stolen women captured hearts

Editorial Reviews

Anna (Janine Turner), a beautiful young woman, allows her brother to arrange her marriage. She travels west to marry Daniel (Patrick Bergin), a man whom she has never met, but on the way is taken prisoner by the Sioux Indians. Their leader, the handsome warrior Tokalah (Michael Greyeyes), is set to kill Anna, until he realizes she is the woman who has come to him repeatedly in his dreams. He spares Anna's life and she continues to travel to Fort Hays where she meets and marries Daniel, the ordinary man her brother has chosen for her.

After only one night with her new husband, Anna and her friend Sarah (Jean Louisa Kelly) are taken hostage by a tribe of Sioux warriors led by Tokolah. They are forced to live like the Sioux, learning their language, dressing like them and adapting to their customs. During this time Tokalah and Anna spend together, they give in to their emotions and, regardless of the consequences, they fall in love.

After a year, the U.S. Cavalry and the Indians are at war and the women are rescued by General Custer. But Anna's heart still longs to be with Tokalah. Will she choose to follow her heart or obey the rules of convention?The Real Anna Brewster Morgan

According to historical reports, the real Anna Brewster was born December 10, 1844, and eventually went to live with her brother Daniel, who arranged for her to marry a man named James Morgan in 1868. One month later, a band of Sioux Indians raided their homestead and shot James and took Anna captive. The Sioux, traveling back to their village, met a band of Cheyenne Indians who had already captured a woman named Sarah White.

Anna was traded to the Cheyenne and went to live with them. She eventually married an Indian Chief whose name is not recorded but was found by General George Custer approximately a year after her capture, by which time she was pregnant with the Chief's child. Returned to James Morgan, she gave birth to a half-Indian son, Ira, but the boy fell ill and died around age 2, just ten days after the birth of the Morgans' daughter, Mary.

Anna bore James two more sons, Claud and Glen, but their marriage was not a happy one; Anna is reportedly quoted as saying, "I often wished they had never found me. Eventually Anna left James and went to live with her brother Daniel. James divorced her, and Anna lived under a lifelong stigma because of what happened to her, causing her to be admitted to a mental hospital later in life where she died in 1902. She was buried next to her son Ira.