Watch American Experience: We Shall Remain

2009
1 Season

American Experience: We Shall Remain is a documentary series from PBS that explores the history of Native American tribes in the United States. The series consists of five episodes, each focusing on a different tribe: the Wampanoag, the Cherokee, the Sioux, the Navajo, and the Apache. The first episode, "After the Mayflower," tells the story of the Wampanoag tribe and their interactions with the Pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The episode explores the complex relationship between the two groups, including the first Thanksgiving and the devastating effects of disease on the Wampanoag population. The second episode, "Tecumseh's Vision," focuses on the Cherokee Nation and their struggles to maintain their land and identity in the face of white settlers and government policies. The episode highlights the leadership of Tecumseh, a Shawnee warrior who united a coalition of tribes in resistance against the United States. The episode also covers the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Cherokee people to Indian Territory in Oklahoma in the 1830s. The third episode, "Trail of Tears," delves further into the Cherokee Nation's experience of forced relocation. The episode uses primary source material, including diaries and letters from Cherokee people, to provide a firsthand account of the journey westward. The episode also highlights the efforts of Cherokee leaders to resist relocation, including the legal battles led by John Ross. The fourth episode, "Geronimo," focuses on the Apache people and their resistance against the United States in the late 19th century. The episode tells the story of Geronimo, a prominent Apache leader who led raids against white settlers and U.S. soldiers. The episode also explores the role of Apache women in the resistance movement and the devastating effects of U.S. policies on Apache lifeways. The final episode, "Wounded Knee," covers the events leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and its aftermath. The episode highlights the rise of the Ghost Dance movement, a religious movement that spread among the Plains tribes and was seen as a threat by U.S. authorities. The episode also covers the Army's attack on a band of Sioux people at Wounded Knee Creek, which resulted in the deaths of over 150 Sioux men, women, and children. Throughout the series, American Experience: We Shall Remain seeks to provide a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of Native American history. The series draws on a wide range of historical sources, including primary source material, interviews with scholars and Native American leaders, and archival footage and images. The series also incorporates traditional Native American music, language, and storytelling into its narrative. Accordingly, the series tells a powerful story about the resilience, strength, and perseverance of Native American people in the face of adversity.

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Seasons

5. Wounded Knee

May 11, 2009

On the night of February 27, 1973, 54 cars rolled, horns blaring, into a small hamlet on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Within hours, some 200 Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement (AIM) activists had seized the few major buildings in town and police had cordoned off the area. The occupation of Wounded Knee had begun. Demanding redress for grievances -- some going back more than 100 years -- the protesters captured the world's attention for 71 gripping days. With heavily armed federal troops tightening a cordon around meagerly supplied, cold, hungry Indians, the event invited media comparisons with the massacre of Indian men, women and children at Wounded Knee almost a century earlier. In telling the story of this iconic moment, the final episode of WE SHALL REMAIN examines the broad political and economic forces that led to the emergence of AIM in the late 1960s, as well as the immediate events -- a murder and an apparent miscarriage of justice -- that triggered the takeover. Though the federal government failed to make good on many of the promises that ended the siege, the event succeeded in bringing the desperate conditions of Indian reservation life to the nation's attention. Perhaps even more important, it proved that despite centuries of encroachment, warfare and neglect, Indians remained a vital force in the life of America.

4. Geronimo

May 4, 2009

In February of 1909, the indomitable Chiricahua Apache warrior and war shaman Geronimo lay on his deathbed. He summoned his nephew to his side, whispering, "I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive." It was an admission of regret from a man whose insistent pursuit of military resistance in the face of overwhelming odds confounded not only his Mexican and American enemies, but many of his fellow Apaches as well. Born around 1820, Geronimo grew into a leading warrior and healer. But after his tribe was relocated to an Arizona reservation in 1872, he became a focus of the fury of terrified white settlers and of the growing tensions that divided Apaches struggling to survive under almost unendurable pressures. To angry whites, Geronimo became the archfiend, perpetrator of unspeakable savage cruelties. To his supporters, he remained the embodiment of proud resistance, the upholder of the old Chiricahua ways. To other Apaches, especially those who had come to see the white man's path as the only viable road, Geronimo was a stubborn troublemaker, unbalanced by his unquenchable thirst for vengeance, whose actions needlessly brought the enemy's wrath down on his own people. At a time when surrender to the reservation and acceptance of the white man's civilization seemed to be the Indians' only realistic options, Geronimo and his tiny band of Chiricahuas fought on. The final holdouts, they became the last Native-American fighting force to capitulate formally to the government of the United States.

