Injustice to the Native Americans Families torn apart, shaken by diseases, land stolen by the new settlers, the Native Americans faced unimaginable hardships caused by the English since the day they landed on Plymouth Rock. Not being familiar with the land, the English had a hard time surviving in the new environment and this resulted in them being famished, filthy, and sick. In March of 1621, the Native Americans lent the struggling Pilgrims a hand. In a mere fifty years, a war has begun between the English colonists and the Native Americans. In the five-part documentary, “We Shall Remain”, the filmmakers show the disloyalty of the Pilgrims towards the Native Americans.
Historian, R. David Edmund said in the film that “this war that breaks out in New England is a major war. It has a big impact on the societies in New England, both Native American and white.” The Wampanoag had only decided to lend out a helping hand in hopes to have the foreigners help them defeat their enemies. When the Native Americans became vulnerable, the English took full advantage of the situation and deviously started to claim the native’s lands. The English’s greed had led to the Native to look at them so differently now. It’s ironic to think that the Native Americans and the English, who are not so much foreigners anymore, were once allies but have now turned on each other.
Renowned Harvard historian and author, Bernard Bailyn, of the book “The Barbarous Years” discusses about “the chaotic decades from the establishment of Jamestown [England’s first permanent colony in the Americas] in 1607 up to King Phillip’s War [the vicious conflict that effectively expelled Indians from New England] in 1675-76.” In Charles C. Mann’s review on Bailyn’s book “The Barbarous Years”, it is said that many other conservative writers would praise the English and their finding of America but this book is definitely not one of them. Bailyn points out how the English were kept coming back because all they had in mind was profit. The English since the beginning wanted to make the most revenue of their “discovery”. Bailyn, Mann, and the filmmakers of “We Shall Remain” can all agree that the English mistreated the Native Americans’ hospitality.
“It's hard to see how conflict could have been avoided and how the outcome of that war could have been different. Looking at the generation before this war, there is at least a moment, where things were different” said