The Silence of Massasoit

Four hundred years ago the Mayflower and Speedwell set sail from the port of Plymouth, England. The Speedwell turned back, but the Mayflower came to rest in an area of New England known as Patuxet. The ship carried 102 passengers, most of whom William Bradford called “Pilgrims”, and about 30 crew members. This was a seminal moment in the history of our country for many reasons.

Much of what we experience today was present at Plimoth – our desperate hunger for liberty, our courageous willingness to sacrifice everything for it, our yearning for a church and community governed by and for the people, and, sadly, our deeply destructive if often unconscious convictions of white supremacy.

The year was 1620. The Pilgrims, our direct spiritual ancestors, were fleeing religious persecution. They had rejected creeds, hierarchies, and coercive religion. They believed there always is “more truth” to be discovered by faithful people. They embraced covenanting as the proper way to organize - first a church, and then a civil society.

Years earlier they had established an underground congregation in Nottinghamshire, England. They had transported it to Leyden, Holland. Finally, they brought it to what is now Massachusetts. The local church they established continues to worship and serve to this day. It is known as the First Parish in Plymouth – a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

It is right and fitting that we reflect on that historic moment. To do so I will share several vignettes, all related, in which we can judge for ourselves the changing appraisals of our heritage.

Vignette One:

In the late 1970s, in a large downtown church in Minneapolis, nearly 50 women formed a highly talented group called “The Needlers”. A section of the church building was set aside as “The Stitchery”. “Needlers” had to take classes and pass an exam before they could work on a large embroidery. Over a period of more than three years, they created a massive embroidery, 16’tall by 25’ wide, designed by the British artist, Pauline Baynes. It became the centerpiece of the church’s newly renovated Guild Hall. At the center of this embroidery is the scene of “The First Thanksgiving” at Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts.

Years passed. The Needlers stitched new embroideries and fiber art. Today their creations are a “must see” stop on every city tour. There are now four large embroideries and many smaller ones, but the original “First Thanksgiving” remains the defining piece of the whole endeavor.

Except it isn’t.

A year ago this month, in a contentious congregational meeting, after months of study and conversation, the members voted 372 to 189 to retire their beloved embroidery indefinitely.

Why?

The Thanksgiving meal depicted in this embroidery is viewed by most Native Americans as a stereotypical and sanitized version of the real story. For American Indians, it points to a bitter history of conquest and betrayal. After many years, the church finally heard the justified grievances of their indigenous neighbors. They listened to the deep pain this embroidery both depicted and inflicted. In a costly gesture of repentance and reconciliation, they removed it.

Vignette Two:

Fifty years ago, it was decided to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival with a huge festival at Plimoth Plantation, the “living history” museum in Massachusetts that replicates the original settlement of Pilgrims. A Wampanoag elder, Frank (Wamsutta) James, was invited by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to participate in the commemoration. He was expected to talk about the “friendly relations” between the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims.

The speech he wrote was not entirely negative but, in real friendship, real truth must prevail. It recounted the years of betrayal, death and loss of land. When the text of Mr. James’s speech was reviewed by the planners sometime before the dinner, it was rejected. A new speech was written for him. He refused the substitution, and the organizers "disinvited" him from the celebration.

Frank James and other Wampanoag guests walked out. They walked up the hill to a statue of Massasoit. Massasoit was the Wampanoag leader who helped the exhausted settlers survive their first New England winter. Under his leadership, the Wampanoags taught the Pilgrims how to plant and fish in their new home.

Massasoit had strategic motives for welcoming the Pilgrims, no doubt, but he genuinely believed that Indians and Whites could find a way to live together in peace. The Wampanoag are the Indians depicted in “The First Thanksgiving” by Pauline Baynes and celebrated in the Plymouth Church embroidery.

When the pilgrims arrived, they did not “discover” a vast and empty wilderness inhabited only by untamed savages. The Wampanoag were just one group that had lived on this land for more than 12,000 years. Known as “The People of the First Light”, they were part of a civilization that had existed for centuries. Many tribes and nations had created a complex web of relationships with its own economy, laws, culture, art, sports, and spirituality.

A full century before the Pilgrims landed at Patuxet, other Europeans had explored and traded with indigenous peoples in the area. They also had robbed them, imported lethal diseases and took native people as slaves.

The indigenous economic and social networks that had lasted for centuries had been strained to the breaking point by these marauders. The years 1613 to 1619 were especially harsh. They are known to this day as “The Great Dying”. Whole villages succumbed. Over time, the Wampanoag had been reduced from as many as 40,000 people to as few as 400. They needed peace more than conflict, and allies more than enemies.

This was the context in which Massasoit rose to leadership. His wisdom had been forged in the cauldron of suffering that preceded the Mayflower’s arrival. He had seen the benefits and destruction left by these European explorations, yet he still believed in co-existence.

