Day of Mourning Perspective on Native American Heritage Month
Seeing facts through smoke and mirrors...
IN THIS POST: How federal “Native American Heritage” proclamations celebrate and hide American domination of Original Peoples.
“Day of Mourning” — Native Resistance
In 1970, Native dissatisfaction with the American ritual of self-congratulation called “Thanksgiving” boiled over into the first “Day of Mourning”—an event celebrating the continued existence of Indigenous Peoples in the face of centuries of genocidal actions to build an American empire.
The boil-over happened after the Massachusetts Department of Commerce and Development dis-invited Wamsutta Frank James1 (Aquinnah Wampanoag) from their planned celebration of the 350th anniversary of what they called the Pilgrim “arrival on” Wampanoag lands.
Wamsutta had accepted the invitation and looked forward to setting the record straight that the Pilgrim “arrival” was an invasion. When the planners saw a copy of his speech they refused to let him deliver it. They suggested he deliver a speech prepared by their public relations staff. He refused.
Wamsutta spoke at a separate gathering, marking the beginning of a continuing tradition: The National Day of Mourning.
Excerpt’s from Wamsutta’s unwelcome speech:
This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.
Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves…. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry.
Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation….
The important point is that … we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.
The “First Thanksgiving” - Fiction and Fact
1) The most-cited story is a fabled 1621 Pilgrim harvest gathering
In 2021, the US National Archives posted an article about “the so-called First Thanksgiving story”:
During the autumn of 1621, at least 90 Wampanoag joined 52 English people at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, to mark a successful harvest. It is remembered today as the “First Thanksgiving”….
In fact, much of the so-called First Thanksgiving story was created decades and centuries later…based more in fiction than fact.
Pilgrim Hall Museum says “there are 2 (and only 2) primary sources for the events of autumn 1621 in Plymouth: Edward Winslow’s Mourt's Relation and William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation”.
Only Mourt's Relation reports a gathering like unto the fabled “first Thanksgiving”:
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. …
At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation ….
Mourt’s continues:
We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us, very loving and ready to pleasure us. …
Yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us, …that not only the greatest king amongst them, called Massasoit, but also all the princes and peoples round about us, have …been glad of any occasion to make peace with us….
They are a people without any religion or knowledge of any God, yet very trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe-witted, just.
The National Archives says:
The First Thanksgiving story emphasizes a peaceful exchange between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag…
It … rarely acknowledges that peace was short-lived.
Within a generation, war would erupt and the Wampanoag would ultimately lose their political independence and much of their territory.
2) The first official Pilgrim Thanksgiving, in 1637, celebrated a holocaust:
Plymouth Colony leader William Bradford designated “a day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for our victories against the Pequots”.
Here are Bradford’s own words, from his history "Of Plimoth Plantation”:
Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, other rune throw with their repaiers, so as they were quickly dispatched, and very few escaped. …
It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stinck and sente there of;
But the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.
The Pequot massacre was literally a holocaust — the term comes via Latin holocaustum from Greek holokaustos: "something wholly burnt up”.
US National Thanksgivings — A Historical Trajectory
The earliest US “National Thanksgiving” was in 1789, when George Washington proclaimed a day to celebrate “the many signal favors of Almighty God,” including the new Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson …declined to make a proclamation in 1801, saying supporting the holiday meant supporting state-sponsored religion.
Abraham Lincoln designated a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise” in October 1863, during the Civil War, “to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens… notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field”.
Teddy Roosevelt’s 1908 Proclamation was the first to introduce “Indians”. It was pejorative:
The thirteen colonies which straggled along the seacoast of the Atlantic … were hemmed-in but a few miles west of tidewater by the Indian haunted wilderness….
A decade after the first Day of Mourning, Jimmy Carter’s 1980 Thanksgiving Proclamation became the first to favorably mention the Original Peoples, referred to as “America's earliest inhabitants”.
Carter recited the 1621 Pilgrim story and then falsified subsequent history:
Thanksgiving is more than just a day of celebration. It is also a commemoration of the day America's earliest inhabitants sat down to table with European colonists.
That occasion was historic…because it marked the start of a national tradition of cooperation, unity and tolerance.
In 2021, Judd Birdsall, at Georgetown University, wrote:
It was during the presidency of Ronald Reagan that Native Americans … became prominent contributors to Thanksgiving in presidential proclamations. …
Obama devoted by far the most space to Native Americans…. He focused roughly equal attention on the Pilgrims and Indians, portraying the 1621 event as very much a collective experience.
For example, Barack Obama’s 2010 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation added a “reflection” on the Pilgrim story:
Thanksgiving Day offers us the opportunity to focus our thoughts on the grace that…brought together the newly arrived Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe …in an autumn harvest feast centuries ago.
This Thanksgiving Day, we reflect on the compassion and contributions of Native Americans, whose skill in agriculture helped the early colonists survive, and whose rich culture continues to add to our Nation's heritage.
Joe Biden’s 2023 Thanksgiving Proclamation followed this narrative. He celebrated “this season of reflection and giving thanks” and traced it to the comforting schoolbook story:
Before there was a United States of America, the Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving in honor of their first successful harvest and the support and generosity of the Wampanoag people who made it possible.
From Jimmy Carter on, US Thanksgiving Proclamations have focused on Pilgrims and Indians and falsified American history
Jimmy Carter’s notion that the 1621 meeting was the start of a “tradition of cooperation, unity and tolerance” is a gross falsification of American history.
