A NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING
Weetoomoo Carey, 8, left, and Jackolynn Carey, 5, Wampanoag Nipmucs from Mashpee, National Day of Mourning, November 26, 1991. Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Thanksgiving
November 25, 2021 | Native Children’s Survival
From time immemorial, Indigenous Peoples have held feast day celebrations. Ceremonies of thanks, giving honor to our interconnection with All Our Relations. Every day is Thanksgiving day. While giving thanks has become a national holiday for the United States and Canada, for many Native Peoples, Thanksgiving is a National Day of Mourning.
Under the guise of Thanksgiving came a nefarious scheme to whitewash genocide, ecocide, slavery, and oppression. Colonizers categorized Indigenous Peoples as Less Than Human. American his-story books spread disinformation, hate, and racial supremacy against what the Pilgrims called Heathen Savages. The United States Declaration of Independence, an American document celebrated and promoted every year since July 4, 1776, proclaims Native Peoples to be Merciless Indian Savages. Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull were all labeled Hostiles, and from Wounded Knee to Standing Rock, we are stereotyped as Terrorists.
According to historians, Thanksgiving Day began in 1621. When the Pilgrims held a feast for the Wampanoag people, who had negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation, only to be broken when European reinforcements arrived on Indigenous shores. Today, more than 500 Treaties made with Indigenous Nations have been broken by the United States of America.
In 1637, to celebrate the murder of more than 700 unarmed Pequot women, children, and men, massacred during their annual Green Corn Festival, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared a Day Of Thanksgiving. With the arrival of more Pilgrims, Puritans, and mercenaries, an onslaught of Thanksgiving days followed.
The Continental Congress declared the first American Thanksgiving in 1777 following the Patriot victory at Saratoga during the American Revolutionary War. George Washington, in 1789, became the first U.S. President to proclaim Thanksgiving a holiday. Thanksgiving became a national holiday during the 1863 American Civil War under U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
Invisible no more, in 1970, the American Indian Movement took back Plymouth Rock from the Pilgrims. Following the Occupation of Alcatraz Island by Indians of All Tribes in 1968, there has been an annual Sunrise Ceremony and Gathering on the U.S. holiday known as Thanksgiving. These ceremonies began in 1975 and are held on Alcatraz Island to pay tribute to and honor Indigenous Peoples.
Thanksgiving should never be about war, massacre, or colonization. Nor should it be used as a noble crusade to whitewash history. The spirit of giving thanks is a humble, graceful gesture of gratitude, love, and respect for all life. May you be blessed with the spirit of Thanksgiving today and every day.
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