The Wampanoags and the National Day of Mourning

Every fourth Thursday of November in Massachusetts, typically when most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, the Wampanoags—meaning “People of the First Light” in the Wampanoag language—remember the struggles of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples across the globe.

The tradition started in 1970, when Frank Wamsutta James, the leader of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, was disinvited by the Thanksgiving Day celebration commemorating the 350th anniversary of Mayflower’s landing.

On Cole’s Hill—the site of the first cemetery used by the Mayflower pilgrims on the land originally owned by the Wampanoags for thousands of years—Frank Wamsutta James spoke of what the Thanksgiving celebrations meant for the Wampanoags: a history of deception, erasure, and genocide.

“We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees,”James said. “What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.”

James called for Americans to see that the celebration of Thanksgiving fixed the falsified narrative of peaceful coexistence in American memory. As MiSC member Karl Jacoby writes in a 2008 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Thanksgiving was only made a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. During Reconstruction, when many Southerners found this fact distasteful, the origins of the holiday were conveniently reinvented and a popular myth of the peaceful meal between the Wampanoags and settlers was branded onto American public memory. Historical truth and Native lives were pushed aside for the sake of reunion.

But James also spoke of the other meaning of Thanksgiving: why the persistence of both the settler-colonial myth and Native lives like himself represented hope for the ongoing fight toward justice.

“We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs...We're being heard,” James said 51 years ago. “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.”

This year’s National Day of Mourning celebrations, happening now, is a testament to this living testimony. As one the organizers noted in the livestream, over 1,000 people came to join the events of the 52nd Annual National Mourning Day happening on Cobble Hill, the same place James stood in 1970.

One of the invited speakers, a Puerto Rican activist, spoke of how Borinquen, the Taino name for Puerto Rico, represents one of the last remaining colonies of the world.

“Stop supporting the very system that oppresses you. Don’t let your mind get colonized,” she said. “We need total independence. Colonialism doesn’t work for us.”

On Thanksgiving celebrations, she added that while “it’s okay to say thank you: and “go buy turkey,” it’s “not okay to celebrate genocide.”

Follow the link to watch live the rest of this year’s National Day of Mourning events, including the annual march through the historic district of Plymouth: http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm

Monetary donations are gratefully accepted to help defray the costs of the day and of UAINE’s many other efforts during the year: https://gofund.me/bf557f97
Donations and other generous gifts are also accepted by the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project: https://www.wlrp.org/ways-to-help

Image Credit: “Statue of Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoags,” Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Accessed November 25,  2021, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018649925/

1. “Wampanoag History,” Official Website of Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, Accessed November 25, 2021,https://wampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/wampanoag-history#; “Project History,” Official Website of Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, Accessed November 25, 2021, https://www.wlrp.org/project-history.

2. Frank Wamsutta James, “The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Wampanoag,” United American Indians of New England (UAINE), http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm.