PLEASE CLICK THE LINK AND READ ON SUBSTACK... very important story! ... Trace
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👉 “Bounty” shows daily at the Old State House and can be viewed online
at the Upstander Project’s website, which also features a timeline and a
teacher’s guide to the film and the issues it deals with.
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| Spencer Phips’ scalp bounty proclamation issued in 1755. (Image: Penobscot Nation Museum) |
“Bounty,” the newly installed film at Boston’s Old State House, is only nine minutes long, but its powerful and disturbing message looms much larger for audiences. Whether tourists or locals, visitors to the Old State House usually expect to tour the 1713 building to glimpse the legislative history of Massachusetts, particularly the events and public debates surrounding the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre and other aspects of Revolutionary history. Now part of Revolutionary Spaces, which also oversees the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House is sharing the history of brutal attacks on New England’s Indigenous peoples as part of Massachusetts colonial policy – a legacy that is surprising and unnerving to those used to a purely celebratory telling of the colony’s story.
The exhibit, housed in the Old State House’s council chamber, tells the story of so-called “scalp bounties” – one that has a direct connection to Cambridge as a whole and, in particular, to History Cambridge’s headquarters at 159 Brattle St. The adopted son of Sir William Phips, the first governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Spencer Phips entered politics in his own right in 1721 when elected to the provincial assembly. His family connections had set Phips up for political and economic prominence and, several years after his graduation from Harvard in 1703, he bought a large tract that encompassed much of what is now East Cambridge and settled there with his family.
Phips was appointed to the governor’s council in 1721, and from 1732-1757 was the lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony, the Province of Maine, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. During two periods (1749-53 and 1756-57) Phips served as acting governor while William Shirley was abroad.
As a prominent landowner and politician, Phips had set his children up to marry well; in the 1730s Phips’ daughter Rebecca married the up-and-coming merchant and land speculator Joseph Lee and settled into 159 Brattle St., known commonly as the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House. While we do not have direct evidence that this house, which serves as the headquarters of History Cambridge, was occupied by enslaved people on a permanent basis, we know that Joseph Lee and Rebecca Phips enslaved two men, Caesar and Mark Lee/Lewis, on other Massachusetts properties that they owned, and it is likely that one or both stayed with the Lees when they were at their Brattle Street property. Spencer Phips, too, was an enslaver, holding five people in bondage, so his children would have grown up expecting to be waited on by enslaved servants.
In addition to his land in Cambridge, Phips was part-owner of a large tract on what is now the central coast of Maine (then part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay). In 1719, the owners began to develop the land for white settlement to the objection of the local Abenaki People, who argued that their leaders had made land grants to the colonists without authorization from the tribe. Conflicts increased in the 1720s, leading to what is known as Dummer’s War from 1723-1727. For the next several decades, tensions flared between the Abenaki and the colonists, leading Shirley to declare war on the Abenaki in 1754.
In its declaration of war, Massachusetts made an exception for one group of Abenaki: the Penobscot People, whom the colonial government claimed were exempt from their attacks. In reality, the position of the Penobscot made them vulnerable to the same brutality at the hands of colonists as other Abenaki. In the ongoing colonial battles between the English and the French, Indigenous peoples were pressured to take sides; although the Penobscot desired to remain neutral, their geographic location meant that they could not escape colonial politics. Seen as pro-British by the French and pro-French by the Maine colonists, the Penobscot found themselves pushed increasingly toward French alliance because of incidents such as a 1755 attack by New England militiamen on a Penobscot fishing party.
In 1755, while Shirley was away from the colony, Phips issued a declaration of war against the Penobscot, offering cash rewards for each scalp of a Penobscot person turned into the colonial government. Phips’ proclamation put a value of 50 pounds for males over age 12, while women and male children under 12 were deemed to be worth 25 pounds and female children were worth 20 pounds. The next year, the colonial assembly voted to allow scalp bounties of up to 300 pounds – by far the largest sum ever offered in a wartime declaration. In 1759, Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Pownall seized control of the Penobscot River and the homelands of the Penobscot people by force.
Phips signed the declaration of war and the scalp bounty proclamation in the council chamber of the Old State House; in 2021, Upstander Project created a short film featuring several current-day Penobscot families reading the text of the proclamation aloud in the chamber. Penobscot Nation tribal ambassador Maulian Bryant emphasized the importance of not only telling the story of the Phips Proclamation, but doing so in the physical space where these and other decisions were made that so greatly affected the Penobscot and other Indigenous peoples:
It conveys this empowering sense of resilience and that Penobscot people, Indigenous people all over this country were not supposed to still be here. That there were very systematic attempts to exterminate our people in order to have our land taken. So the fact that we are still living here in our home, and we will grapple with this trauma and we will reflect on it and honor our ancestors, but we need to do that by being strong, proud Penobscot people. And this project was a way to reclaim some of that space.
