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 …show more content…
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