Adapting the Little House on the Prairie books for a modern audience was no mean feat, especially when it came to detailing the history of Osage Nation. The showrunner has now explained why one part of the story had to be changed for the Netflix series. The original books were written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and are loosely based on her own childhood growing up on the American frontier in the 19th century. Although they’re inspired by real events, the author combined these with fictional storytelling. Little House on the Prairie has been adapted multiple times in various formats over the years, but the most famous is undeniably the 1974 TV series, which ran for nine seasons and became one of the most impactful family dramas of its era. Now, more than half a century later, Netflix has dropped a brand new iteration of the story. Like the books, the new series follows the Ingalls family’s move to Independence, Kansas, where they attempt to build a new life alongside fellow settlers and members of the Osage Nation. While remaining faithful to Wilder’s story, the adaptation also rewrites parts of the books for the modern viewer, including one particularly controversial chapter involving Osage Native Americans, aka the original land owners. Why Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie changed the Osage Nation’s story Credit: Netflix Speaking to Deadline, showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine explained that they changed the Osage’s departure from Independence to reflect the historical reality of their forced removal, saying Wilder simply didn’t have access to the same understanding of those events. When the Ingalls family arrived in Kansas in the late 1860s, they settled on land that legally belonged to the Osage Nation. As white settlement expanded westward, the US government forced the Osage to leave their ancestral land and relocate to what is now Oklahoma. In Wilder’s original book, the Osage disappear after Laura hears them gathering at night in a chapter titled ‘Indian War-Cry’. Their departure is largely unexplained and is shown only through the eyes of a young Laura. Over the decades, Little House on the Prairie has also faced criticism for its depiction of Native Americans. Some historians and members of the Osage Nation have argued that the books reinforce stereotypes and largely erase Indigenous perspectives, with Native characters given very little opportunity to tell their own story. Wilder herself later revised one line in the novel, changing “there were no people, only Indians” to “there were no settlers, only Indians” after acknowledging the original wording was insensitive. Credit: Public Domain Rather than having the Osage quietly disappear, Netflix expands their storyline by showing negotiations over a treaty and giving Osage characters a far greater role in explaining why they are being forced from their land. “Being able to explore the real story to the best we could on the scale that we could produce it, it was this treaty signing that we’ve definitely dramatised, but is essentially drawing upon historical fact,” Sonnenshine told the outlet. “From everything I’ve read about Laura Ingalls Wilder, she did try to figure out all these things, but they just didn’t have that kind of knowledge then. When she was writing in the 30s, she’d heard these stories, she was very young when she was there. She was two years old.” Sonnenshine worked with Robert Warrior, a scholar and Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kansas, alongside production consultant Julie O’Keefe to build out Good Eagle’s (Wren Zhawenim Gotts) character. Although she and her parents, White Sun (Alyssa Wapanatǎhk) and William Mitchell (Meegwun Fairbrother), are cautious of the white settlers, Good Eagle becomes best friends with Laura (Alice Halsey) throughout the course of the Netflix adaptation. Sonnenshine went on to say that while the author tried to carry out research on the history, she “kind of got it wrong” as “there’s no Wikipedia, there’s no libraries available to her of what’s been written and discovered in the last basically 100 years about the details of all those movements.” “So we were able to expand upon something that’s in the book, and just on the outside looking in. We were able to get in there,” the showrunner continued. “When I was asking our consultant, Robert Warrior, I think we asked, ‘Is there any way that settlers would be at a meeting like that?’ And he said, ‘Of course.’ So I’m like, ‘Oh, well, that’s perfect, then we can truly bring our characters in.’ “We can have all our characters intersecting there without making it feel like this side story. It really could bring everybody into the fold.” For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page. Featured image credit: Netflix Post navigation Next storyPrevious story