History Cambridge is proud to partner with the Upstander Project to work toward the amplification of Indigenous voices and a broader understanding of local Indigenous histories during this Native American Heritage Month and well beyond.
🦃THANKS BRADFORD?
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The first National Day of Mourning event was held on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1970 on Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. James delivered an amended speech[1] beside a statue of Ousamequin, including
| "We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of
the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees.
What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a
more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once
again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and
brotherhood prevail.
|
The event was attended by close to 500 Native Americans from throughout the United States[1] and has been held annually on the fourth Thursday in November every year since. James' speech was one of the first public criticisms of the Thanksgiving story from Native American groups.[2]
DAY OF MOURNING: NOVEMBER 28, 2024
HEADLINES
Seattle Magazine: Chef Overcomes Personal Troubles to Celebrate his Native American Roots
Arizona Republic: Thanksgiving always reflected culture. Indigenous chefs are reclaiming it
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LEARN MORE: https://www.truthsgiving.org/
There are many colonial mythologies about Indigenous Peoples and the founding of the US and Canada. Thanksgiving is one of them, however, in the words of Wamsutta Frank James, Wampanoag, “the Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors, and stolen their corn, wheat, and beans.” The truth is that real history has been whitewashed and that Thanksgiving perpetuates white supremacy and romanticized notions about Indigenous Peoples. To celebrate the current Thanksgiving mythology is to celebrate the theft of land through ethnic cleansing and enslavement. It is a lie that overlooks the genocide of Native American Indigenous Peoples and the enslavement of African Indigenous Peoples in order for settler-vigilantes and colonial militias to steal land and labor--the legacy of which is still felt today.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – California came into the Union as a free state in 1850 with a constitution that banned slavery. So how did white settlers in the mid-19th century get away with enslaving Indigenous children, some of them as young as 2 years old? And why does this little known, terrible chapter of California history matter today?
Today, the ACLU of Northern California released the third episode of Gold Chains, our podcast about California’s hidden history of slavery. “Indigenous Injustice” examines a 19th century state law called the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians that effectively legalized Indigenous child slavery and encouraged kidnappers to snatch Native children from their tribal communities.
“The horror of what happened in California, the genocidal violence against Native people, and especially the enactment of that violence against children, is unfathomable,” said historian Stacey Smith, who appears as a guest on the show.
“Indigenous Injustice” isn’t just ancient history. Over time, the practice of forcibly separating Native children from their tribal communities has taken on many forms. There were the so- called Indian Boarding Schools. A variety of other government-sanctioned adoption schemes have funneled Indigenous children into Non-Native, mostly white households.
Currently, there’s a landmark case scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 9 – Brackeen v. Haaland – that deals with the very same issue of the forced removal of Native children from their families, tribes and tribal culture. It threatens to dismantle the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which was passed to prevent Native children from being removed from their communities.
The American Civil Liberties Union, along with 12 ACLU affiliates ( including the ACLU of Northern California) have filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the court to uphold the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
“Indigenous Injustice” is a timely story that connects the dots between Indigenous child slavery in California to the present.
Link to Episode Website
California joined the Union as a so-called free state in 1850. So how did white settlers get away with enslaving Native children until they were young adults?
We explore a little-known California state law called the Act
for the Government and Protection of Indians that unleashed genocidal
violence against Indigenous children. And we connect the dots between
that terrible past and a landmark upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case.
Episode Credits:
Produced by the ACLU of Northern California
Host and writer Tammerlin Drummond
Senior Producer and Editor Joanne Jennings
Mix and Original Score Renzo Gorrio
Executive Producer Candice Francis
We’d like to thank our wonderful guides Stacey L Smith, William Bauer and Tedde Simon.
Our associate producers are Lisa P. White and Carmen King.
A special thanks also to our voice actors Pauline Schindler, William Freeman, and Avi Frey.
Elize Manoukian provided fact-checking and production assistance.
Field recording was done by Julie Conquest, Ron George and Eric Gleske.
We’d also like to thank the following members of our Gold Chains team: Brady Hirsch, Gigi Harney and Eliza Wee. Thank you also to Abdi Soltani, executive director of the ACLU of Northern California.
A special thanks to World Affairs, Oregon State University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for providing us with recording studios.
Archival sound was provided courtesy of Periscope Films and Prelinger Archives.
Episode Guests:
William Bauer is a professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a citizen of the Round Valley Reservation. He is the author of California Through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History and We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here: Work, Community and Memory on California’s Round Valley Reservation.
Stacey Smith is an associate history professor at Oregon State University. She is the author of Freedom's Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation and Reconstruction.
Tedde Simon is the Indigenous justice advocate at the ACLU of Northern California and a citizen of the Navajo Nation.
