National Day of Mourning/ Unthanksgiving Day

The National Day of Mourning is observed on the fourth Thursday of November, which fell today on November 24 this year, which also happens to be Thanksgiving in the United States. a day focused on spending time with family and indulging in delicious treats, gratitude and good times.

A national holiday that marks the harvest feast going back to the so-called ‘First Thanksgiving’ in 1621, when the Pilgrims ( the colonists who came over on the Mayflower and  arrived in Plymouth and established the first colony.) shared a meal with the Wampanoag people.

Without the help of the Native Americans living in the region however, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony would not have likely survived their first years in the New World. For many Americans, therefore, Thanksgiving symbolises a bond and peace between the two peoples as they sat together at the same table, and perhaps hope of a lasting reconciliation after centuries of division.

For many other Americans, however, this is not a cause for celebration. It is a reminder of the brutal acts perpetrated on the Native Americans by European settlers and then the US government: massacres, land stealing and relentless attacks on their cultures and livelihoods. 

So today also marked the National Day of Mourning and Unthanksgiving Day, a day of protest that illuminates the Native American perspectives surrounding the very first Thanksgiving, that acts as a reminder of the inequitable treatment of them since the 1620 Plymouth landing. The National Day of Mourning also serves as a reminder to everyone that Thanksgiving is only one part of the story.

The official  National Day of Mourning was established by the United American Indians of New England back in 1970 when Wamsutta, an elder of the Aquinnah Wampanoag, was invited to a Thanksgiving state dinner in Plymouth, Massachusetts – the site of the Pilgrims’ colony – and asked to give a speech to mark the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival. He was politely requested to show a copy of what he intended to say first, though. Wamsutta, also known as Frank James, had written an impassioned and forceful indictment of the white conquest of native lands, starting immediately with the Pilgrims.

"This is a time of celebration for you – celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time for looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my people,” he said early in his 1,400-word speech. “We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.”

He went on to say: “Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the land of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our lands as you the whites did to take our land away from us.”

 In his speech, Wamsutta not only named atrocities committed by the Pilgrims, but also reflected upon the fate of the Wampanoag at the hands of settlers. The speech contained a powerful message of Native American pride. “Our spirit refuses to die,” wrote Wamsutta. “Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting. … We stand tall and proud; and before too many moons pass, we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.”

The speech contained a revolutionary spirit, clearly inspired by the fledgling “Red Power Movement,” which demanded equal rights and self-determination for Native Americans. This without a doubt frightened the state officials, whose minds were likely drawn to the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz, a 19-month-long protest involving Native Americans and supporters taking over the abandoned federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in California. The Occupation of Alcatraz was the first intertribal protest that garnered national attention, and it had struck fear into the hearts of the ruling class, because it was becoming clear that Native Americans, like African Americans and other oppressed peoples, were saying “no more!”

A representative of the Department of Commerce and Development perhaps unsurprisingly told Wamsutta that he would not be able to give that speech, saying “the theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood and anything inflammatory would have been out of place”. Wamsutta was given a different speech to read, Wamsutta  rejected the invitation to speak, declining the offer to “speak false words” in thanks of the pilgrims who claimed native land and caused pain and suffering to native people. 

Instead, he led a group of protestors to Cole’s Hill in Plymouth and, standing next to a statue of the great Wampanoag leader Massasoit, declared the first National Day of Mourning. Native American leaders made speeches about the deplorable conditions Native Americans faced, the genocidal actions of the United States government and the devastation caused by the Pilgrims.

The group went down to the waterfront, where they buried Plymouth Rock in sand and painted it red. A small group of protesters made their way to the Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower, and boarded the ship. They climbed the rigging and tore down the flag of Saint George, the patron saint of England. They tossed a wax statue of the captain of the Mayflower, Christopher Jones, overboard, along with the flag of Saint George.

The protesters then made their way to a “re-creation” of the first Thanksgiving dinner, where they flipped over tables saying that they “would not eat the white man’s food.”

One AIM leader would later say of the first National Day of Mourning that it “is a day American Indians won’t forget. We went to Plymouth for a purpose: to mourn since the landing of the Pilgrims the repression of the American Indian; and to indict the hypocrisy of a system which glorifies that repression. We fulfilled that purpose and gained a spirit of unity that spread across the land.” (“Russell Means Recounts NDOM, 1971”)

Since that say in 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to observe a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day.

To them, Thanksgiving is a cruel reminder of “the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture.”

