''The Homesteader'' (1919) is a lost black-and-white

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

author and filmmaker

Oscar Micheaux Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (; January 2, 1884 – March 25, 1951) was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and c ...

. The film is based on his novel inspired by his experiences.

Plot

''The Homesteader'' involves six principal characters, the leading one being Jean Baptiste (Charles D. Lucas), a homesteader far off in the Dakotas, the lone African American living in the area. To this wilderness arrives Jack Stewart, a Scotsman, with his motherless daughter, Agnes ( Iris Hall), who doesn't know that she is biracial. In Agnes, Baptiste meets the girl of his dreams. Peculiar fate threw her in the company of the Homesteader, but, because Baptiste is black and Agnes is presumably white, their love is forbidden by law. Baptiste eventually sacrifices the love of this girl of his dreams, goes back to his own people and marries Orlean, the daughter of a black preacher named McCarthy. McCarthy, the embodiment of vanity, deceit and hypocrisy, really admires the marriage his daughter has made. He speaks of the "rich" young man she has married, praises him to the highest. Baptiste does not know, however, that McCarthy requires and is in the habit of having people praise him. Baptiste does not do it because he is not of the temperament to do so. Because of this failure grows the tragedy of mismarriage to Orlean (

Evelyn Preer Evelyn Preer (née Jarvis; July 26, 1896 – November 17, 1932), was an African Americans, African American pioneering screen and stage actress, and jazz and blues singer in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood during the late-1910s through the ea ...

), a sweet girl, kind and good, but like her mother, without the strength of her convictions. Baptiste, Orlean having failed him, is persecuted by McCarthy and by Ethel (McCarthy's other daughter), who, like her father, possesses all the evil a woman is capable of; she is married to weak-kneed Glavis. In the end, Orlean, driven insane by the evil she had been the innocent cause of, rights a wrong which causes Baptiste to go back to his land in the Dakotas, where he finds the girl he first discovered. Later, he learns the truth about her race and the story has a beautiful ending.

Cast

* Charles D. Lucas as Jean Baptiste *

as Orleans * Iris Hall as Agnes * Charles S. Moore as Jack Stewart * Inez Smith as Ethel * Vernon S. Duncan as McCarthy * Trevy Woods as Glavis, Ethel's Husband * William George as Agnes' White Lover

Production

The film was produced, co-directed and written for the screen by Micheaux, based on his book of the same name. It is believed to be the first feature-length film made with a black cast and crew, for a black audience, and thus the first example of a race movie. Most of the filming, if not all, took place in

Winner, South Dakota Winner is a city in central Tripp County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 2,921 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Tripp County. Winner also serves as the administrative center of neighboring Todd County, which does no ...

. Micheaux, using his considerable skills as a businessman and salesman, sold stock in his corporation to the white farmers around

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury County, Iowa, Woodbury and Plymouth County, Iowa, Plymouth counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Iowa, fo ...

at prices ranging from $75 to $100 per share.Sampson, Henry T. ''Blacks in Black and White'' (1997), p. 45. Eventually enough capital was secured to produce the eight-reel film starring Charles Lucas as the male lead, and

and Iris Hall, two well-known dramatic actresses who at the time were associated with the Lafayette Players Stock Company.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Homesteader, The 1919 films 1919 directorial debut films 1919 lost films 1910s American films 1910s English-language films American black-and-white films American silent feature films Films directed by Oscar Micheaux Lost silent American films Race films