American racial history. Hes authored four books and coauthored one. Tonight he will be speaking on his most recent book this land is their land. Please join me in welcoming him. Good evening and thanks for coming out in the weather. The massachusetts sixstory cosociety is the first place i ever received Research Fellowship and i believe that was way back in 1998. I will never forget, coming here and the first document i looked at when i was here was the missionary journal of john cotton junior. John cotton junior was the son of the legendary minister of boston and has a big shoes to fill he didnt fill them. He wound up a missionary on Marthas Vineyard and eventually he fell out with the proprietor there and ended up in plymouth and got into some shenanigans with his female parishioners and ended up in charlestown south carolina. What i will never forget from this document it was only meant for his own private use. It was filled with a series of questions and answers that he had engaged in with the local wampanoag people. It was so insightful to the sophistication of the christian knowledge of the wampanoag people but also the way they infuse that christian knowledge with their own ancestral traditions. Ill never forget it left such an incredible impression on me. Which is just a longwinded way of saying im really grateful to be back at the mhs this repository of such historical riches. A few contextual remarks before we begin. I need to tell you, i love thanksgiving. I really do. I like to gorge myself on pie as much as the next guy. But i must warn you, im going to provide you with everything you need to ruin your familys holiday. [laughter] i realize some of you dont need that help. Youre perfectly capable of ruining the holiday on your own. But im going to give you more ammunition to turn up the heat this thanksgiving. I also want to note, i realize it might be jarring to some members of the audience to see the word indians in my book title and hear me use it during the appearance tonight. Everybody here knows that indian is a misnomer, propagated by europeans, after all, we are not in india. In recent decades, some people have substituted the term native americans for indians in an effort to be more accurate and racially sensitive. Yet in the course of my years of interactions with Indigenous People all across the United States, and every project i pursue i try to reach out to the kit asend it communities i learned that most of them albeit not all favor the term indian when referring to them in the aggregate. Though almost to a person they prefer tribal names when appropriate. So this is just my way of saying its out of difference not in difference to them that i use this term. I also want to emphasize here that though my book focuses on historical wampanoag people and strives to include their voices at every opportunity, i dont know if my surname gave it away, im not wampanoag. This is not a history told from a modern wampanoag perspective. To be sure, my conversations with modern wampanoag have informed the content, i would have written this book if it had not been for those conversations. But there is material in this book and in this talk tonight that some wampanoag people will consider dubious, outright wrong, and perhaps even none of my business. As an outsider. Ive done my best to way criticisms in advance through conversations over the entire course of my Research Also by soliciting opinions to drafts of the book among historically minded wampanoag colleagues. And friends. Ive offered to include dissenting opinions alongside my interpretations, all the while aware the Playing Field is uneven because im the author. Ultimately all the editorial decisions of the book belong to me alone. The final analysis i made a number of tough choices based on my understanding of the standards of my discipline of history. That said, i want to urge everyone here and everyone who reads this book to seek out the wampanoag own tellings of that history and they are widely available all you have to do is google wampanoag and thanksgiving and lots of youtube videos will pop up. Articles which wampanoag people have authored or in which they have been interviewed. Many of those sources of information are cited in my endnote. So i didnt cover to consult those too. My hope is that wampanoag and other Indigenous People will see an informed wellintentioned attempt to fulfill the indian call to take Indian History seriously in the context of a greater American History. For generations americans have been telling themselves a patriotic story of the suppose it thanksgiving that treats colonization as a consensual bloodless affair. In this tale, the pilgrims religious dissenters from england cram aboard the mayflower in search of freedom of conscience in america. These adventurers land off cape cod with a fresh copy of their protoconstitution the mayflower compact i suspect many of the people in this audience read that mayflower contact in elementary school. After some fruitless exploring and brief contacts with the natives they decide to file their settlement up the coast at a place they call plymouth. Yet the future of the colony is very much in doubt during its first couple of months. Because the indians, rarely identified by tribe in traditional talent, on whom the english they know they must depend for food and protection seem to be best weary and shy and at worst, hostile. However, eventually the natives reach out to the newcomers through the interpreters samoset and squanto. The story sidesteps the obvious question of how these figures manage to learn english. It doesnt explain why the indians suddenly became so friendly. The native chief abby his title even agrees to a treaty of alliance with plymouth. Over the spring and summer the indians feed the pilgrims and teach them how to plant corn and where to fish. Whereupon the colony begins to thrive. That fall the two parties seal the friendship with the famous first thanksgiving. The piece that follows permits colonial new england and by extension modern america to become blessed seeds of freedom, democracy, christianity, and plenty. As for what the indians have to say next the story has nothing to say. The indians legacy is to present america as a gift to white people. Or in other words, to concede to colonialism. Like