The brave and hardy Pilgrims also had lost more than half their company that first year. We honor them for their ideals, and for their courage and sacrifice. Yet sadly, they contributed another stream to American culture: a 17th Century version of white supremacy.

The Pilgrims were certain that they were destined to occupy this land. They believed that they were superior to the people they encountered here. Governor William Bradford even attributed the plagues and hardships the Indians had so recently endured to what he called “the good hand of God,” who, he said, “favored our beginnings” by “sweeping away great multitudes of the natives...that He (God) might make room for us.”

More than 50 of the first colonial villages were located where Indian communities had been emptied by disease. The epidemic, another settler wrote, left the land “without any [people] to disturb or appease our free and peaceable possession thereof, from whence we may justly conclude, that God made the way to effect His work.”

Was this the beginning of “manifest” destiny? Did White Anglo-Saxon Protestant privilege arrive with the Bibles and blunderbusses?

Sadly, these two peoples – Indian and European - never saw beyond their own needs and alliances, never really saw and heard the humanity of each other.

Yes, there was a harvest celebration. The Plymouth Needlers were right about that.

Yes, Massasoit came, accompanied by 90 of his compatriots. They outnumbered the surviving Pilgrims, two-to-one.

Yes, the Pilgrims shared an abundant harvest with their guests, and yes, the Indians brought wild game to the party.

Massasoit had a vision of peoples living together in peace. Yet only a generation later, children who played together at this feast were at war to the death with one another. The massive influx of European colonists led to a war of expansion that became a war of survival for the indigenous peoples. Historians tell us that "King Philip's War" as it was called was the bloodiest conflict ever to have been waged on American soil. Hundreds of colonists died. Dozens of English settlements were destroyed. Thousands of Indians were killed, wounded, or captured and sold into slavery. Their ancient civilization was shattered.

350 years later, now standing by the statue of Massasoit, Frank Wamsutta James could see a replica of the Mayflower bobbing calmly in Plymouth Harbor. He and his audience overlooked the very land where this tragedy descended upon their ancestors. With the Psalmist they may have thought, “a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past.” 

There he delivered his speech. Ever since that time - fifty years ago - many native people across the continent have observed Thanksgiving Day as their Annual Day of Mourning.

Vignette Three:

Fast forward to the “Covided” year of 2020. It is now the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from the small town of Plymouth in England to the icy New England shores. A replica of the Mayflower again would sail. The drama of those first years would be re-enacted. But this time the people planning the commemoration included descendants of the original Wampanoag in the research, planning, and retelling of the stories. It would be a multi-cultural narrative commemorating – not celebrating – what was gained and what was lost.

More than 30 Wampanoag Indians have become collaborators in the project known as Mayflower 400. They have created art exhibitions and demonstrations. They are teaching classes in both England and America about their culture, customs, and history. With their English counterparts at The Box Theatre in Plymouth, England, they have written a historical drama and prepared to take their parts in it. Covid has prevented this collaboration from coming to fruition, but in time both Indians and Whites will tell their story together. Meanwhile, they have generated a lot of material online. The Wampanoag, at last, are being heard.

Let's listen to a few words from the speech Frank Wamsutta James was forbidden to give 50 years ago, but which he gave anyway before the regal statue of Massasoit.

“High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands (this) statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood 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…

“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 (and woman). 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. (The Indian), too, is often misunderstood….

“What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men, (women) and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail. You (who are White) are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later, it is the beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.”

Frank James would be pleased to know that during this 400th anniversary year, 2020, the living museum, previously known as Plimoth Plantation for 73 years, has a new name. From henceforth it will be called Plimoth-Patuxet.

He would be glad to know that Minneapolis changed the name of its largest lake from Lake Calhoun to its original name, Bde Maka Ska.

He would be glad to know that six Native Americans will serve in the next US Congress. Many barriers are falling.

We have a long, long way to go. Yet we must dream. Someday, perhaps, Plymouth Church’s original embroidery can be resurrected – not as a distorted vision of the past, but as a dream of what may yet be. But not yet.

May this Covided year be for us the beginning of the end of very old assumptions of white supremacy. May 2020 be the beginning of a new way of listening, celebrating and inclusion. May we all find a place at the table together.

 

A (Notorious) Woman of Valor

Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof

"Justice, justice, shall you pursue.” 

Celia Amster Bader was the first American-born child in a family of Austrian Jewish immigrants. She was born just four months after her mother arrived on these shores. Her daughter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG), often noted that her mother was “conceived in the Old World and born in the New”.

An Orthodox Jew, Celia kept a list of “women of valor” — Biblical women who impacted the world for the better, women such as Sarah, Deborah, Miriam, etc. RBG memorized their stories. Celia expected “valor” and excellence in her daughter too, and RBG received a first-class, yeshiva-worthy education. "My mother told me to be a lady," said RBG. For her, that meant to be your own person. Be independent." 

