Anybody watching the "We Shall Remain" series on PBS?

[scarletwoman]

While each chapter in the series has been heartbreaking in its own way, tonight's episode on Geronimo was particularly wrenching. The image of 39 people running and hiding from 5 thousand U.S. troops arrayed against them, all in a desperate effort to remain free, had me in tears.

Trying to remain free...

[Imalittleteapot]

1. I have watched 1 1/2 episodes. All are being

TIVOed. It is so painful to watch that I have to be in a pretty good mood to turn it on. The stories of ethnic cleansing really bring me down, yet the courage of some of the natives is inspiring. "We Shall Remain" is an excellent production and should be viewed by all.

[mikekohr]

3. Check out the webpage, "Your Heroes Are Not Our Heroes"

@ http://www.brotherhooddays.com/HEROES.html

[scarletwoman]

4. Thanks. Yes, it IS an excellent production, and yes, it's painful.

I've spent years immersing myself in American Indian history, and I'm still learning more from this series. My late partner was an Ashinanaabe cultural historian, I've been involved to one degree or another in Native issues since the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee.

It's such a heartbreaking history, I have trouble finding words to express my thoughts.

sw

[EFerrari]

28. I have to watch each episode twice because the first time

my mind flinches so many times, I miss a lot.

[MUAD_DIB]

2. I was able to watch most of it, but it was interesting that not all

of those interviewed had a positive view of what Geronimo did.


Regardless, it is a sad tale.

[scarletwoman]

6. I loved the honesty. There was the one man who said he really didn't know which path

he would have chosen. I can't even imagine being forced into a situation in which such a choice would have to considered.

At what point do you accept defeat? Should you ever accept defeat when it's a question of giving up your freedom?

I have no answers, all I know is that it isn't right -- can NEVER be right -- to put other human beings in that situation.

sw

[MUAD_DIB]

25. My father was told stories by his great aunt

about "fighting Indians" during the wagon train era.

I'm not sure if it was a tall tale that was told to a young kid at the time or if there was a reality to it.


I would hate to think of my ancestors as being the type that persecuted the natives of the great plains.

[scarletwoman]

26. Well, pretty much all of white America was of the same mind back then.

Ethnic cleansing was the accepted norm. We haven't changed all that much in any case. It's still the accepted thing to murder large numbers of non-white people.

sw

[pinto]

5. I watched the first three on-line Sat. Especially liked the opener on Massasoit.

Though I lived 20 some odd years in New England - grammar and high school - my knowledge of the whole history was sketchy.

[B o d i]

7. Does anyone know if it's online? I'd like to watch it all from the beginning.

I'd also like to share it with a couple friends, but all I found so far are trailers on the pbs site http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/the_films/episode_1_trailer

Those are only about 6 minutes per episode.

[scarletwoman]

8. I'm thinking most likely it's not available online since they're selling a DVD of the series.

Unlikely that they'd be giving it away for free. I think I'll probably buy the DVD when I can manage it.

sw

[EFerrari]

13. The segments that have already played are on line, 1-3. n/t

[scarletwoman]

15. Thanks. My computer can't do video, so I don't bother trying to look for it. (nt)

[EFerrari]

17. I'm very surprised they released it in this way. n/t

[Jim Pivonka]

9. Wounded Kneww is up next...

Despite many years of reading bout Native American history I hac never heard of Wounded Knee until I picked up an old book on that tragedy in a university library back in '72. Yes, there was one - the new version always seemed too easy, being written in a time sympathetic to its P.O.V. by an author of that time. In the original book, also by a woman, I felt the tension of discovery of terrible truths, and writing about them, in a time which was definitely not ready to hear them, and by an author who struggled with them as she discovered them.

After reading that, I was unable to handle HBO's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" on the "hot" medium of the tube. And as good as this series is, I doubt I'll attempt the Wounded Knee segment.

[scarletwoman]

10. Are you talking about the 1970 book "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown?

I picked up an old book on that tragedy in a university library back in '72.

The upcoming Wounded Knee episode is about the 1973 takeover by the American Indian Movement (AIM), not the 1898 massacre (although I imagine the 19th century massacre will most certainly be referenced).

sw

[EFerrari]

11. Just started here. n/t

[scarletwoman]

14. I just kept thinking about "freedom" -- do we even know what that really means?

I honestly don't think we do. Not in the way that Geronimo's people felt about it.

sw

[EFerrari]

16. No, we don't. My family has some Pipil in them.

Sometimes I think that's why I used to feel so caged when we came back from our weeks out camping. It's silly but, there it is. Took days to get used to being indoors again.

Difficult to pay attention to those things when your people have spent the last two hundred years trying to ignore them.

[scarletwoman]

18. Conform to western (white) ways or else.

I see the same thing here on DU -- conform or else.

That's what this latest episode REALLY made me think about.

sw

[EFerrari]

19. Yes. It gets local, personal, when the force bears down on a body.

These landscapes are so vast. It wasn't a matter of acres out West but of control, imho.

[scarletwoman]

23. There is nothing so threatening to those who cherish their illusion of superiority than those who do

not accept it.

And nothing more threatening to those who cherish their illusion of "freedom" than those who actually insist on living free.

sw

[mmonk]

32. Well said.

[Arctic Dave]

12. I am out in the field now so I couldn't watch the latest episode.

It has been a very captivating series. I will definately buy it.

[ismnotwasm]

20. Yes

It's extremely painful to me, but I watch it.

[EFerrari]

21. 1881 is only 10 years before my grandmother was born.

And yet the New York Times was already spewing venom.

[scarletwoman]

24. The NYT has always been the voice of the Ruling Class. (nt)

[EFerrari]

22. This segment makes me wonder how many people or groups

went south at this time. n/t

[EFerrari]

27. 9,000 "hunters" against 39 fugitives and they never succeeded

in catching a single one.

[scarletwoman]

29. The question is, what threat were those 39 people? Yet, those 39 people could NOT be left in peace.

Oh no, those 39 people trying to be free were an affront to America.

[EFerrari]

30. Native people are still an affront to those who seek to own, even today.

They obstruct the founding edenic "American" myth of a vast empty continent.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

31. Yes

And each episode compounds America's debt to the original nations.

When will this debt ever be paid ?