3. Trail of Tears

April 27, 2009

The Cherokee would call it Nu-No-Du-Na-Tlo-Hi-Lu, "The Trail Where They Cried." On May 26, 1838, federal troops forced thousands of Cherokee from their homes in the Southeastern United States, driving them toward Indian Territory in Eastern Oklahoma. More than 4,000 died of disease and starvation along the way. For years the Cherokee had resisted removal from their land in every way they knew. Convinced that white America rejected Native Americans because they were "savages," Cherokee leaders established a republic with a European-style legislature and legal system. Many Cherokee became Christian and adopted westernized education for their children. Their visionary principal chief, John Ross, would even take the Cherokee case to the Supreme Court, where he won a crucial recognition of tribal sovereignty that still resonates. Though in the end the Cherokee embrace of "civilization" and their landmark legal victory proved no match for white land hunger and military power, the Cherokee people were able, with characteristic ingenuity, to build a new life in Oklahoma, far from the land that had sustained them for generations.

2. Tecumseh's Vision

April 20, 2009

In the spring of 1805, Tenskwatawa, a Shawnee, fell into a trance so deep that those around him believed he had died. When he finally stirred, the young prophet claimed to have met the Master of Life. He told those who crowded around to listen that the Indians were in dire straits because they had adopted white culture and rejected traditional spiritual ways. For several years Tenskwatawa's spiritual revival movement drew thousands of adherents from tribes across the Midwest. His elder brother, Tecumseh, would harness the energies of that renewal to create an unprecedented military and political confederacy of often antagonistic tribes, all committed to stopping white westward expansion. The brothers came closer than anyone since to creating an Indian nation that would exist alongside and separate from the United States. The dream of an independent Indian state may have died at the Battle of the Thames, when Tecumseh was killed fighting alongside his British allies, but the great Shawnee warrior would live on as a potent symbol of Native pride and pan-Indian identity.

1. After the Mayflower

April 13, 2009

In March of 1621, in what is now southeastern Massachusetts, Massasoit, the leading sachem of the Wampanoag, sat down to negotiate with a ragged group of English colonists. Hungry, dirty and sick, the pale-skinned foreigners were struggling to stay alive; they were in desperate need of Native help. Massasoit faced problems of his own. His people had lately been decimated 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 Native enemies at bay. He agreed to give the English the help they needed. 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.

Description

The first episode, "After the Mayflower," tells the story of the Wampanoag tribe and their interactions with the Pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The episode explores the complex relationship between the two groups, including the first Thanksgiving and the devastating effects of disease on the Wampanoag population.

The second episode, "Tecumseh's Vision," focuses on the Cherokee Nation and their struggles to maintain their land and identity in the face of white settlers and government policies. The episode highlights the leadership of Tecumseh, a Shawnee warrior who united a coalition of tribes in resistance against the United States. The episode also covers the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Cherokee people to Indian Territory in Oklahoma in the 1830s.

The third episode, "Trail of Tears," delves further into the Cherokee Nation's experience of forced relocation. The episode uses primary source material, including diaries and letters from Cherokee people, to provide a firsthand account of the journey westward. The episode also highlights the efforts of Cherokee leaders to resist relocation, including the legal battles led by John Ross.

The fourth episode, "Geronimo," focuses on the Apache people and their resistance against the United States in the late 19th century. The episode tells the story of Geronimo, a prominent Apache leader who led raids against white settlers and U.S. soldiers. The episode also explores the role of Apache women in the resistance movement and the devastating effects of U.S. policies on Apache lifeways.

The final episode, "Wounded Knee," covers the events leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and its aftermath. The episode highlights the rise of the Ghost Dance movement, a religious movement that spread among the Plains tribes and was seen as a threat by U.S. authorities. The episode also covers the Army's attack on a band of Sioux people at Wounded Knee Creek, which resulted in the deaths of over 150 Sioux men, women, and children.

Throughout the series, American Experience: We Shall Remain seeks to provide a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of Native American history. The series draws on a wide range of historical sources, including primary source material, interviews with scholars and Native American leaders, and archival footage and images. The series also incorporates traditional Native American music, language, and storytelling into its narrative. Accordingly, the series tells a powerful story about the resilience, strength, and perseverance of Native American people in the face of adversity.