pocahontas and psychiatry we had the other famous indians of Early American History they help the colonizers and then move offstage. White people love indians who help. The wampanoags what is now southeastern massachusetts who are the indians in this drama have long contended this tale is not history. That sugar coats the abmy book reckons with this uncomfortable assertion and its implications. For instance, in traditional accounts of thanksgiving pilgrims stepped onto Plymouth Rock and into a new world or wilderness, when in fact, human civilization and the americas was every bit as rich and ancient as in europe. This illustration here gives you a sense of what im talking about. By the way, this was drawn by samuel ain 1605 during french explorations in the new england coast, 15 years before the mayflower arrived. History didnt begin for the wampanoag with the mayflower. They were frozen and some kind of stone age existence until europeans arrived. They already had a dynamic past, countless generations old that shaped who they were, and what they did. Including how they responded to the english. In other words, they inhabited an old world and the socalled wilderness in which the english arrived, as you can see here was full of villages. The wampanoag recent history mattered too. Though the thanksgiving myths suggest the pilgrim abin fact, it was just one in a string of bloody meetings between the wampanoags and europeans since 1524. Not 16, 1524. And particularly from 1602 onward. Thank you to samuel the champagne he captures that theme as well during his second journey of the new england coast. Here he is depicting a clash that he and his fellow french sailors had with the wampanoags of monda moya or amada moy, now called chatham massachusetts roughly at the elbow of cape cod. The thanksgiving myths portrays the wampanoags as timid and overawed by the pilgrims. I show in my book that the wampanoags were easily the Stronger Party during plymouths early years. Here you see a of waupun country. The english did not dictate to the wampanoags, instead, the wampanoags initially used Plymouth Colony as a pawn in their tribal and intertribal politics. It will come as a surprise and maybe as a disappointment to most of my readers that the celebrated first thanksgiving actually played a minor role in this relationship. Hardly anyone considered it all that important. Far more influential in shaping the alliance were a series of other less power apalatable episodes. I also submit that our emphasis on the nearly 50 years of peace following the first thanksgiving and its associated treaty of 1621 as memorialized in these images aligns the more important point that the wampanoags came to resent the colonists aggressive and often underhanded expansion. The truth is, the english and wampanoags nearly came to blows repeatedly during the suppose it long peace. Particularly after the death of abat 1660. Culminating in the terrible king philips war of 1675 76. This perspective i think is especially urgent as modern america grapples with new manifestations of white nationalism. While at the very same time indigenous americans in new england and all across the country reasserting their Political Economic and cultural sovereignty. Having passed to the apocalypse. We need longterm historical developments in order to understand these trends. After all, ive written a book about native people. Stay with me. Try to focus on those names. Colonial new englanders would rename people such things as indian john or indian sarah. We are not doing that here. We are going to use their names. Try to focus on them. We started with who; who most of you know as massive suede. His name was new;. We are going to continue on. Our first revisionist historian is none other than the wampanoags agent or chief emoticon. He is better known to most of you as king philip or meta, or metacomic he was the son of a ain the late spring of b50 years after his father had greeted the pilgrims hermetic home sat down to talk with the delegation of english magistrates from the colony of rhode island. Heres a map of wampanoag country during this period. This is the area we are focused on. The Rhode Islanders were there to encourage this agent or chief to agree to a peaceful arbitration of the wampanoag mounting tensions with Plymouth Colony. Yet i contend that the medical home has already resolved to fight and agree to this conference only to explain why. Lets consider what he said that day and we can do that only because Lieutenant Governor of rhode island john easton wrote down what he said in the Rhode Islanders new wampanoag. They had to translate into english. aview the history of wampanoag english relations is little more than the colonists failure to live up to the promise of the 1621 alliance. The sachem recalled that when the pilgrims first settled at plymouth 55 years later his father, stay with me the language is a little arcane. His father was as a great man in the english as a little child. He was like a father to the english children. Here is his mark. The medic on contended that a could wiped out the infant colony if he had wish. Instead, he held back its native enemies, fed the starving colonists and granted them land. He conveniently left out that his father had made the choice less out of altruism then a need for allies. For the wampanoags had been hobbled by a plague between 1616 and 1619 whereupon their narragansett rivals to the west began subjugating array of english songs. They denounced in here importing again, trying to stick to the language. If 20 honest indians testified that an englishman had done them wrong, it was as nothing. If one of the worst indians testified any indian suspected by the english, that was sufficient. Furthermore, the english had begun to interfere in criminal matters between within the territory. Her mother, wailed, whatever was only between the indians and not in english townships, they would not have us prosecute. In other words, if an indian commits a crime within indian country, what business is it of english. About half of them, mostly on cape cod and in the islands of nantucket had adopted christianity. And sworn off to the leadership as well as a responsibility to pay them tribute. Fear read no reprisal because they enjoyed english protection by virtue of their