On the National Day of Mourning - 12/1/2024

Hello everyone, and thank you for coming to our community kaddish. Today marks the 419th day of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed across Gaza, the Occupied West Bank and Lebanon, with even more displaced, injured, or missing. I pray that this senseless violence ends quickly. That the US stops sending weapons, and stops being complicit in genocide. 

That being said, this country has always been complicit in genocide. The original founding of this country comes from the genocide of many indigenous peoples. We are currently standing on lands belonging to the Wampanoag, Pokanoket, and Narragansett people, people who were wiped out in order for white people to expand their empire. 

Before colonizers came to the land that we now call the United States, the Wampanoag people lived on this land for over 12,000 years. From 1615-1619 a leptospirosis epidemic, carried by Europeans, dramatically reduced the population of the Wampanoag and other tribes in the area. With so many people sick or dead, the Europeans were able to invade the land in the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Between the plague and the active invasion, the Europeans killed off 60% of the Wampanoag population and sold many of the survivors as slaves and sent them to Bermuda or the West Indies, or kept them on plantations in New England. Others were killed decades later during the massacres in the late 1600’s.

The Pokanoket, a group of the Wampanoag whose territories existed in places that we now call Briston, Warren, Barrington, East Providence, Cumberland, and in southern “Massachusetts” taught the colonizers how to plant crops and survive on Turtle Island. In the Winter of 1636, the Massasoit Ousamequin welcomed Roger Williams and granted him permission to settle. Despite the kindness of the Pokanoket members, the Pokanoket were largely eradicated during Pometacomet’s Rebellion - known to colonizers as King Phillip’s War.

The Narragansett people have historical records going back over 30,000 years. They first encountered settlers in 1523 when Giovanno de Verrazano visited Narragansett bay. The Narragansett people were considered to be warriors within the region and often cared for smaller tribes, including the Wampanoag. The Narragansett joined the Wampanoag and Pokanoket people during Pometacomet’s Rebellion. In the Great Swamp Rebellion in 1965 the colonizers in Plymouth massacred a group of the Narragansett, mostly women, children and the elderly who were sheltering for winter in what we call South Kingstown. 

These tribes’ histories are very much bound with one another and are also bound up in the same colonial fight that is playing out across the Middle East. The colonizer play book has not changed. They introduce disease, kill women, children and the elderly, and detain and torture those who have nowhere else to go. 

Though we were not present for the genocide of indigenous people here on Turtle Island, and though we are not pulling the trigger and dropping bombs on the people of Palestine, we are all still benefitting from the colonization of Turtle Island, and are benefitting from the modern day genocides in Paletine, Lebanon, Sudan, the Congo and elsewhere. 

We are the people who live on stolen indigenous land. We pax taxes to, and get benefits from a country whose biggest expenditures are on the military. In 2023 - 13.3% of all of the federal budget went to the military. And for what? For the continuation of empire, the genocide of Palestine all while polluting and killing the planet.

On Thursday, indigenous people and allies commemorated the National day of mourning. This tradition started in 1970. Frank James, a member of the Wampanoag people, was invited to share remarks in Plymouth at a “Thanksgiving Celebration” in 1970. He submitted a speech in advance that he was not allowed to read. Today, I want to share some snippets from it: 

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… 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…" 

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…

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 are watching, and have watched, as the forces of white supremacy and empire continue to justify genocide in Palestine, and across the globe in places like Sudan, the Congo and Yemen. These forces continue to drive indigenous communities off their lands, leaving trails of pollution and blood. 

We also see how indigenous communities continue to rise up and retain their spirits and their connection to their culture and land. We see this in how Palestinians are still dancing, adults are passing on the Dabke to children, and teaching their kin how to farm, and forage for food, and prepare food (when available) in traditional ways amidst the rubble. Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank still harvest olives and till their lands while under threat from “settlers” - a name too kind for these terrorists. We see how the Pokanoket recently were able to get Brown University to return 225 acres of land - this agreement came after the Pokanoket people encamped on their land for a month in 2017. The colonizer will never return land or stop their genocide out of the goodness of their hearts. 

We all have an obligation, not just to Palestine, but to the indigenous people of this land that we are on. We have an obligation to mourn the dead and fight for the living. We have the obligation of learning the histories of the peoples’ lands we are on.