Hello everyone,

Last Monday began the PBS Series, "WE SHALL REMAIN" with their first Episode "After The Mayflower".

The ones that will get my attention begin next week, Monday April 20th, 2009, and especially the April 27th "Trail of Tears" episode which will feature "The Ridge", the Cherokee leader and his clan who I wrote about in "Jesus Wept" An American Story.

From PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/

"Though the Cherokee embraced “civilization” and won recognition of tribal sovereignty in the U.S. Supreme Court, their resistance to removal from their homeland failed. Thousands were forced on a perilous march to Oklahoma."

It will be VERY interesting to see how PBS deals with this situation or if they will be overtaken with the usual political correctness and historical rumor.
My story is taken from documented records as well as family letters saved from the time. I sincerely hope PBS's story is also as factual. We shall see. It's a story worth telling, if we understand how such political actions can and are repeating themselves in our current climate.

Thanks,
TheTownCrier

TV PREVIEW

'We Shall Remain': From Plymouth to Wounded Knee, a Tale of Survival

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/12/AR2009041202539

[snip]"The episodes devoted to Tecumseh and the Trail of Tears are the most emotionally powerful, and achieve the best balance between reenactment and standard documentary style. In "Trail of Tears," the third episode, distinguished Native American actor Wes Studi stars as Major Ridge, a prosperous Cherokee landholder who decided it was in the interest of his people, and his own prosperity, to give up an independent Cherokee homeland in the southern Appalachians in hopes of peace and resettlement in land west of the Mississippi. It is one of the most vile and shameful chapters in the history of U.S. relations with Native Americans, and Studi captures well the anguish of his conflicted character.

The filmmakers don't shy away from internal conflicts within native societies, and these conflicts were often exploited by outsiders. It was the Mohawks, loyal to the English, who turned on King Philip and defeated him. After Major Ridge, who owned black slaves and sent his son to boarding school in Connecticut, signed a desperate treaty with the Americans he was viewed as a traitor. He and his son were killed by their own people."