christianity. Which are seen by the way this is the page from the first bible ever printed in north america. It is printed in the language per one of the first titles from Harvard University press. Which team here is marginalia written who had formal literacy in their Mission Schools in responding to passages of the bible. So, the issue that is here surrounding the missions is some of these native communities, welcome missionaries in the community, adopt christianity and use the alliance that fosters with the english to break off the tribute obligations in his community. There are still other issues. The english used land deeds, some fair, many fell. To claim the territory for their own exclusive use under their own exclusive jurisdiction. I often asked my students imagine if a flotilla of canoes crushes the air granted to england and they buy land, would that land fall under wampanoag jurisdiction, the idea as per cicely what the english were doing in reverse on the other side of the pond. This pattern ran contrary to the native expectation that there land sales nearly convey permission for the english to settle among them. In the english to become part of the wampanoag society and follow wampanoag rules. When indians resisted columnist flooded the tracks with livestock. In fact any indians who injured the animals, the wondering private property claims with criminal fines and lawsuits. It made a few people scratch their heads, the colonists did have to compensate them for hunting deer. The point was to force natives to release their claims and resign themselves to the english interpretation of these tales. Such nations give them 100 times more land than now the king by which he meant himself had for his people. In other words the english have 100 times more land than the wampanoags. The wampanoags, english law was but ale shakedown with people wh short memories and then loyalty. Given these patterns, why would he put any faith in a negotiated settlement as proposed by the Rhode Islanders. History taught, the english would just use some technical violation as an excuse to confiscate his land and even murder him. The Rhode Islanders, they seen where this conversation was headed and cautioned it would be suicidal for the wampanoags to resort to arms. Because they said the english are too strongtr for them, in tt case they retorted, the english should do to the wampanoags as they did when they were too strong for the english. In other words, he called on colonist to assume the role of the great man. Like his father did. With acting with generosity, restraint, and justice toward the wampanoag little child. And that is where the conversation ended. Because everyone knew this wish was futile. Just days later, the matter, let a force against nearby english towns prompting a war as predicted here that would engulf the entire region and ultimately break the back of indian power in southern new england. This war is a most basic feature of the wampanoag english relationship that the thanksgiving miss student loosely ignores. Initially wampanoag resistance fighters got the best of it by repeatedly stacking settlements and ambushing troops on the march. Furthermore, soon they had the support of the net marks from around massachusetts, of now what is rhode island. Of the middle Connecticut River valley whom the colonist turned into mnes by violating their neutrality such as attempting to confiscate their arms. The english made things even worse for themselves by treating the thousands of christian indians who pledge at the start of the work as wolves in sheeps clothing massachusetts and plymouth had the christian indians into island concentration camps. Where the people the indians took advantage of these colonial missteps to accumulate victories in which they took the lives of 3000 teen colonial towns and slaughtered 800 head of cattle. Eventually however, the resistance collapsed. Largely not entirely but largely because other indians through in their lot with the indians in here i want you to focus your attention on the hudsons th riv. We will move to a close up here. In february of 1676, the mohawks, one of the five nations has a gesture of alliance to the young english colony of new york drove to their winter camp away from dutch and french gun markets in the hudson river in eastern back into the teeth of new england forces. Also lying in wait were the mohicans and pequot of connecticut pictured here were connecticut is located in Christian Wampanoags from cape cod who under dressed had sided with the colonies from the beginning and were just as adopted warfare as a resistance fighters. Meanwhile, the worn indians and their families were stocked by hunger and disease as they lived in cramped quarters on the run away from the cornfield and fishingfi stations. Consequently, by the late spring of 1676 growing numbers of them began to accept a late english offer of quarter in exchange for switching sides. In other words for fighting alongside rather than against the english. Others managed to escape by escaping to the upper Hudson River Valley or canada. Were they built new lives. But most of them never made it that far. By june 1676, indian prisoners were telling their english captors are we good . By june 1676, indian prisoners were telling the english captors that matter, was ready to die for you have now killed or taken all of his rns aelatio almost broke his heart. Those relations included his wife, and, his son, we dont kw his sons name who colonists captured and sold into the horrors of slavery. They were about to of the estimated 2000 indians, men, women, and children alive who had been sentenced to slavery and not only in new england but as far as way as the west indies and tangier. Some of these poor souls had surrendered based on english promises of mercy, only to discover the terms were harsher then colonial officials have pledge. Some surrendering natives learned too late that colonial authorities would not spare any indians who they suspected of having taken english lives. Massachusetts, plymouth, and rhode island helped public executions throughout the summer of 1676. Including 50 hangings on Boston Common alone. As pictured here, by the way, this map is from the mhs is no memorial by the way. To this ifer it. I say it should be. The english even