Today was a special Thanksgiving from beginning to end. In many ways, it was the same routine. For many years now, I begin Thanksgiving morning by joining others on the shores of Onondaga Lake at Willow Bay. Native Americans and others come to join in a circle of Thanksgiving messages and expressions of gratitude. Many of us are members of NOON (Neighbors of Onondaga Nation). This year was even more special because my good friend Wanda and her grandson Charlie also joined me. They are both Oneida Indians. It seems most appropriate to me to come together with our Native American friends on Thanksgiving as a proper commemoration of that first Thanksgiving. This year, many of us also expressed concern about the many who are protecting the waters at Standing Rock and honoring them for their persistence and bravery, while deploring the ugly tactics of the police.
Then I joined twenty-seven other people at my daughter-in-law’s home for a very traditional and heartwarming time, including the annual white-elephant gift exchange, crafts for adults and kids, and card games after dessert. But I got a call from Wanda in the middle of it. I had forgotten to deliver to her the sweet potato pie that she had purchased from a fund-raiser from our local Eastern Farmworkers Association. I was in for another treat when I drove to the next town to deliver it. Her Thanksgiving was with her sisters and brother and their family and friends at her niece’s house. I had had the honor of attending Michelle’s wedding to Neal a little over a year before at the Longhouse on the Onondaga Nation. I shared their beautiful wedding photo (I was dressed in white buckskin) with the students I was teaching on Friday—which was mentioned as a traditional clothing of Native Americans in the story of the first Thanksgiving.
In my book, Quoting Matilda, I have a whole section of quotes from Matilda Joslyn Gage expressing her appreciation and esteem for the Indians that were her neighbors and the Mohawks, another member nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, who adopted her into their wolf clan. Many people have wondered as to why the first women’s rights convention was held at Seneca Falls in Upstate New York. It had long been attributed to the fact that abolitionists were also quite active in the area. But a truer answer was right before our eyes yet not recognized for a very long time. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) have a matriarchate style of living. The women had equal status with the men, and there was a division of labor that, in many ways, was to the advantage of the females. They had the right and duty to choose the next chiefs. Think about it: it is the mothers who see the children in play and in growing up, and they observe who would make the best leader, the best negotiator, etc. It makes much sense to have them weigh in strongly in these matters. In addition, they had the right to own property and to their children and had many other rights that females in nineteenth-century American society lacked. No wonder they got uppity and headed to Seneca Falls for their first convention. They had seen living models of women’s successful empowerment. It is highly ironic that, at the same time Gage was being allowed to help choose the next chief, she had been fined for trying to vote in a school board election in Fayetteville, New York!
I am grateful to Matilda Joslyn Gage for all she did in her lifetime to further the rights of women and to help any others being suppressed and discriminated against. There are many other names, often unsung heroes and heroines like Matilda, to whom I also owe gratitude for their perseverance and achievements. Here are just a few of the many:
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Christine de Pizan
Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell
Abby Kelley
Aphra Behn
Mary Astell
Belva Lockwood
Lucretia Mott
Esther Moore
Sarah and Angelina Grimké
Margaret W. Rossiter
Annie Kenney
Christabel Pankhurst
Lucy Stone
Virginia Durr
Mercy Otis Warren
Frances Klock
Mary Church Terrell
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin
Florence Finch Kelly
Alice Paul
Lucy Burns
Millicent Fawcett
Carrie Chapman Catt
Mrs. Frank Leslie
Margaret Sanger
Jeannette Rankin
Shirley Chisholm
Thank you, ladies, for your lives and work! Another time, we will discuss some of the men to whom we also owe a debt of gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving!