PBS series takes an ambitious look at American Indian life after the arrival of the Mayflower
The long-running PBS history series embraces an expansive topic, with a five-part look at American Indian life after the arrival of the Mayflower
By ROBERT PHILPOT
rphilpot@star-telegram.com
During the course of more than 20 seasons, PBS’ history-documentary series American Experience has tackled diverse topics, beginning with the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and profiling personalities including P.T. Barnum, Duke Ellington and most U.S. presidents. But its latest project may be the most ambitious in the series’ history.
We Shall Remain, which begins Monday, is a five-part history of America — told from the perspective of the American Indian. Each episode runs roughly 90 minutes and focuses on a different chapter, beginning with After the Mayflower, which centers on the interaction between the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims, and concluding with Wounded Knee, which takes the series into the 20th century with the standoff between Oglala Lakota and federal troops at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1973.
“This is the first time we’ve done something like this,” says Sharon Grimberg, an American Experience executive producer. “It came out of another project that didn’t actually happen. Probably six or seven years ago we’d actually been contemplating — within American Experience — doing a comprehensive history of America.
“I was charged with doing the research for that series, and there were a number of early stories, pre-United States history, the early years of contact and settlement, that were very interesting. . . .We began to think, ‘What would a series about Native Americans look like?’ ”
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Grimberg says the series went through several permutations before the producers realized it couldn’t be encyclopedic and all-encompassing, so they picked moments that illuminated parts of the larger story.
“If you watch the first film all the way through the last film, they build on each other,” she says. Although each show can stand on its own, she adds, “if you watch them cumulatively . . . you have a greater understanding of the native experience and its place in our history.”
It may seem like We Shall Remain is treading well-covered ground. The plight of the American Indian has been addressed through the years, mostly notably through Dee Brown’s 1972 bestseller, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. But We Shall Remain manages to tell stories that, although not new, aren’t necessarily well-known. After the Mayflower, for instance, goes past the Pilgrims’ 1620 landing and the first Thanksgiving to tell more than 40 additional years of Wampanoag-Pilgrim relations, not all of which were as peaceful as those early meetings.
“I think what we’ve looked at in Native American history is the flashy stuff, the warfare,” says R. David Edmunds, Watson professor of American History at the University of Texas at Dallas and one of the series’ advisers. “People like conflict. They like to read about war chiefs: Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, people who were famous.
“But there’s a lot more that has gone on that is also just as important,” says Edmunds, who is one-eighth Cherokee and has written several books about American Indian history. “I think the circumstances behind the ‘Trail of Tears’ [which is episode three’s subject], the conflict within the Cherokee nation. That’s really a complex situation. It’s almost like a Shakespearean tragedy.”
Edmunds, who also taught at Texas Christian University for 13 years, says that one of the series’ goals is not to romanticize American Indians or treat them as victims, but to show the part they played in U.S. history and the roles they play today.
“Many Americans have no idea of the perseverance of tribal people,” Edmunds says. “Native people are still here. We’re in the midst of the Metroplex. I don’t think many tribal people fit the stereotype that non-Indian people have of them, so they don’t realize how many people there are around who are of tribal descent, who are Native American.
“And I think that’s very important.” (Edmunds, Grimberg and director Chris Eyre held a panel discussion about the series in March at UT-Dallas, and most of the people who asked questions identified themselves as having some Indian background.)
Grimberg, who is British but has been an American Experience producer for nine years, says she comes to the series from a different perspective than most Americans would because she doesn’t have a similar history. But she says she did learn things from working on the series.
“One, just how diverse the native community is and continues to be to this day,” she says. “There are 162 federally recognized tribes, and they all have their distinct cultures and histories.
“The other thing that really sunk in over the course of developing the project is just how essential it is to American history to understand the native experience. I think a lot of us who live here think of the United States as a country of immigrants, and we understand that story. . . . But that doesn’t include an understanding that there were millions of people living here before Europeans sailed to this continent. And that’s a huge hole in the understanding of the history of the United States.”
Edmunds is prepared for the possibility that some people might view the films as revisionist history, but he points out that it’s not out to portray non-Indian settlers and pioneers as villains so much as it is trying to tell another side of the story.
“All history is revisionist history,” Edmunds says. “But by looking at several sides of the prisms, several ways of looking at a series of events, you get a better perspective. Otherwise, you’re kind of like the blind men and the elephant — you look at something from one perspective and you think, ‘That’s exactly what happened.’ By looking at as many sides as possible, we get a better overview of exactly what’s going on.”
American Experience: We Shall Remain 8 p.m. Mondays through May 11
KERA/Channel 13
ROBERT PHILPOT, 817-390-7872
An American Experience “We Shall Remain” ~ Oregon Public Broadcasting “OPB”
| OPB HD
Mon, Apr 13, 9:00pm · After The Mayflower Decades of English immigration and lethal Sun, Apr 19, 3:00pm · After The Mayflower __________________________________ Mon, Apr 20, 9:00pm Tecumseh’sVision Tenskwatawa’s spiritual revival movement tried Sun, Apr 26, 3:00pm · Tecumseh’s Vision __________________________________ Mon, Apr 27, 9:00pm · Trail Of Tears In 1838, thousands of Cherokee died while __________________________________ Sun, May 3, 1:30am · Tecumseh’s Vision Tenskwatawa’s spiritual revival movement __________________________________ Mon, May 4, 9:00pm · Geronimo The healer and leading warrior led the __________________________________ Mon, May 11, 9:00pm · Wounded Knee Political and economic forces led to the |
OPB TV
Mon, Apr 13, 9:00pm · After The Mayflower Decades of English immigration and lethal epidemics Wed, Apr 15, 3:00am · After The Mayflower __________________________________ Mon, Apr 20, 9:00pm · Tecumseh’s Vision Tenskwatawa’s spiritual revival movement tried Wed, Apr 22, 3:00am · Tecumseh’s Vision (repeat) __________________________________ Mon, Apr 27, 9:00pm · Trail Of Tears In 1838, thousands of Cherokee died while being Wed, Apr 29, 3:00am · Trail Of Tears (repeat) __________________________________ Mon, May 4, 9:00pm · Geronimo The healer and leading warrior led the final Wed, May 6, 3:00am · Geronimo (repeat) __________________________________ Mon, May 11, 9:00pm · Wounded Knee Political and economic forces led to the emergence Wed, May 13, 3:00am · Wounded Knee |
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