exacted retribution on the day. On august 6, colonial forces discovered the drone body of females or some squat, and a war leader, and the sister of medic on news wife. Authorities ordered her had to be severed and pike. They slowly pin full prisoners. The captives, according to english accounts, a here, maydy most horrid and diabolical limitation crying out it was their queens head, a few days after this incident. The medical institute. He was shot down by a christian minion. Filled with vengeful spirit, captain benjamin church, heading dismembered in his head sent to plymouth. There, on the very site where the father and allied and feasted with the pilgrims, authorities mounted their grisly trophy outside of the town gate and left it there to rot for your 20 years. It is likely one of the last things of monica and spike saw when plymouth, shifted from her homeland into slavery. Later that week, the day of thanksgiving. In praise of weve god for your saving the colony from its enemies. I say can all agree, these horrors are is contrary to the thanksgiving story as it gets. I told you youd be able to ruin your that family thanksgiving. Now though history rarely pays attention to the king news work. My book emphasizes that the conflict was just the first testage in a centuries long bate to defend their lands and sovereignty. It should come as no surprise to the people in this room that the english seized nearly all of the territory in the decades after the war. They were leaving only a handful of down size reservations mostly for your christian indians. Please takemo note i didnt frad this process as them losing as if by mistake. No, colonists and their successors took it. The english also sees them as laborers. From the late 16 hundreds, through the mid 18 hundreds, white merchant creditors and courts and governments appointed guardians colluded to of course the walking dogs, and their children into servitude to white farmers and householders and merchants with the terms often lasting for your years and even decades. Such this Court Ordered servitude, a favorite term judicial enslavement. It made america nearly impossible for them to sustain their normal social patterns. Including the process of raising children. To the point that few could speak their natal language by the mid 19th century. Insert william apus, the born preacher to the waffen nuts, of cape cod, who is our second native figure after medic on, to dispute one american selfserving sanitized history. In 1936, right in the middle of the jacksonian indian removal, if this rolled his eulogy on king philip and by the way delivered it to an all white audience in boston. In this eulogy king philip, use a revisionist account of the program saga, to call attention to the plate of Indigenous People. In it if it is argued that indians, were the real heroes of clement news founding. Because they imported themselves like model christians whereas the supposedly saintly programs, behaved like villains. And hypocrites. He meticulously laid out all the pilgrims had introduced themselves to the wampanoags, by desecrating the grapes during their initial places that cape cod and eluding the court and then have the audacity to turn for your help. Yet the chief to his moral credit, obliged. Like a true christian. And viewed with the principles of charity, and forgiveness. No people can bepe used better than they were. The wampanoags gave the english medicine and sold their hogs. And not been for the seeming act of indians, every whiteit man wouldve been swept from the new england colonies. Avis also contended that the son, was quote the greatest man that ever lived uponli the american shores. If is even rank him higher than the namesake of my university, George Washington. Because if i against the darker tyranny. And for your greater freedom with far fewernn means at his disposal. And his telling, for your medic misguided attempt. Taking up arms against colonial dominance, rather, he was a sage. Because he foresaw in a quote the white people would not only cut down the roads but would enslave them. Note for the prophecy, groves and hunting grounds are gone. Their debtor dug up an account suppliers, are put out. It was known outgrown his avis but, of a fire and take her created by pilgrims from across the atlantic to burn and destroy my poor unfortunate brethren. Avis preached when he wasnt in boston. In live of this history, if this proposal indians should treat each december 22nd, the anniversary of the pilgrims landing in plymouth, and every fourth of july as quote days morning and not joy. Let them rather fast and pray to the great spirit, the indians weve god, and tills out mercy to his red children and not destruction. This call by avis, for your indians to commemorate that they were the burden of white americas tramps they would continue to resonate with the wampanoags long after he was gone. I will come back to the point. Listen 40 years later, the late 1860s, in the early news 1870s, massachusetts addressed the southern refusal of the wampanoags to disappear by dissolving their reservations of mesh pay. They had, chappaquiddick, Christian Town and others. The state divided the common lands of these places into private propertye tracks. Subjected those lands to taxation and compensation for your debt and then declared the inhabitants to be fullfledged citizens and no longer indians. As if the two were antithetical. By the way, you see a make by the divisiona made on the reservation chappaquiddick. What officials congratulated themselves. But in the main namenda b, that bestowed legal equality and indians. Just as new englanders were pressuring white southerners to do with black freedmen and women on reconstruction. And refuse to understand the civil rights for your africanamericans and civil rights for your native americans and at the same thing. Because native people, were here first. Then have sovereignty. We dont want just equality and justice. They want sovereignty and who these officials refuse to listen to wampanoags, who protested that the supposed gift of lycitizenship is actually a tron horse to r rub them of the remaining land and of course them to scatter. I was indeed the point. What proponents of this measure, memo on this moments, admitted that they consider the waffen out to be two racially