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