U A I N E

United American Indians of New England

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.  Thanksgiving day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture. Participants in 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.

We Are Not Vanishing.

We Are Not Conquered.

We Are As Strong As Ever.

Wamsutta (Frank B.) James 1923-2001

Frank B. (Wamsutta) James, an Aquinnah Wampanoag elder and Native American activist, died February 20, 2001 at the age of 77.

James first came to national attention in 1970 when he, with hundreds of other Native Americans and their supporters, went to Plymouth, Massachusetts and declared Thanksgiving day a National Day of Mourning for Native Americans.

The National Day of Mourning protest in Plymouth continues to this day, now led by his son, and the group James helped found in 1970, the United American Indians of New England (UAINE).

James was proud of his Native American heritage long before it was fashionable to do so, and spent many hours researching the history of the Wampanoag Nation and of the English invasion of the New England region.

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Moonanum James, co-leader of the United American Indians of New England

Metacom Education Project, Inc.

As part of the historic 1998 settlement between Plymouth and United American Indians of New England, Plymouth has donated money to a Native educational fund called the Metacom Education Project, Inc.

We are pleased to announce the first grants awarded by the Project:

* A grant of $2,500 to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee for assistance in educating the public about Leonard Peltier's case.

* A grant of $5,000 to the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) for a series of community educational workshops proposed by the Center.

In addition, the Project has sponsored a number of educational presentations in schools and elsewhere this year.

In 2000, we expect to have a program in place to provide scholarships to Native students attending Massachusetts institutions of higher education. We also plan to develop Native curriculum and other educational resource materials.

Please contact us if you are interested in donating to this exciting Project, if you know of an organization that gives grants to organizations such as the Project, or for more information.

Metacom Education Project, Inc.
P.O. Box 890082
East Weymouth, MA 02189
metedpro@netscape.net

THE SUPPRESSED SPEECH OF

WAMSUTTA (FRANK B.) JAMES, WAMPANOAG

To have been delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1970

ABOUT THE DOCUMENT:
Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their "American" descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James' views — based on history rather than mythology — were not what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said:

I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry.

Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. 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.

What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years? History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises - and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called "savages." Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other "witch."

And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken and, in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the white man took his land and used it for his personal gain. This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the white man sought to tame the "savage" and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.

The white man used the Indian's nautical skills and abilities. They let him be only a seaman -- but never a captain. Time and time again, in the white man's society, we Indians have been termed "low man on the totem pole."

Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives - some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoag put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the white man's way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons.

What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as "civilized" people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags'] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.

History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.

The white man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the white man has created of the Indian; his "savageness" has boomeranged and isn't a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian's temperament!

High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We the descendants of this great Sachem have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent. Today, I and many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!

Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands 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 land as you the whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.

Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We're standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we'll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.

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.

There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. 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; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. 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.

Wamsutta

September 10, 1970

Native People bury racist rock

Worker's World, 1 December 1995

Plymouth, Mass.—Plymouth Rock is a symbol—a monument to murder, slavery, theft, racism and oppression. The white man has killed the spirit in the rock. Things that are dead should stay buried.

Bury racism! Bury oppression! Bury `Pilgrim's Progress'! And bury the rock!

With these words, Moonanum James (Wampanoag), sachem of United American Indians of New England, led over 300 Native people and their supporters of all nationalities down to Plymouth Rock on Nov. 23.

There, about a dozen protesters scaled an iron fence, jumped into the pit where the rock is located, and buried it.

The crowd cheered as women, men and children representing all four directions—red, black, white and yellow—worked together to cover Plymouth Rock with sand and then planted a Native warrior flag atop it. As the victorious dirty dozen climbed out of the pit, Native singers broke into the American Indian Movement song.

The burial of Plymouth Rock capped the 25th anniversary of the National Day of Mourning speak-out held here in Plymouth. The Day of Mourning is a protest against the U.S. celebration of the mythology of Thanksgiving, and against the racist Pilgrim's Progress Parade.

The parade is a re-enactment of the march of Pilgrims to church, with muskets and bibles in hand. Moonanum James said of it: They want to act as though we sat down and ate turkey and lived happily ever after. That is simply not true—and we keep coming back year after year in order to give answer to their lies.

Plymouth Rock had previously been buried in 1970, during the very first National Day of Mourning.

NO REASON TO CELEBRATE

Speakers included Mahtowin (Lakota), an organizer of the event. She spoke about the case of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement warrior framed by the FBI for the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge in South Dakota.

Noting that Peltier has been unjustly imprisoned for nearly 20 years, she called on everyone present to join in a concerted effort to picket FBI offices around the country on Feb. 6 in a nationally coordinated day of support for Peltier.

Mahtowin also mentioned the tremendous loss earlier this year of lawyer William Kunstler, who had always been a great champion of Native causes.

An Aztec-Mayan man named Jose—who did not want to give his last name because of potential problems with the racist Immigration and Naturalization Service—spoke of a prophecy. He said the prophecy is that some day the eagle—symbol of North American Native people—and the condor—symbol of Central and South American Native people—would come together, and that this would bring about a resurgence in the Native struggle.

Horacio Gutierrez of Arizona told the gathering of a 1996 spiritual run to reinforce unity among all Indigenous nations from North, Central and South America. Sam Sapiel, a Penobscot medicine elder and another organizer of the protest, opened and closed the Day of Mourning with prayers, and expressed his grave concerns about the ongoing destruction of the environment.

Two days earlier, on Nov. 21, the city of Provincetown, Mass., had held a celebration of the signing of the Mayflower Compact. A statement from UAINE was read to the assembled group there. It read in part:

We have no reason to celebrate the signing of the Compact or the arrival of the Pilgrims. The Mayflower Compact was a mere corporate agreement of white men agreeing to stick together. This would be for the benefit of a handful of wealthy white men and to the detriment of the vast majority of human beings.

There was no room in that Compact for women, lesbians and gay men, and the poor, let alone for Native people or our sisters and brothers of African descent. We call on all oppressed people to unite and join the fight against the racist and murderous ruling class, and not glorify the Mayflower Compact but to condemn it and the system it created.

While some of those attending the celebration in Provincetown were stunned and angered by this statement, a number of people burst into enthusiastic applause.

Seventh Cavalry's 'glorious' history Their first massacre was in 1868 By Mahtowin - April 10, 2004

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the big business media has made much of the spearhead role of the Seventh Cavalry. 'Rich in glory and agony,' read the New York Times' headline about its history. The 'agony' refers to the 1876 defeat of the Seventh Cavalry and its commander, Col. George Armstrong Custer, at Little Big Horn by combined Lakota and Cheyenne forces. Here, a Seventh Cavalry officer surveys the massacre scene three days following the Dec. 29, 1890, U.S. genocidal attack on the Lakota nation, led by Big Foot of the Hunkpapa Lakota, at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge.

All text and images and links property of and used here with permission of the United American Indians of New England.

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