intermixed t to be classified as indians any longer. And that in any case, it was the fate of indians to manage. On the next century, when americans did everything they could tonight make that supposedly natural process occur. Including reducing indians to romantic the parts in the country newstr history. As exemplified by the story. Throughout the colonial era, thanksgiving had no association whatsoever with pilgrims and indians. None. The link between the holiday and the history appears to be 21841. When the reverend alexander young, published a primary source account for your 1621 harvest phase, hosted by Plymouth Colony and attended by neighboring walkabouts, and this is the entire primary source account thanksgiving. Thats it. Young added an influential note and let me tell you as a historian, there are not a lot of influential footnotes out there. But this is one of themm and you can see it highlighted there. And it reads, this was the first thanksgiving, the Harvest Festival of newew england. Over the next 50 years, various authors and artists and lectures and politicians, disseminated this idea until americans took it for your granted. Predictably, new englanders for the first to tout the pilgrims as National Founders. And their dinner with indians, as a templin for your thanksgiving. But for the rest of the countryn to go alone, the nations first had to subjugate the tribes of the great plains and far west. Only then, can white people stop vilifying indians as bloodthirsty savages and give them an unthreatening brawl in the National Founding myth. The program saga also took old because it had used in the nation news culture wars. Yes, there always been culture wars. It was no coincidence that the pilgrims emerged as National Founders amid popular anxiety that the United States was being overrun by catholic and then jewish and Orthodox Christian immigrants. In supposedly unappreciative of the country news democratic protestant origins and values. Additionally, treating the pilgrims is the epitome of colonial america, who to minimize the country news record of racial oppression. Past and present. Better to highlight the program religious and democratic principles. Instead of the indian wars and slavery, more typical of colonies. Including the new england colonies. Through such means, more per could redefine thest socalled black and indian problems as southern and western exceptions. To an otherwise inspiring national heritage. Who they sanitize the history of new england. And then they newewhe england, e model for the rest of the United States. Who what i am staying here is that though americans eventually assumed that the thanksgiving holiday had been associated with pilgrims and indians, since 1621, that tradition was a product of whitehot dissent in the 19th century. Particularly yankees. They were asserting their Cultural Authority over european immigrants, americans of color, and other regions of the United States. This invention, became traditi tradition. By the early 20th century. As it remains to note, and those small degree, because american schools hold annual thanksgiving pageants. In which students dress up as pilgrims and indians to reenact the first thanksgiving. I will had met, i myself remember participating in such a performance. In which we sang by the way im not going to impose my singing on you. But in which we sang my country tis of the period in which we priced america as a sweet land of liberty and the pilgrims as my fathers. My fathers. The point of this exercise was to have a Diverse Group of schoolchildren learn about who we as americans are. At least who we are supposed to be. Stephen students from ethnic backgrounds, will be instilled with the principles of rep. Of government and liberty and christianity while learning to identify with english colonists, as fellow whites. Designed to get me, to identify the thing english is fellow white people. Leaving indians outside of the category, and my fathers also carried important lessons. There is another reminder about which i. C. E. Ran t the country. In his values mattered. Must we dismiss the impact of these messages, lets consider the experience of a young walkon woman coming up when she she was in greg school, the loan indian in her class, strategic cancer as chief massa cholla in one of these pageants. And then have her staying this land is your land. This land is my land. At the time she was just embarrassed. But now as an adult, she sees the cruel irony in it. On the waffen unsettle me about their parents going in the schools to object to these pageants. Lynn associated history lessons at the new england indians robe on. Only you have School Officials questioned their flames be indian. Authentic indians, are supposed to be primitive relics. Frozen in stunning time. Not modern people. Who what were they doing in school. Speaking english. Wearing contemporary clothing. And returning home to adulthood jobs and requires. By 1870, frank james, the third inner sequence of native revisionist historians. He reached the limits of his patients with this nonsense. James was born and raised in the community of aquatic, mother news vineyard. And long rank as one of the poorest communities in massachusetts. After the division of the common lands. Nevertheless, became corrupted determined to succeed and represent his people. The teenager, even adopted the name one set up. After the eldest son who proceeded for your medical, calling on the waffen is to resist colonialism. James and center drive carried him all of the way around the corners here. To the new england conservatory of music. Restudyco trumpet. And then after note National Orchestra would hire him, is racialer segregation to the pubc schools on cape cod. He became director of music. As tradition, was political activism. In the study of offandon history. Is he understood that knowing past was critical to reforming the present. And we read in the primary sources made his well have bo boil. Because apart little relation to the thanksgiving myth delayed around his people newsha neck, like a millstone. Who when james was invited to speak at a state banquet, accelerating the 350th anniversary of clement news founding he saw it on is the raree opportunity to set the record straight. Yet when he submitted a draft of his Speech Program