Barack Obama’s notion that the “rich culture [of Native Americans] continues to add to our Nation's heritage” wholly obscures the attempted (and in some cases successful) genocide of Original Peoples.
“Native American Indian Heritage Month” — Denying Genocidal History and Celebrating Assimilation
In 1990, twenty years after the first Day of Mourning, the US Congress passed a Joint Resolution authorizing the president to designate November as “Native American Indian Heritage Month”. A similar Resolution was passed in 1991.
The 1990 Resolution opened with a hilarious statement:
…American Indians have made an essential and unique contribution to our Nation, not the least of which is the contribution of most of the land which now comprises these United States….
🤯 “Contribution” of lands! No “Indian Removal”, just a friendly gift, like the venison the Wampanoag brought to feed the Pilgrims in 1621.
The 1991 Resolution deleted this bizarre clause.
The 1990 Resolution riffed on the 1621 Pilgrim story and turned the colonizers into “visitors”:
The people of the United States should be reminded of the assistance given to the early European visitors to North America by the ancestors of today's American Indians….
The 1990 Resolution replaced the Iroquois experience of George Washington as Conotocarious, or "Town Destroyer” with a story of “support the original inhabitants provided to George Washington and his troops during the winter of 1777-1778”.
The name Conotocarious—”Town Destroyer” — had its origins in 1779, when Washington ordered what at the time was the largest-ever campaign against Indigenous Peoples.
Washington authorized the "total destruction and devastation" of Iroquois settlements so "that country may not merely be overrun but destroyed.”
The Resolutions ignored “Indian wars” of extermination and praised Native participation in US wars against other peoples:
American Indian people have served with valor in all wars since the Revolutionary War to the War in the Persian Gulf….
The Resolutions praised Native cultures and ignored the genocidal programs of “kill the Indian, save the man”:
Certain concepts such as freedom of speech, the separation of powers in government, and the balance of power within government …which were found in the political systems of various American Indian nations, influenced the formulation of the Government of the United States of America.
American Indians have made distinct and important contributions to America and the rest of the world in many fields including agriculture, medicine, music, language and art.
The 1991 Resolution explicitly celebrated individual Native assimilation:
It is fitting that American Indians be recognized for their individual contributions to American society as artists, sculptors, musicians, authors, poets, artisans, scientists and scholars.
ASSIMILATION OF INDIVIDUAL “NATIVE AMERICANS” BRINGS US TO THE QUESTION: WHAT ABOUT “NATIVE PEOPLES"?
The 1990 and 1991 Resolutions called on “the people of the United States to consider and reflect on our Nation's current relationship with our American Indians” and “to study and reflect on the long history of the original inhabitants of this continent”.
What is “the long history”? What is the “current relationship”? The odd phrase “our American Indians” points to the answer.
In a legal nutshell, the “long history” and “current relationship” consist of claims by the US of a right of domination over “our American Indians”.
From Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) “Christian discovery” doctrine to the present, Supreme Court decisions claim that the US “holds title” to Native lands and has “plenary power” over Native peoples.
“Liberal” and “conservative” justices are equally involved:
Justice Ginsburg, City of Sherrill v. Oneida Nation (2005), wrote:
Under the ‘doctrine of discovery,’ . . . fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign—first the discovering European nation and later the original States and the United States.
Justice Gorsuch, McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020), cited “plenary power”and “Christian discovery” precedents to say that Congress had not yet “disestablished” the Creek Nation, but could do so “at any time. It has no shortage of tools at its disposal.”
These brazen decisions speak volumes about domination.
Presidential Proclamations Obscure and Falsify the Legal Status of Native Nations in US Law
Obama’s 2010 Heritage Proclamation said:
From upholding the tribal sovereignty recognized and reaffirmed in our Constitution and laws to strengthening our unique nation-to-nation relationship, my Administration stands firm in fulfilling our Nation's commitments.
As we celebrate the contributions and heritage of Native Americans during this month, we also recommit to supporting tribal self-determination….
Three months later, in January 2011, Obama gave away the secret when he signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (which the US fought against from the start).
The Declaration says “States shall… obtain…free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous Peoples before taking actions affecting them.
For example, Article 32.2:
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.
Obama’s disingenuous “signing statement” interpreted that mandate out of existence.
He said:
…free, prior and informed consent… calls for a process of meaningful consultation with tribal leaders, but not necessarily the agreement of those leaders, before the actions addressed in those consultations are taken.
🤯 In Orwellian fashion, Obama overturned the meaning of “consent”, which the Oxford English Dictionary says has meant “agreement” since at least the early 14th century.
Biden’s 2023 National Native American Heritage Month Proclamation was similarly disingenuous:
We are … committed to partnering with Tribal Nations to protect and steward their sacred and ancestral lands and waters. Through Tribal co-stewardship agreements, we work directly with Tribal Nations to make decisions about how to manage those lands that are most precious to them — recognizing and utilizing the invaluable knowledge they have from countless generations.
Biden’s Proclamation was wholly contrary to his support for a copper mine on Apache land (Oak Flat) and a lithium mine on Paiute and Western Shoshone lands (Thacker Pass).
Apache court documents tell the story about the copper mine on their lands:
Likewise the Paiute and Western Shoshone about the lithium mine:
A history of lying countered by sobering truths.
Museum quality exposure of English’s inbred exceptionalism masking genocide by democracy’s settler colonial presidents and court appointments.