Thanksgiving Day of Retreat

It's Thanksgiving Day, and normally I would be up early to cook a turkey, and finish preparing a feast, but the last few years of quarantine have caused a shift for my family. A combination of work schedule, cold weather, ambivalence towards a mythical Pilgrim narrative, and just plain exhaustion have created an opening for something new this year.

I've made pies to share, and sent out my Thanksgiving cards. Today will NOT be all about family togetherness, but a quiet day for me be grounded and thankful, and do some introspective writing.

Agenda:

1. Write about my pilgrim ancestors

2. Write about the Wampanoag people
3. Honor the Day of Mourning
4. Read from "Grateful"

1. Write about my pilgrim ancestors:

I have enjoyed studying my ancestry over the years, but I'm well aware of the inherent white privilege of this study. Earlier this month I came across this document, Genealogy and anti-racism by Diane Kenaston, which asks the question, "So, are there ways for white people to act as anti-racist allies while exploring our own white ancestry?" This article has some great suggestions for action, including sections on confronting slavery, confronting settler colonialism and homesteading, and confronting immigration restrictions.

I know that I had pilgrim ancestors who participated in settler colonialism, deliberately replacing native peoples with new settlers. I also know many of my ancestors benefited from the Homestead Act, in which the U.S. government transferred to them the land stolen from indigenous peoples.  

So I set this intention: 

I intend to find out whose traditional territory my ancestors took, learn more about the people, history, and contemporary concerns of these indigenous communities, and share that information with my family, because this is one way I can dismantle the systems of racism.

I started this week with my pilgrim ancestors, Stephen Hopkins and his daughter Constance, who are ancestors of my grandpa Jay Alborn. Stephen was a pretty amazing man. He sailed to Jamestown in 1609, when he was 30, employed as a minister's clerk; he was shipwrecked in the Bermudas, finally made it to Jamestown in 1610, where he stayed until 1614. When his wife in England died, he sailed back to collect his orphaned children, re-marry, and sail again for the New World, this time aboard the Mayflower.

Stephen was not a puritan separatists from Holland like many of the "pilgrims"; I guess he REALLY did not want to live in England. In any case, he brought his second wife Elizabeth, and children Constance - also known as "Constanta" - (age 14), Giles (about 15), and Damaris (age 3) on board the Mayflower in 1620, along with two servants. They set sail on September 6, 1620, for New England, with about 102 passengers. For 66 storm-tossed days the passengers suffered their passage across a wintry Atlantic Ocean.

The Mayflower came to anchor in what is now Provincetown Harbor, on the morning of November 11, 1620. It was still early morning, so they waited for the sun to rise, and for the tide to come in, before they sent anybody ashore to see what was there. They were in great need of wood, as they had run out of wood to use for cooking and heating fires. Some of the passengers were somewhat unhappy with the decision to stay at Cape Cod, instead of continuing south to their original destination in Northern Virginia; they didn’t have England's permission to settle in this area, so they decided they needed to create a document, now called the "Mayflower Compact", that would give them the temporary right to establish and maintain a government until official permission could be sought back in England. All of the adult men signed the "Mayflower Compact", including Stephen Hopkins.

On November 15, Myles Standish, William Bradford, Stephen Hopkins, and 13 other men set out on the first significant exploration. They had only been walking a mile, when they saw ahead of them about six men and a dog coming their way. At first they thought it was some of the Mayflower's crew, but soon realized it was Native Americans. The Native people ran into the forest, and the Pilgrims followed after, hoping to chase them down and perhaps make contact. They followed the footprints and trail through the forest, until night fell and they stopped to make a camp. The next day they continued on, trying to follow the trails, but ended up just wandering through hills and valleys full of thick underbrush. They became very tired, hungry and thirsty, and searched for a long time for some fresh water. When they finally found a freshwater spring, they sat down and "drunk our first New England water with as much delight as ever we drunk drink in all our lives." They returned to the Mayflower on November 17, still anchored off the tip of Cape Cod, to share stories of their adventures ashore.

The Pilgrims continued to explore the area, trying to find a suitable spot for a settlement. On December 6, a party of 16 men, including Stephen Hopkins, sailed along the coast looking for rivers and bays, until on December 12 they returned to the Mayflower with the news that they had found the place; on December 16 the Mayflower sailed into Plymouth Harbor.
The Pilgrims founded their colony at the site of an abandoned Wampanoag village called Patuxet, at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. The women remained living on the ship for four months while the men built storehouses and living quarters onshore. 

Stephen Hopkins was a fairly active member of the Pilgrims shortly after arrival, perhaps as result of his being one of the few individuals who had been to Virginia previously. He was a part of all the early exploring missions, and was used almost as an "expert" on Native Americans for the first few contacts. While out exploring, Stephen recognized and identified a Native deer trap. And when Samoset walked into Plymouth and welcomed the English, he was housed in Stephen Hopkins' house for the night. Stephen was also sent on several of the ambassadorial missions to meet with the various Native groups in the region. 

Unfortunately, the Pilgrims were not ready for the bitter cold New England weather; nearly half of the 100 settlers died that first winter. Only 5 of the 18 adult women survived the first winter. In fact, every family except the Hopkins family suffered at least one death.

Stephen Hopkins’ daughter Constance (age 15) was a survivor. In fact, half of the survivors that year were children, so they had to do a lot of the work: They did cooking and washing, gathered firewood, milked goats, picked berries, fetched water, helped to plant crops, learned to hunt animals, and took care of younger children.