review, officials of rejected itvi as is it too inflammatory. James for your his part, that an alternative script, by the state to be who childish and untrue, that he pulled out of the if it altogether. Instead, your plans for your commemoration where there would be no sensors. Inspired by the red power movement, for your indigenous rights and justice, james organize a national day of mourning. To be held on thanksgiving day 1970, at the side of the statute overlooking plymouthtu rock. And choosing this name for the occasion, james arkin not only to National Days of morning, after the recent assassination of john f. Kennedy and the reverend Martin Luther king, he also reached back to h avis news eulogy on kingea philip and like the karnik, james moment came, he rose up before protesters, crossed indiann country and the media and onlookers, and delivered the inflammatory speech massachusetts had tried to suppress. He began with the distortion that he had the right to the dignity of his humidity despite society news efforts diminish him and his people. I speak he was oh man he stressed. Wampanoag man, i am a proud man. I am proud of my ancestry. My accomplishments, one by strict parental direction. Despite his family and communitc suffering poverty and discrimination. To social and economic diseases. Had knowledge to his white listeners at thanksgiving is the time of celebration for you. Celebrating the beginnings of the white man in america. James, and the waffen oaks however, the date had implications. And sit with a heavy heart he explained, that i look back on what happened to my people. Like apus, james proceeded to tell a history of a most relations, attend a bedtime story of the thanksgiving myth into a nightmare. His conclusion, was that the welcome to the programs was perhaps her biggest mistake and we will often exhibit welcomes you the white man with open arms and little knowing there was beginning of the end. Before 50 years were to pass, the waffen oxo no longer be a free people. To james, like the medic on, like a this, the moral of the first thanksgiving was at the english and their white successors had betrayed the wampanoags who befriended them in their time of need. Ou this is the message that is echoed through subsequent National Days of morning. But united american ended of new england have continued to hold each thanksgiving up to the very present day. In the question, for your all of us, was and is to move forward. The answered according to james, is to comfort this industry. Including the fact that as he put it, that the wampanoags still walk the lands of massachusetts. They also urged his fellow americans to consider indians is worthy of the same respect as everyone else. Let us remember he counseled, the indian is, and was as human as the white man. In the indian feels pain, becomes defensive and has dreams, bears tragedy and failure and suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. If the American People follow this counsel, to extend their indian countrymen and women, basic compassion and acknowledgment, it would make thanksgiving day 1970 a new beginning. It will be towards a new america. But james called the more humane america. A more indian america. In which native people couldnt afford again, regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours. There are who many reasons for your americans to follow james is laid an attempt to tell the history of plymouth and thanksgiving with three dimensional wampanoags at the center. Thanksgiving that columbus day, as a focal. For your considering the native american brawl, in the nation news past. That enough to to have gotten the story who wrong, for your who long. I say its inexcusable to continue the annual tradition of having teachers and politicians, television producers, trapping the thanksgiving myth, and Residential Homes and Shopping Centers sport declarations of happy pilgrims and indians. These practices, this native people real this historical promise, and white hands. In favor of depicting their ancestors as consenting to colonialism. To call the consequences harmless is to ignore the course of native americans. Our fellow americans. Who see the card is profound. Particularly to their children. Population is already suffered far more than its fair share in the creation of the United States. I should note, shouldnt matter but it does, indians have also contributed disproportionately to the military in every single one of the nation news wars. All of the way back to the beginning. Not to the current time. In a pluralistic country is morally unacceptable to allow a celebration of the holiday to damage part of the nation news people. Never mind the first people. For your that matter, all of the people. Whereas the identity politics of martyrology or choice groups have tends to focus on achieving justice and equality. In the indian case, its opportune as well. What identity politics has always centered on oppressing others. There has been is it too little public reflection about how the thanksgiving myth teaches white proprietorship of the nation, why should a schoolaged child the name of see, silverman. Why should they identify more with the pilgrims of than the indians. After all, such a student is unlikely to dissent from either group and the descendents of both groups are silverman news fellow americans. If the student, start to say like a historian, and say of both pogroms and indians more dispassionately as they, instead of lee. It might be a step towards a more critical understanding of history in which all of the actors can be seen as the clock arrays. And with all of the virtuous and shortcomings, that one would expect to see in a population. But at the same time, the student is taught to say of both groups more inclusively as we, aware of the associated risk of appropriation which is real. It might be a step towards a more compassionate national culture. Sitting here by the way, this is the typical textbook map. Of colonial north america in the mid 1750s. No one answered the same. In the other side, and seven actual map from 1757. It is full of native people. What is happened. Our mission here, what if School Curriculums treat native American History as basic to an understanding American History in general. Such lessons would address the civilizations