- From the historic well-spring of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Veiled Lightning rockets through the First American Revolution into the protest culture of today, finding that modern Indigenous activists employ art and culture as weapons for change. After decades of futile protest against Santa Fe's costumed Spanish Colonial pageant that glorifies conquest and genocide, and new group of protesters, predominantly female, take up the cause, with startling results that bear profound lessons to bear on what it means to be an American. With echoes from the Dakotas to Charlottesville, Veiled Lightning electrifies a Pan-Indian consciousness from which we will all benefit.
- Veiled Lightning explores how the First American Revolution--The Pueblo Revolt of 1680--not only informs modern battles for social and environmental justice, but also casts light on ways to thwart oppression, cultural genocide and appropriation to preserve Indigenous culture and to help a nation heal.
- This feature-length documentary is composed of ten chapters that detail a little-known aspect of US history: that a First American Revolution took place in 1680 ("The Pueblo Revolt of 1680"), long before the American colonists rebelled against the British. The revolt was lead by Po'pay, an Indigenous medicine man who was arrested and taken to Santa Fe's plaza (the town "square" that still exists today), tied to a stake, a beaten for practicing his own religion, accused by the Spanish of sorcery and witchcraft. When he was finally released, he devised a way to plan the revolt using runners carrying tied knotted ropes to fan out across New Mexico in order to coordinate the day of the attack, which successfully drove the Spanish out for 12 years. The profound lessons of the Pueblo Revolt are still instructive today as cultural appropriation, discrimination, and other social justice issues attest. The first chapters of the film demonstrate the scope of the problem in modern times, with references back to invasion and colonialism by the Spanish in the American Southwest. Natives alive today also remember punitive measures by the American government, such as forced sterilization as recently as the 1970s, meaning that the echoes of the past still have serious repercussions today. Cultural appropriation and social justice issues reverberate through our shared national history. As the chapters build up the strong case to reject remnants of colonialism, the story climaxes with coverage of the 2015-2017 "Abolish the Entrada" protests surrounding Fiestas de Santa Fe, in which female protesters suffer backlash and arrest in their efforts to eliminate a cruel pageant that reenacts the conquering Spanish with men dressed as conquistadors and priests. In the greater national context of battles along racial lines (such as the Charlottesville vehicular homicide), this unique story provides a perfect microcosm to explore a national crisis.
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