Bounty. Hate is an acquired taste, a tactic that well-served the colonial powers that be. Lesser explained that bounty systems like these sowed discord among ethnic populations; the promise of cash for scalps not only terrorized Indigienous populations, but also exploited impoverished white farmers by manufacturing and incentivizing hatred. Human trophy collecting isn’t unique to one geographic space or moment in time, but what made the British Colonial government’s system unique was that financial incentive: to murder and maim for money.
Furthermore, Lesser argues that the falsehoods we’re often taught in schools aren’t new. “Settlers came here not understanding that these homelands belonged to somebody else, because there was an enormous mythology, even hundreds of years ago, that these lands were nobody's land that no one lived here, and that if human beings did live here before, then they weren't really human. They were savage,” she said. (For further exegesis, she pointed to the 27th and final grievance of the United States Declaration of Independence, which reads: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.")
The bounty system wasn’t a brief tide in history that receded after the United States gained independence; financial gains to be had for scalping could be found well into the 19th century. Similarly, Bounty isn’t intended to be a static viewing experience, an “ah, so this is what happened in the past” realization to have before going about your daily life. The film’s creators intend it as an experience that leaves viewers reassessing their own relationship with history, and one that puts these stories and experiences back into the hands of those communities who have lived it.
“That history is whitewashed and it's not given to people, so when they find out things like they're going to find out in this film, it's a shock to them,” said Adams. “There's a very extreme discomfort when the cognitive dissonance kicks in, and what they're learning is the exact opposite of what they learned in school. I would like people to be curious about these truths and and look deeper.”
Bounty has its virtual premiere with screenings at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Nov. 10. It will be made available Monday, Nov. 15 for individual use on bountyfilm.org.