Additional Resources:
Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California, ACLU of Northern California
Among the Diggers of 30 Years Ago, Helen M. Carpenter
Early California Laws and Polices Related to California Indians Kimberly Johnston-Dodds, California State Library
Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report U.S. Department of Indian Affairs
This Land, host Rebecca Nagle
At Liberty, host Kendall Ciesemier
Approximately 60 stood in line waiting to sit inside the court to witness the oral arguments. Many sat between the Capitol and court listening to three hours of oral arguments on their headphones, and others listened to the line of speakers and songs all morning and into midday.
Haaland v. Brackeen challenges the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law that has been referred to as the “gold standard” for child welfare by many child welfare organizations. It was enacted in 1978 to “halt the unnecessary forced removal of Native kids from their families,” said Sarah Kastelic, an enrolled citizen of the Native Village of Ouzinkie and executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
Sarah Kastelic, executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association and an enrolled citizen of the Native Village of Ouzinkie, stands outside the U.S. Supreme Court with a sign in her language in Washington, D.C., on November 9, 2022. (Photo by Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, ICT)
“So in our organization, one of the things that we talk about is the recipe for colonization,” Kastelic said. This recipe is “consistently followed by colonizers to colonize Indigenous people.”
She said there are five ingredients:
- “Take the land;”
- “Control the natural resources, especially the water;”
- “Usurp, replace Indigenous governance to delegitimize Indigenous thought;”
- “Undermine Native worldview, values, traditions, beliefs;” and
And number five, “the most important ingredient,” she says, is to “sever Native children from their sense of identity, from their culture, from their sense of belonging, from that sense of connectedness to something.”
This would meet the United Nations definition of genocide.
** BEST QUOTE
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:44 — 38.3MB) | Embed
Each side presented their oral arguments Wednesday to the U.S. Supreme Court for the most serious challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act in recent memory. The decision in Haaland v. Brackeen will be a major force in the future of ICWA and the scope of tribal sovereignty. Today on Native America Calling, Shawn Spruce analyzes the legal debate from a Native perspective with Matthew Fletcher (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians), law professor at the University of Michigan Law School and author of the Turtle Talk blog; independent journalist Suzette Brewer (citizen of the Cherokee Nation); and Dr. Sarah Kastelic (Alutiiq), director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
Oral arguments in Haaland v. Brackeen, a U.S. Supreme Court case that will decide whether the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 is constitutional and/or will be altered in any way, were heard yesterday. Books will likely be written about this law and the case — and their impact on tribal sovereignty — and we’ll be featuring much more about the issues at stake in days to come.
For those so inclined, take a listen to the 3-hour oral arguments, which are online here. Transcript here.
Of note: Not a single lawyer arguing the case in court yesterday were Indigenous, although Natives with Jenner & Block and the Native American Rights Fund did help prep for the case. A Native has never served on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the high court usually decides several cases each term that impact tribes and Indigenous citizens.
Commemorating the 400th anniversary of what the English colonizer John Rolfe described as the “20 and odd Negroes” (a number that was actually closer to 30) has dominated social media and the summer’s newscycle. But there’s an aspect of this commemorative activity that hasn’t received much attention. I refer specifically to the violence that occurred at Point Comfort less than a decade before the slave ship White Lion made anchor in August 1619. On that spot, a bloody event worthy of historical introspection took place: the massacre of the Kikotan Indians.
Yosemite National Park’s name is actually derived from an Ahwahneechee word shouted by villagers as militia forces attacked and drove them off the land.Ironically, the word that eventually became the name of the national park is derived from an Ahwahneechee word shouted by the villagers during the Battalion’s attack. Battalion soldiers thought the word “Yosemeatea”" was a place name, but it was actually the Ahwahneechee word for “killers.”
Our top story: Aboriginal women say they were sterilized against their will https://t.co/d9kCHwMOOT #trending pic.twitter.com/kTQyCxZ95y
— CBC Radio (@cbcradio) January 7, 2016
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| Archive Photo |
via Canada accused of hiding child abuse evidence – Features – Al Jazeera English.
"I was given that porridge I got sick on and I had to eat that … And if you don’t eat, then you’re going to get beat up some more, and you’re going to get punished – and if you throw up again you’re going to have to eat that too, so what choice do you have?” Metatawabin, 66, says at times he and his classmates were forced to sit in an electric chair – either as punishment or as entertainment for the staff at St Anne’s Indian Residential School, which operated from the early 1900s to 1976 in northern Ontario province. Now, Metatawabin says, the government is hiding information about the school... St Anne’s was part of a government-supported school system to "assimilate" aboriginal children. About 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by the federal government for decades starting in the 1800s and put into church-run residential schools. Many suffered physical and sexual abuse and squalid living conditions, and a Truth and Reconciliation Committee recently said at least 4,000 children died – a number that could be much higher..."
Your History Class Was a F*cking Lie by Sean Sherman (Or: How the American Educational System Has Always Been a Racist Propaganda Program...
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