Conquest of America (2005)
Conquest of America (2005) This 4-episode The History Channel series about how Europeans came to control the four corners of North America is arguably one of the best programs produced by The History Channel in the first decade of its existence. History Channel original programs typically have been heavy on narration (usually by Edward Hermann), long on still-frame shots, and awash in grainy black-and-white archival footage. When their programs have used re-enactment footage, usually it has been low-budget, small-scale, and in hazy slow-motion (as if moving slower out of focus feels like it is from the past).
Conquest of America is the complete opposite: four documentary films that emphasize colorful, exciting live-action dramatization with professional actors playing most of the historical figures. However, the series is not a docu-drama. A narrator provides voice-over guidance throughout each episode, and commentators are inserted on-screen to provide analysis and explanation (mostly during the introductory segment at the start of each episode).
Historical dramatizations are always risky, dependent on how believably the actors pull off the dialogue and how authentic their backdrops appear. The actors in Conquest of America are uniformly quite good, and they are assisted by the carefully constructed screenplay—dialogue was taken from actual surviving period documents (notably diaries, letters, and trial proceedings). Even if such words never were actually spoken by the historical figures, the borrowed period dialogue provides a powerful sense of authenticity. In a similar vein, the costumes and scenery are of sufficient scale and lavishness to be convincing.
Episode 1 examines the Coronado expedition and its long-term effect on the conquest of the Southwest. Episode 2 details a disastrous attempt by French Huguenots to conquer the Southeast from the Spanish. Episode 3 dramatizes Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Northeast in a high-stakes search for a northwest passage. Episode 4 covers Bering’s expedition to claim the Northwest for Russia in face of competing Spanish claims.
Conquest of America is exciting to watch, as each episode presents a compelling, well-paced story. Every episode opens with a gripping but partial reference to events, and then flashes back to set the historical context. However, the film’s greatest strength is how each episode concludes by offering analysis of the broader significance of the events depicted. For example, Coronado’s expedition is not just
some adventure story; more significantly, news of his far-ranging and brutal campaign spread among the indigenous societies in North America and colored future Native expectations of how Europeans would behave.
For this reason, Conquest of America can be very profitably used in the history classroom. Perhaps young viewers might be troubled by some of the violence (particularly Coronado’s executions and the massacre of Jean Ribault’s men in the Southeast), but the dramatizations are not overtly gory. Furthermore, each episode times is under 45 minutes, a very useful length for standard classrooms.
Scott Metzger Pennsylvania State University sam59@psu.edu