2. Write about the Wampanoag people:

Up until 1616, four years before my ancestors landed, the coastal community of Patuxet was one of dozens belonging to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and the Mashpees were only one of the Wampanoag tribes spread throughout the New England region. It’s estimated that there were 69 Wampanoag villages, and upwards of a few thousand Natives per village. The Wampanoag called the region home for more than 12,000 years. 

The name Wampanoag means People of the First Light. In the summer months, they lived close to the water where food was more abundant, and then as the weather got colder, they moved inland. They had a government structure, with delegates from each village who would meet with each other, discussing issues and collectively making policies and rules that would be in the best interest of everyone. The villages were pretty much in constant communication with each other. It was really an idyllic setting, with an abundance of food for everyone.

I found an article on the Atlas Obscura called Before Plymouth Colony and the Pilgrims, There Was Patuxet, which includes an interview with Steven Peters, a Mashpee Wampanoag. 

"In 1614, some traders came into the region. One of them was Thomas Hunt, who docked off of the village of Patuxet. For one reason or another he decided to take some of the young men as slaves. One of them was Tisquantum, who they take back and sell (in Europe). It’s important to understand that’s how Tisquantum learns English (before being able to return to Patuxet around 1619).

The Europeans also desecrated Native graves. They referred to the Natives as savages for a reason: it allows you to dehumanize. It allowed them to not treat us with the same rules they would a European. Desecrating graves would not have been against their moral code, because (to them) we were not human.

 

In 1616, we think the village of Patuxet becomes ground zero for what became the Great Dying. There was a plague that ripped through the Wampanoag nation where there are estimates of over 100,000 Wampanoag dying in just three short years. There were accounts of a French fishing ship that had wrecked off the coast of Patuxet, and of some of the fishermen coming into the village exhibiting signs of sickness, with yellowing of the skin and fever, and dying. Shortly after that, the plague just starts to rip right through the Wampanoag nation. Everyone in Patuxet either dies or fled the village, and they never returned. And that’s how the village of Patuxet ends up vacant in 1620 when the Pilgrims arrived. We know that the Pilgrims knew about the Great Dying, and they also must have known that that village of Patuxet was empty when deciding to make that Plymouth Colony."

Peter surmises that the surviving Wampanoag allowed the Pilgrims to stay because they needed an ally against encroaching tribes from the south; because of the Great Dying, their political position was compromised. It was a harsh winter, and both parties needed each other.

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, who my ancestors displaced, are still fighting for sovereignty and land rights. The lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation today represent less than one half of one percent of their original territories. In 2007 after a decades long legal process, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe was finally federally recognized, however they are the only federally recognized Tribe in New England that does not have any statute that establishes protection for their land.

In 2015, the Department of Interior under the Obama administration approved the Tribe’s decision to put 321 acres of land in trust. 150 acres of this land is in the town of Mashpee, Massachusetts, and another 170 acres is in the neighboring city of Taunton. The tribe planned to build a casino on this land.

In 2016, David and Michelle Littlefield, along with other Taunton residents, sued the Department of Interior for putting the Tribal land into trust on the grounds that the Mashpee Wampanoag did not qualify as an Indian Tribe according to the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. A federal judge ruled in favor of the Littlefields, which in turn led to the Department of Interior, under the Trump administration, to take the land out of trust in 2018. This would mark the first time Native land has been taken out of trust since the “termination era” of the 1940s-1960s in which the US government intentionally attempted to assimilate Native Americans into the mainstream settler colonial culture.

The tribe appealed this decision in federal court, and on February 27, 2020, the federal appeals court ruled against the Mashpee. This ruling upholds the lower court’s earlier decision that the federal government did not have the authority to take land into trust for the Tribe because the Tribe is not considered ‘Indian’ under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. 

Currently, the Tribe has a separate lawsuit pertaining to the land pending in Washington D.C.. Due to the separate lawsuit, the land will remain in federal trust at this time. The Tribe will continue to fight for their land rights. Mashpee Wampanoag Chairman Cedric Cromwell stated, “There’s no question that this is a grave injustice. We will continue to fight, as our ancestors did, to preserve our land base, our culture and our spiritual connection to our homelands.” 

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s citizens are currently suffering a massive loss of resources and services due to the uncertainty of the trust status of the Reservation. Millions of dollars of funding are being lost or delayed for their clean water program, their children’s education, and critical community service programs. It’s also a direct threat to their emergency services, housing and substance abuse program that’s desperately needed to combat the opioid epidemic. 

To take action in support of the Mashpee, visit #StandwithMashpee.

3. Honor the Day of Mourning:

Text of a plaque on Cole's Hill:
"Since 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon on Cole's Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US Thanksgiving holiday. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture. Participants in a National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience."

4. Read from "Grateful":

I'm reading a book called "Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks," by Diana Butler Bass. In Chapter 4, on Intentional Practice, she talks about Blessings as the "tailwinds" that we often don't notice, the invisible benefits we have, such as white privilege, economic advantages, social relationships, a good school system, and our DNA. She says it's important to understand the advantages that birth has bestowed on us, appreciate them as gifts, and work for others to have more of this experience also.

She talks about choosing gratitude as a way of life, choosing to be mindful about how we look at life. Our thoughts of ingratitude "often result from misunderstanding the nature of thanks, failing to see the larger picture of our lives, or forgetting to nurture a spirit of gratefulness. We ignore the tailwinds. Instead, we fixate on what has hindered us, and that mutates into envy and entitlement."

She says our gratitude practices, like writing in a journal or listing our blessings, will eventually lead to an awareness of gratitude that will inhabit us and become part of who we are.