Indigenous People created over thousands of years before the arrival of europeans. The ways they have suffered on then resisted. The colonization. And perhaps most importantly, how they have managed to survive and adapt to modern life. While maintaining their distinct identities and defending their indigenous rights. Units on the american, what address he saw printing of Indian Tribes is the basic feature of american federalism. Such a shift, might also feature bringing indians and their concerns into the national conversation. Including having president ial candidates hold a serious discussion about their indian policies in the state of indian country. That is happening in the democratic right this time. As ive ever seen it. I want to sit at the National Pride that would be something this time. If the public continues to associate pilgrim indian relations with thanksgiving, the very least we can do is get the story straight. With offandon actors and perspectives at the center. It mention of incentive trafficking in the mythical thanksgiving, with the country, reckoned with the story as told by a medic on, william aphis, frank james. Not naive, i realize the challenges are significant at several levels. Many americans are uncomfortable with the native american past. It tends to turn patriotic episodes inside out and here is into villains. Or at least deeply flawed heroes. Ellipsis white flames on morality and authority. Erases political and cultural questions about justice. And he threatens to tear down monuments and rename buildings. Confronting this darkness also promises to shed live cultivate national humility, and i say most importantly signaled the native people that the country values them as us. As one gracious walkon once told me, we do ourselves no good by hiding from the truth. I say you meant all of us. Amen. Highback [applause] a couple of questions from the audience. Then will be happy to answered questions during the book signing as well. Of the comment. Ive been to two even slightly where the beginning of the conversation was. [inaudible conversation] they acknowledge to give you an fyi. And we are in a place called john that, it was on land of the massachusetts or people. And they are not organized as a state or federally recognized community any longer but the territory there, of the people who hold that scotus, always acknowledge that background. I am just curious if you could speak to feel anything about the political way of people at the different time. [inaudible conversation] who the wampanoag in massachusetts, basically inhabited the area around massachusetts bay. They were very close allies with the markdowns, when mayflower arrived. Again, the mayflower and the rival preceded by an epidemic between 1616 and 6019. On the terrible damage to native peoples beginning in the north, at the river main, all of the way southward to the east shore of the bay. One of the reasons that it passes between the wampanoags and the massachusetts people is that they are in close [applause] with each other. One of the reasons it doesnt pass to the west side is that the orthodox were at odds. And therefore the contacts werent as intense. Two people spoke very closely related dialects and the intermarried. They were military allies with one another. And their fates were intertwined during this early. Just like the massachusetts colony and the others, i, the dates in the 30s. And many ways, focusing on points are missing. Kenneth always remained a marginal lively lightly populated prickly and important colony. It didnt attract an awful lot of migrants. Massachusetts is quite another story. Plymouth begins with 50 people. There is a hundred at the beginning of the winter by the end of it there is 50. And, it was always one tenth the size of the population of massachusetts. The massachusetts attract somewhere between 15 and 20000 migrants during the 1630s. And, lady terry might want to focus on this detail. The women of the great migration, and an average eight children. Over the course of their lives. Those children tend to live healthy lives. On average more than six of them live to adulthood. Not just outdoor hood, the first generation of colonists msa, routinely lived into their 60s and 70s and 80s. This is the recipe for your a population explosion. I say it is fair to see that these people swarmed native people who are still trying to recover from the epidemic. Which leads to a critical. I say for your those of us who are familiar with the arguments of Jared Diamond see, there is a tendency to place is it too much emphasis on epidemic disease. I am not discounting how important it was. Devastating work among native people of wheat focus at the who much on these diseases. We take colonists off the hook and the fact of the matter is as they took advantage of native american depopulation and prevented native people from recovering from that tragedy. That was certainly the case in massachusetts bay. What is more, during the colonial period, the forces of colonization often helped to create the conditions in which epidemics thrive such as forcing people to live in fortified settlements, not tending to the nutrition in the way that they otherwise would. And who it is becoming far is it too common for your americans i say by diamond, just an accident of history native depopulation of left western hemisphere. No its not. [inaudible conversation] smallpox was the worst. I was terrified about five years ago and some bloody left the center for your Disease Control in atlanta when one of the two remaining samples of smallpox in the world. Terrifying. Smallpox is the worst. As a host disease, flu, pneumonia, measles, chickenpox, he wrote go right above the line. These crowdin diseases its work who common you wrote and asia and africa, which native people in the market had not yet been exposed. And terrible damage. Three questions but the quick. I learned a lot from your talk. Thank you. One of understood response to previous questions. You always do land acknowledges months but in certain cases is when understand, second question was what got you into just interested in the question we start at the beginning, that you encounter some open on folks. Im curious what those criticisms were praised im still working through the land acknowledgment ritual. I understand