National Geographic is bringing the story of the first Thanksgiving to the silver screen this Sunday and Monday in a two-part miniseries, Saints & Strangers.
The four-hour event chronicles the pilgrims fleeing from religious persecution on the Mayflower and settling where the Wampanoag people lived on the shores of New England. The Wampanoag people’s generosity to the pilgrims—who were suffering from disease and dwindling food supplies after a long, harsh winter in a new world—and the desire for peace between the two communities culminates in the most famous Thanksgiving celebration in America.
The series shows the Wampanoag struggling with the costs of letting colonists settle on their lands, knowing that English settlers had ravaged the Wampanoag with disease and slavery in the past. Yet a few men still hoped for peace between their two communities.
Mad Men star Vincent Kartheiser, an actor of German descent who plays the pilgrim William Bradford – a man who would go on to found and govern the Plymouth Colony settlement – says his character and the pilgrims’ fight for survival taught him the true value of the holiday he’s been celebrating his entire life.
“What is amazing is how the Pilgrims could be thankful even though they didn’t have much,” Kartheiser says. “They arrived with nothing, landed in winter, slept in the cold and were sick, and yet they were thankful. That is what Thanksgiving is about. I have a real appreciation for what they went through and their state of mind. It’s something I don’t think I could ever achieve, but something I can admire.”
Actor Raoul Trujillo – a descendant of the Apache and Ute tribes and the co-director of the American Indian Dance Theater — plays Wampanoag chief Massassoit in the series and shares why he felt a duty to do justice to the man he was playing on screen.
“From my perspective, Massasoit represents not just the short history we are covering in this film, but also about 150 years of watching an assault on the native people by the English settlers,” Trujillo says. “Disease came with them, and that turmoil resulted in tribe versus tribe. What I am trying to bring to him is that sense of someone who is a war general and chief, but also has a desperation to save his people.”
Determined to achieve the utmost historical accuracy, the Native American actors who star in Saints & Strangers learned Western Abenaki – an endangered language spoken by the Wampanoag during that time.
Kalani Queypo –a Blackfoot and Native Hawaiian actor and a founding member of the National American Indian Committee at SAGAFTRA—plays Squanto. He explains why he was excited to work with Nat Geo to bring the story of the Native American community to life:
“They have put themselves behind this script, which delves into the hardships and small victories of these people who wanted to do something great but didn’t always make the best decisions,” Queypo says. “It is our history, pretty or not. It’s a big part of who we are as Americans.”
Queypo also shared why he hopes people will tune into the series.
“I hope that it will spark an interest so people will further seek information,” Queypo says. “In the history of native cinema, there are such grossly portrayed caricatures of native people that people unfortunately accept as truth. Doing this movie was an opportunity to be a part of a native storyline that is multidimensional, about sophisticated people with feelings, and an opportunity for me to be part of a story that has not only integrity and truth but also humanity.”
Saints & Strangers airs Sunday, Nov. 22nd at 9 p.m. on National Geographic.