They participate to honor Native ancestors and the current struggles of Native peoples to survive. “It is a day of remembering and spiritual connection, as well as a protest against the racism and oppression that Native Americans continue to face.”

This event is sponsored by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE). They argue that when the Pilgrims arrived in North America, they claimed tribal land for themselves rather than establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with the locals. The settlers, according to UAINE members, “introduced sexism, racism, anti-homosexual bigotry, jails, and the class system.”

Since then, the organization along with its supporters continues to amplify Native American perspectives relative to the Thanksgiving holiday and other current struggles native people face today.The National Day of Mourning is celebrated by the Wampanoag people, who are local to the New England area, as well as tribes across the United States, and other Americans who show their support and recognize Native American perspectives.

At the 1972 National Day of Mourning, a young woman was attacked by the police for wearing an upside-down American flag draped over her shoulders. At the 1974 National Day of Mourning, Wamsutta and protesters liberated the bones of a 16-year-old Wampanoag girl from the Pilgrim Hall Museum.

In 1997, National Day of Mourning organizers and protesters were attacked and brutalized by the Plymouth police, who arrested 25 protesters. The resulting court case and settlement led to the installation of two plaques, one that marked the origin and purpose of the National Day of Mourning, the other commemorating Metacomet (King Philip), who led resistance against English settlers in 1675. The settlement also ensured that charges were dropped against all 25 protesters and protected the right to march without a permit each National Day of Mourning.

While the initial National Day of Mourning still takes place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and will continue to do so into the future. Similar to the National Day of Mourning, Unthanksgiving Day is a demonstration held on the fourth Thursday of November in remembrance of the Native American lives lost following the European settlement of the United States. The Unthanksgiving Day protest is held on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay.

Both the National Day of Mourning and Unthanksgiving Day protests provide a platform for Native American peoples to share their experiences, honor loved ones lost, and advocate for progressive measures to improve the lives of native people and their relations with their past, present, and future and speak truth to power. 

National Day of Mourning does not only focus on the past. Speakers talk about many contemporary issues,Key issues that were addressed today included the potential overturn of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA); Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2S); and clemency for longtime Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier.

 As Moonanum James, son of Wamsutta Frank James and the late co-leader of UAINE, said to the crowd at the 2019 National Day of Mourning, “We will continue to gather on this hill until corporations and the U.S. military stop polluting the Earth. Until we dismantle the brutal apparatus of mass incarceration. We will not stop until the oppression of our Two-Spirit siblings is a thing of the past. When the homeless have homes. When children are no longer taken from their parents and locked in cages. When the Palestinians reclaim the homeland and the autonomy Israel has denied them for the past 70 years. When no person goes hungry or is left to die because they have little or no access to quality health care. When insulin is free. When union-busting is a thing of the past. Until then, the struggle will continue.”

 Kisha James—who is an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and is also Oglala Lakota—told BBC. "What we do object to is the Thanksgiving mythology."

In a powerfuil Thursday speech, James—whose grandfather dounded the National Day of Mourning in 1970—challenged the lies of "mythmakers" and history books, instead highlighting "genocide, the theft of our lands, the destruction of our traditional ways of life, slavery, starvation, and never-ending oppression."

"When people celebrate the myth of Thanksgiving, they are not only erasing our genocide but also celebrating it. We did not simply fade into the background as the Thanksgiving myth says. We have survived and flourished. We have persevered," she declared.

 "That first Day of Mourning in 1970 was a powerful demonstration of Native unity," she said, "and it has continued for all these years as a powerful demonstration of Indigenous unity and of the unity of all people who speak truth to power."

James noted that "many of the conditions that prevailed in Indian Country in 1970 still prevail today," pointing to life expectancy, suicide, and infant mortality rates—along with the rising death rate for Native women—and taking aim at racism and "the oppression of a capitalist system which forces people to make a bitter choice between heating and eating."

 And we will continue to gather on this hill until we are free from the oppressive system; until corporations and the U.S. military stop polluting the Earth; until we dismantle the brutal apparatus of mass incarceration," James vowed.

In all of its work, whether organizing National Day of Mourning or leading Indigenous Peoples Day efforts, UAINE seeks to unite Indigenous Peoples, center Indigenous Peoples’ voices, learn from each other, and educate non-Native people as well. Now more than ever, non-Native people need to learn the truth about the impact of colonialism and listen to what Indigenous Peoples have to say about many issues, especially frontline Indigenous perspectives and wisdom on how to properly and immediately address the climate crisis.