[3] The story begins along the Lake Superior Michigan shoreline with the appearance of a mighty spirit that tells the Native Americans a peacekeeper will bring wisdom and unite the warring tribes.

Producer Frank E. Moore had previously staged the outdoor spectacle Hiawatha: The Indian Passion Play for nearly a decade before he launched his filmed version.

Newspapers reported that 150 "full-blooded" Seneca of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) from the Cattaraugus Reservation in upstate New York participated in the movie's production.

[1] For the lead role of Hiawatha, Moore hired Seneca actor-turned-artist Jesse Cornplanter, who later collaborated as an illustrator with ethnographer/archaeologist Arthur C. Parker and was the author of Legends of the Longhouse (1938).

[3] In 1909, Carl Laemmle, who founded Independent Moving Pictures (later absorbed into Universal Studios) had released an earlier one-reel version of Hiawatha.

The museum had lent Moore its expertise for the film and believed that Hiawatha had ethnographically redeeming features and educational appeal.