The Invaders is a 1912 American silent Western film directed by Francis Ford and Thomas H. Ince.
We then meet Lieutenant White and Col. Bryson's daughter, who see the men leaving the administrative hall after signing the treaty.
Colonel James Bryson receives a letter from General Thomas Butler of the Department of the Platte, telling him that the surveying corps of the Transcontinental Railroad will soon reach him and will require a military escort.
The man tells the Sioux chief of the railroad surveyors encroaching on his land, which the film labels an invasion.
Having fallen for the surveyor she met earlier, she rushes to warn the whites, but falls off her horse, preventing her from reaching them in time.
The US military arrives on horseback and fall into the ambush, surrounded by Sioux and Cheyenne who attack them from higher ground.
Waving white flags, the colonel tells the Sioux chief that they are holding Sky Star hostage, and that they will kill her if they continue to attack.
Thomas H. Ince rented the Millers Bros. 101 Ranch Real Wild West Show, to lend an "authenticity" to the film.
The show's cowboys, buffalo, and Oglala Sioux were used in several of Ince's films (notably, War on the Plains).
Ince brought the traveling show to a leased area in Santa Monica meant to mimic the Dakotas that would come to be known as "Inceville".
the top of its kind, from an artistic point of view", and expressed that the cinematography was similar "to the best photography as applied to still life, with far greater emotional effects".
[5] University of California, Davis professor Scott Simmon wrote of The Invaders "Even with its straight-forward visual style, it manages to dramatize quite complexly the conflicts and guilts of American history.