We Shall Remain After The Mayflower Analysis

David Ventura
Professor Atkinson
History-1301 81201
29 Sep. 2015
We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower
In March of 1621, in what is now southern Massachusetts, Massasoit, the leading sachem of the Wampanoag, sat down to negotiate with a ragged group of English colonist. Hungry, dirty, and sick, the pale-skinned foreigners were struggling to stay alive; they were in desperate need to help Native help. The film was called, “We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower,” it was release in April 13, 2009 – May 11, 2009. The Pilgrims made landfall in Plymouth and provides a brief, but rich window into the way of life for the Wampanoag, the local Native American tribe near Plymouth, before the Pilgrims arrived. What was it like to be Wampanoag, the
people of the first light, stretched out along the ocean, clearly aware of your place in the continent, welcoming the sun before all others? We also learn about the broad strokes of their political relationships with other local tribes as well as the plague that arrived just before the pilgrims killing 9 in 10 Wampanoag. Massasoit faced problems of his own. His people had lately been ravaged by unexplained sickness, leaving them vulnerable to the rival Narragansett to the west. The Wampanoag sachem calculated that a tactical alliance with the foreigners would provide a way to protect his people and hold his enemies at bay. He agreed to give the English the help they needed. No one knows for sure what really happened, but I think the reality was different. The local Indians traditionally held a harvest feast every fall. For the Pilgrims' sake, they brought and prepared most of the food. They outnumbered the Pilgrims by something like 2-1. So it might be more correct to say the Indians decided to share their feast with the Pilgrims, not the other way around. After the first Thanksgiving, the episode continues with the events of the next 50 years. It keeps its focus firmly on Massasoit and his son Metacom (Philip). This approach works exceedingly well. We get personally involved with father and son, and want to see how their story unfolds, even though we know how it ends. At the end, I wasn't moved or anything because I'm not that kind of guy. But After the Mayflower made the events of that period real for me. I had read about them in history books, of course, but I can't say they sunk in. Now I don't think I'll forget what happened after the Mayflower. I might've suggested was not starting with the thanksgiving feast.
Tell the tale in chronological order and build up to the moment everyone's familiar with. That would've created a little tension that I think is missing in the first third. People would've been watching and waiting for the big moment. In 1660 the English began to establish "Praying Towns" which offered safety for natives in exchange for their conversion to Christianity and rejection of all of their traditional life ways. After the Mayflower includes excerpts from Tears, a collection of testimonies that converts, known as "Praying Indians", gave in front of a panel of ministers in order to prove their sincerity. They reflect the effects of being told your whole culture and way of life is evil: When they said the devil was my God, I was angry, because I was proud. I loved to pray to many Gods. Then going to your house, I more desired to hear of God… then I was angry with myself and loathed myself and thought God will not forgive my sins. A half-century later, as a brutal war flared between the English colonists and a confederation of New England Indians, the wisdom of Massasoit’s diplomatic gamble seemed less clear. Five decades of English immigration, mistreatment, lethal epidemics and widespread environmental degradation had brought the Indians and their way of life to the brink of disaster. Led by Metacom, Massasoit’s son, the Wampanoag and their Native allies fought back against the English, nearly pushing them into the
sea.
The first scenes recount the classic Thanksgiving story. Although the camera focuses on a handful of Wampanoag Indians, the account seems to come from a non-Native point of view. As we've been told a thousand times, the Pilgrims have invited the Indians to share a thanksgiving feast with them. I think the creators made a good choice here. An abstract recitation of facts might have grown boring, but the personal approach makes us care. And for those inclined to be put off by "guilt trips," we don't see a lot of dead or dying Indians. The video is made to be accessible for any student, from special education through high school. I would not recommend the series to students younger than high school aged unless they are advanced or gifted. It is a little hard to understand what really happen, but once you learn all the information, you will get the idea “We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower.”