When I was 21, I did a fabulous internship program through the Unitarian Universalist Association, that focused on service and spirituality, but also Unitarian Universalist history. One of the first things we did was take a field trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Most of the day was spent at the UU church there, doing a workshop about racism and misappropriation. It was cool to have a day at a very pretty church that has continuous records dating back to 1606 in Scrooby, England and is possibly the oldest continuous western spiritual institution in America.
But before our workshop, at that lovely and fairly impressive building intended as a “lasting memorial to the Pilgrims” we all went to visit plymouth rock, the supposed landing site of the puritans from whose churches our denomination has descended.
Have any of you been to see Plymouth rock? It’s not very exciting, right? It’s.. yep, it’s a rock. Yep. What I didn’t find out about until years later was a different plaque on a different rock, uphill from that landing site in Plymouth.
In the last congregation I served, I had two members who lived part time in West Virginia and Part time on Martha’s Vineyard, where they are members of the Gay’s Head Tribe of the Wampanoag. It turns out that one of my former congregants is a nephew of Frank “Wamsutta” James, who started an alternative tradition, commemorated with a plaque on a stone on Plymouth’s Cole’s Hill.
You see, Frank Wamsutta James had been asked to give a speech at festivities celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Puritans arrival in America, as a representative of the Wampanoag, but when Massachusetts’s officials read his speech, they banned him from the event. So he gave an amended speech, uphill from their event, next to a statue of Ousamequin, also known as Massasoit, which means “Great Sachem,” which stands looking over Plymouth Harbor.
In this amended speech he said:
“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. 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.
You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.”
Those issues that Indigenous Americans discussed 54 years ago at the statue of Massasoit are the same ones tribes are fighting for today. They fight for their aboriginal rights, the ability to hunt and fish, and to keep their sovereignty. The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, for example, continues to fight to keep its land in trust and the reservation it established after officially receiving federal recognition in 2007.
And, y’all know that the discomfort that non-Natives, especially and particularly privileged white folks, felt from James’ speech in the ’70s carries on today. There are too many who would rather tell a different story, a story born out of the urge to take a civil war holiday dedicated to bringing people together in gratitude into a celebration of colonialism and a false narrative about how this country began.
Because, of course, as we talked about in the puppet skit earlier, the holiday of Thanksgiving began as a proclamation from President Lincoln at the urging of magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale. His thanksgiving proclamation wasn’t a new thing- Presidents George Washington, John Adams and James Madison all proclaimed days of thanksgiving — though not necessarily in November, and by the late 1840s, some form of harvest thanksgiving celebration was observed in 21 states on various November dates. It was basically a Yankee Harvest Celebration thing. Thanksgiving was a Northern Holiday and Christmas was a Southern Holiday, and it was Hale and Lincoln who first suggested we all celebrate both of those.
What Abraham Lincoln and Sarah Josepha Hale attempted was to create a new story about the United States of America- a story of a national holiday for everybody on the fourth Thursday of November when Americans, “as with one heart and one voice,” would offer gratitude for “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies” and pray together for the healing of “the wounds of the nation.”
It was incredibly controversial – and, interestingly, was held up as an example of what those who advocated for chattel slavey called at the time “Puritanism”- completely different from what we mean by that today, at that time “Puritanism”, as one Confederate political cartoonist portrayed it, was supported by pillars that included “SOCIALISM,” “FREE LOVE,” “SPIRIT RAPPING,” “RATIONALISM” and “NEGRO WORSHIP.” You know, Diversity and Inclusion. The sort of thing supported by men who also advocated for women’s rights and abolition. Oh the horror.
The idea of a holiday of gratitude and inclusion was considered, as some would say today, incredibly “woke”. And all those foods we think of as “traditional thanksgiving foods”- those were recipes from Sara Josepha Hale. Which is cool, she seems like she was a fascinating lady, but also, you can eat whatever you want, you don’t have to eat the things this magazine editor suggested in the 1860s unless that’s fun or comforting or joyful for you.
So this week, we honor those who grieve the history of colonialism and the violence of our colonizing ancestors, and we honor those who celebrate the history of women and woke political leaders bringing people together across difference to eat cranberries and stuffing and offer gratitude, and we honor the many stories and the complex history of this day.
And, I hope, we rededicate ourselves to telling and preserving true stories, even when those in power demand lies instead, that we continue listening to the indigenous folks among us, that we practice gratitude alongside our grief and our anger. It matters what stories we tell, and it matters that we keep telling them, and keep offering gratitude and grace and courage to each other.