the point. She remind everybody that native people were here first. But i am a historian. Who sometimes i am uncomfortable staying this land belong to this particular group when a we dont know. Or be, the claim is contested. For your instance, but in providence, rhode island, that place is contested between what we want in the. The name study. Now im injecting myself in a modernday political dispute and i dont want to do that. Im also uncomfortable engaging in performative ritual for your nonnative people. Understand the political. Of it. Nothing matters. One of them can uncomfortable that aspect of it and i say more and talked more people weather is important toi them. And if i hear more than that, i most certainly will. She remind me of your other,. Was a criticism four. One is in college, i got really interested in colonial era social history. History from the bottom up. History of the working people but on the booze, dirt on the fingernails, as a people who righted in the streets of boston during the revolution in turn a gegenteel revolution into something more a little bit revolutionary. Not as revolutionary as i would like but by the standards of the time. As i continued my education, what i realized was the major missing stories. There are a lot missing in the American History. But no story that was missing that the first people. Lets be clear, during the colonial period, the overwhelming majority in north america, it occupy that kind of space in the way that we teach history. And it is a challenge. Intellectually, it is an incredible challenge and try to recover the stories of indigent was people and with some exceptions, though often absorb one of them, didnt leave their own records behind. Someone has to read every kind of source that one can get once and on and try to understand the particular biases that source and read archaeology, hollinghurst or, she can reach me on southern new england archaeology when i need it. Not least of all, and this it is let me into conversations with the nativeat people. I wanted to learn what they had to know. I have a 20 year running relationship with the waffen, i mean, a more recent relationship with nash b. He is and what the critiques on my work. If they are wheeling to share, i want to make her name here with no parade sometimes its off limits and i get that. But they raise questions very often that i hadnt considered before. And that lead me to go back to the sources for the new perspective. As for your points of disagreement. I have a tendency to see native aussies in southern new england as more coercive. And some native people who tend to see them as more consensual. I say that would be the major one. And very often, i will hear that women were far more important to the story than you are telling. I readily acknowledge the point but am a historian. What i see has to be dependent on sources. And i dont know what theyre doing, because colonists who produce most of these writings paid no attention to half of the native population. Actually more than half of the ablation. The petition elders or children either. They paid attention to politician, lawyers and traitors. That is about it. And who there are gaps in the historical record, the very often the people i talked to, warming to address and i see, because of the method of the logical demands of my discipline, i am restricted in what i can assert. Who i say this would beat some of these examples. [inaudible conversation] [applause] heres a look at books being published this week. In supreme ambitious, Washington Post rick marcus, offers her thoughts the Republican Party news efforts to sheet the makeup of the supreme court. On the past three years. Craig charlie recounts the life of George Washington news mother in a related biography, mary ball washington. In migrating to prison, law professor garcia and nandos, reports on the incarceration of people breaking americas immigration laws. Wallace kennedy, the daughter of the late alabama bar governor richard wallace, was on her lunch and the broken road. In cnns kate bennett the life of a millennia trump and the first lady and freight millennia. Bookstores this coming week. And watch for your many of the authors in the near future on the tv and on cspan two. At this year news boston book festival, civil rights Attorney Ben Crump offered his thoughts on racial bias in the justice system. And heres a portion of his talk. I was certainly doing the stated florida since we were the first state to pass the standard your ground law which i am on record. I say its the most racist, law that we have ever seen in america and it is sad because black people and brown people in america, regrettably and unfortunately, we have gotten use to the Police Killing us and not being held accountable. The standard ground law, made it but any tom or or harry, could kill us and still not be held accountable. And not just held accountable but you have the statistic i talked about were black people on death row, the quickest way to get to quick death row and records to be a person of color and kill a white person. But yet one of white person kills a person of color, there often times are not even arrested. All they have to see a standard ground. And who that will certainly be the first law to get rid of standard ground. An enemy get rid of it, there was nothing wrong with selfdefense. There is nothing wrong with sunday brown was a solution. Looking for your problem. In the nra, suggested it and brought the legislature and said, now you have the license to use the estimates that we are la you and the work dont worry about any accountability. Just use them. I just say that is the wrong message to young people. We said oliver problems were violence and guns versus conflict resolution. To watch the rest of the talk, and find more of a book festival coverage, visit our website at spoke to veit. Org. And click on the fairs and festivals tab near the top of the page. Now on book tvs afterwards. Fox news legal and political analyst greg jarrett, offers his thoughts on the maury report. An investigation of russias interference in the 2016 election. Theseon interviewed by matt, chr of the american conservative union. Afterwards is the weekly Interview Program with relevant gas hose. Interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work