Drums Along the Mohawk

Drums Along the Mohawk

It is 1939; a second world war looms on the horizon. The Great Depression is ongoing but slowly coming to a close, but you do not know this. It seems like it will never end and that your “American dream” may never be possible. What should the country do? Go into war or worry about our own problems? How do you go on? Do you hope the economy will turn around and have hope for the future or give up on the idea of individual success and life without poverty? The movie “Drums along the Mohawk” shows the people of the 1700’s struggling with these same problems. It was made for the poor people affected by the Great Depression. It was made to give them hope and to persuade those against the war that the USA needed to stand up against Nazis.
Drums along the Mohawk” is set just before the colonies were about to enter into a war with England and in 1939 WWII was just starting and the USA was coming close to becoming involved in the war. In both instances there existed controversy over whether or not the colonies, in the movie, and the USA, in 1939, should enter the war. Some colonists did not think the England’s rule over them was a bad thing and these people wanted to stay loyal to their “mother country.” In 1939 some people thought that we should worry about our own problems, mainly the economy, and not worry about a war that is happening on a different continent. “Drums along the Mohawk” makes it very clear that England’s rule over the colonies was oppressive. In the scene where the Martin’s farm is attacked, the Native Americans, England’s allies, are portrayed as savages that want nothing more than to destroy a house and farm. There is no reason for this other than England, more specifically its king, is a tyrant. This portrayal is very similar to the way in which people of 1939 thought about Hitler. The scene in which the Native Americans and English try to set the captured colonists on fire really drives home the point to the viewers that the...

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