When RBG entered high school, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. She died just two days before Ruth’s graduation - an eerie foreshadowing of the timing of RGH’s own battle with terminal cancer. “When my mother died,” RBG commented, “the house was filled with women, but only men could participate in the minyan….” Because she was a girl, she was not permitted to recite Kaddish -- the traditional Jewish mourners’ prayer. She was indignant; she felt it was an affront to her mother. “That time was not a good one for me in terms of organized religion,” she recalled. 

Yet a gold mezuzah hung on the doorframe of her office, given by a yeshiva in Brooklyn. She was enormously generous to Jewish causes. A framed lithograph of the Hebrew command, “Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof — Justice, justice, shall you pursue” Deuteronomy 16:20) also hung in her office. The exceptional rarity of a repeated word in the Torah gives these words added significance.

Even the collar (jabot) she wore for the court’s opening session had a special Hebrew inscription. Woven in silk by the Jewish artist Marcy Epstein, it reads along its edge, “Tzedek, Tzedek,” evoking “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof.”

In 2015, RBG was asked by the Jewish World Service to write for its Passover Haggadah. She chose texts about women and the roles women played in the Exodus narrative. She included the Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses' sister Miriam, the midwives, Shifra and Puah, and others.

There were many non-Biblical “women of valor” on RBG’s list. Eleanor Roosevelt was one; another was Emma Lazarus. The latter's poem, ‘The New Colossus,’ is etched on the base of the Statue of Liberty. That poem has welcomed legions of immigrants, RBG commented, including her own family — “people seeking shelter from fear, and people longing to find freedom from intolerance.”

I’m sure her own mother was on that list. RBG once asked, rhetorically, what is the difference between a bookkeeper in New York City’s garment district and a Supreme Court Justice? “One generation,” she said. “My own life bears witness to the differences of opportunities available to my mother and those afforded me.” Many opportunities were available to her because her mother struggled and sacrificed to make them possible.

A young Jewish woman wrote that RBG, “…represented the country we wanted to believe we were in. She overcame misogyny, patriarchy, and antisemitism to be the first Jewish woman to sit on the Supreme Court. She fought for us and for so many people, for a more equitable and just America. She did it while having a marriage and children. She became a holy talisman… (She is) a holy reminder of what this country could be and of what we can achieve...”[i]

To me, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an exemplar of American patriotism. She embodied the best of our country. She is the most complete and compelling example of what it means to be a human being. 

Celia Amster Bader, you must be very proud. Thank you. 

by Gilbert Friend-Jones

[i] Carly Pildis, “May her memory be a revolution: We are all notorious now”, in The Forward, September 19, 2020.

Older

A young friend recently asked me about aging. Here is my response.

Yes, I am older.

It sometimes takes me longer to get my words right. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just make do. Sometimes I don't care.

Reading has become more difficult. I don't always see the words clearly on the

page. Thank God for larger computer fonts. Often I only partially hear conversations in which I'm supposed to be involved; I improvise (to myself) what I think is being said. Often I'm right, but sometimes my response is off base. This can be embarrassing, or funny. Or sad.

Because I don't hear well, sometimes I talk over others. If - no, when! - I've done this to you, I'm sorry. Sometimes I lag behind in conversations, especially with younger fast-talking, fast-thinking folks. My responses seem inane to them. Often they just smile.

Sometimes I'd rather not talk at all. "Don't speak unless you can improve upon silence,” wrote LaoTzu. He also said, "Those who know, don't say, and those who say, don"t know." I'm no LaoTzu.

I can still write but it takes longer to get the words right, or the right words. Do I repeat myself? My public speaking hasn't suffered as much as my private conversations. I have a job I love, but meetings sometimes annoy more than they used to. I still work actively for diversity and inclusion. We have our daily devotions. I study Spanish for at least an hour every day.

My long-suffering wife listens to my endless critiques of TV commercials - I'm always finding subtexts and metamessages about race, class, ability, etc. I also correct newscasters' grammar all the time. It's got to be difficult, I know, this talking 24-7 without stop. But I wish for more civility and less adrenaline in my life now, and certainly in my interactions with the tele.

Do I sound more curmudgeonly now? I kinda like that too. Things that once were matters of life and death no longer capture my energy. I like to sit. I nap. I walk. I ride a bike. I companion the moon. Still, occasionally, I rise early to welcome the sun.

I like to dine on real china, occasionally. A cup of good coffee makes me very happy. Ditto a cup of tea. (It doesn't take much anymore, does it?) I still want to look like the Adonis I never was. I love YouTube, TedTalks and - sometimes - Zoom conversations.

One of my greatest joys is watching intelligent, competent, energetic, articulate young leaders in a wide variety of professions. This gives me hope. I don't think I ever will be 'set in my ways'. My family disagrees.

If I am to be the scout on the road before you, then here is my report. There is more poetry and music out here, and so much more beauty.