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In 1956, John Ford's film ‘The Searchers’ offered a vivid and complex portrayal of frontier life in post-Civil War Texas - adapted from Alan Le May's classic 1954 novel.

It’s memorably dominated by the brooding presence of John Wayne's Ethan Edwards, a bitter war veteran searching for his kidnapped niece.

But what is the real history behind the novel and film? Who were the real searchers? Mark Burman takes an epic journey across the American West.

It begins in God's own movie set, Monument Valley, the backdrop for all Ford's Westerns from Stagecoach onwards. On screen, this is Texas 1868, marauded by Comanches. In reality, this is Arizona, the Indians are Navajo and their leader, Scar, is actually Heinrich von Kleinbach! This is a piece of casting that finds unlikely echoes in the real history behind The Searchers.

Three decades separate two raids that encapsulate the long war between the Comanches and the white settlers who found their way to Texas in ever growing numbers. In 1836 a brutal attack on Fort Parker saw the abduction of 9 year old Cynthia Ann Parker whilst in 1864 the Elm Creek Raid took the family of black slave Britt Johnson. These events and other bitter encounters between Comanches and Texans shaped both Texas history and the later mythology of the Wild West.

The real searchers, Burman finds, are even more heroic than John Wayne and a challenge to the movie stereotypes of cowboys and Indians.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on Â鶹Éç Radio 4 in October 2014.