Indian Chiefs

During the years of the Early Republic, prominent Native leaders regularly traveled to American cities—Albany, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Quebec, New York, and New Orleans—primarily on diplomatic or trade business, but also from curiosity and adventurousness. They were frequently referred to as "the Chiefs now in this city" during their visits, which were sometimes for extended periods of time. Indian people spent a lot of time in town. Colin Calloway, National Book Award finalist and one of the foremost chroniclers of Native American history, has gathered together the accounts of these visits and from them created a new narrative of the country's formative years, redefining what has been understood as the "frontier."

The six-part series is the saga of the great leaders, warriors and diplomats of the First Nations whose stories form a central drama of the North American continent. A blend of documentary and dramatic re-enactment, bringing to life the power, spirit and mystery of the First Nations, the films also seek to separate the myth from the men, to tell the story of leaders who could be equally Machiavellian and magnanimous, cruel and foolish as well as brilliant and brave.