In Search of The Real Searchers

Published: June 13, 2015, 9:05 p.m.

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Sixty years ago John Ford travelled to Monument Valley to make his greatest Western, The Searchers. Based on Alan LeMay\\u2019s novel, it is still a powerful tale of race, violence and redemption as Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) searches for his niece Debbie, abducted by a Comanche raiding party on the Texas frontier. But, as Mark Burman discovers, The Searchers is a gateway to the real and powerful story of the forging of Texas statehood and the rise and fall of the Comanche empire.

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