We Shall Remain

[W. Gray]

A very good PBS American Experience program started tonight called "We Shall Remain," a five part Monday night series on the American Indian.

Each of the programs is about one hour twenty minutes long.

In the first part, they did not cover Jamestown or Pocahontas instead concentrating on early Massachusetts settlements.

Based on the first part, don't expect any sympathy for the white man or his religion.

I think the real conflict for either the Indian or the white man was survival. Both went about their own way of trying to ensure theirs.

[pam]

   I watched it last night...pretty good.I have been hearing about it, it's supposed to be from the perspective of the natives instead of the europeans.

[dnalexander]

I also watched. As a history enthusiast I waited for this show with anticipation. I found the actual production to be poor and uninteresting.  Maybe Ken Burns' productions of  "The West" and "Lewis and Clark" have ruined me to less well produced takes on history. (Since these are all PBS series). That being said, I still think I will watch all 5 parts of the series . For fans of history and Ken Burns' you may want to keep an eye out for his series on National Parks due out in the Fall of 2009. (National Parks are also one of my great loves.)

David

[pam]

      Maybe so but I think it's goin to tell some things that need to be said.

[dnalexander]

Pam I like the show's concept of telling it from the Indians perspective and that was the hook that got me to watch. My comments were solely about the  execution. I too think it is worth watching the rest of the series.

David

[W. Gray]

Tecumseh, a Shawnee, is to be featured in next weeks episode.

In the early 1800s, he was trying to rally any Indian nation that would listen to rebel against the U.S. These tribes took the gigantic New Madrid, Missouri, earthquake of 1811 as a sign from the heavens that they should support him. But they failed; a future president, William Henry Harrison, defeated them that same year at Tippecanoe.

The Shawnee called their most important village Chillicothe.

Eventually the Shawnees were moved to Kansas in the area of what became Topeka and Shawnee County. Topeka is a Shawnee word meaning something like a good place to grow potatoes.

Tecumseh did not come to Kansas because he and his followers fought for the British during the War of 1812 and he was killed during a battle.

The Shawnee, like the Cherokee, adopted an alphabet and put their words into writing.

The first newspaper in Kansas was an Indian newspaper, was started in 1835, and was called the Shawnee Sun.

[pam]

Pam I like the show's concept of telling it from the Indians perspective and that was the hook that got me to watch. My comments were solely about the  execution. I too think it is worth watching the rest of the series.

David

Yeah I agree it's a little stiff and jumped around alot. Think they are trying to put too much info in too little space. Did you see the series the Native Americans oh about 15 years ago or so? They tried to do the same thing but took a LOT more time and it was a much longer series. My brother-in-law taped it for me because I didn't have cable at the time and I still have it on tape lol which pretty much makes it extinct. I'd like to find it on DVD somewhere.

[W. Gray]

Tecumseh was on last night.

The narrator mentioned that the US government in the early 1800s started to build factory forts to trade with the Indians.

One of the Indian guest commentators made the observation that this trade with the white man only increased the Indians dependence on the government—as though trade were a bad thing.

I have never understood why these forts were called the factory system. The commander was called the "factor" and he was commissioned to trade with the Indians. The entire factory system was shut down in 1822.

One of these factory forts was Fort Clark on the Missouri River twenty-five miles east of Kansas City at what is now Sibley, Missouri. A treaty signed there in 1808 with the Osage sent them from Missouri and Arkansas to Kanzas. The Osage were run out of the Ohio Valley by other Indians a couple hundred years earlier. Kanzas was then part of Louisiana Territory. It later became part of Missouri Territory.

Initially the Osage legally owned all the land south of the Kansas and Republican Rivers, which is quite a hunk of real estate. The Kanza tribe legally owned everything north of those rivers.

About fifteen years later the Osage, in another treaty, were moved south into a greatly reduced reservation in southern Kanzas that most Elk and Chautauqua residents are aware about.

The reason for this move? To make room for the many other tribes, including Tecumseh's Shawnee and Diane's neighbors, the Delaware. Even the Missouri Indian tribe was moved to Kanzas. About twenty-five tribes in all were moved from the east.

After another thirty to forty years, the federal government again moved these many tribes; this time south to what is now Oklahoma. The Kanza were the last to leave the state. The Osage were next to last.

However, Kansas still has four Indian reservations.

Fort Clark became Fort Osage and a rebuilt version has been open to visitors since 1949, or so. I have been there probably a hundred times as it was not far from my high school home and that was a popular teenage visiting spot.

[Diane Amberg]

Isn't it because those forts had trading posts? People would go from fort to fort to purchase or sell supplies?  I remember reading something about that at fort Union.The "Factor" over saw the trading post too. I'm not sure if my memory is correct. 

[W. Gray]

I just looked up the meaning of factory and one meaning is:

A business establishment for commercial agents or factors in a foreign country.