July 14, 2020: The Brothertown Indian Nation Celebrates First Annual Samson Occom Day

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Brothertown holidays, Resolutions, Samson Occom Day

Today, July 14, 2020, is the first annual Samson Occom Day to be formally celebrated by the Brothertown Indians.  The Nation’s Council issued a decree establishing the holiday during their monthly meeting this past June.   The resolution, which passed unanimously, cites, in part, the Reverend Occom’s sizeable role in the organization and the propagation of the Brothertown tribe.  While festivities will certainly be muted with this year’s pandemic, the event will not go unnoticed.

To commemorate this special day, tribal citizens will be offering up prayers in gratitude to God for the gift of Samson Occom’s life; speaking with their family members “about [his] story and what he stood for”; reading portions of his journals, letters, and sermons; watching YouTube videos about him; and, in imitation of one of the ways in which Occom supported his family financially, one person is planning to carve a wooden spoon.

If you are interested in participating in Samson Occom discussions, you might like to join the Calumet and Cross book club for our Wednesday evening chapter chat. We are currently on chapter 12 of William DeLoss Love’s, “Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England” (available online at https://archive.org/details/samsonoccomchris00love). For book club login info please click “contact me” above. Everyone is welcome.

 

For more about Samson Occom, please visit these links:

**A Short Narrative of My Life, Occom’s autobiography, is available to read at Dartmouth https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/Library_Bulletin/Nov1999/Hoefnagel_Close.html Occom originally wrote his autobiography in 1765.  He wrote this 2^nd draft in 1768.

 

Samson Occom; a book by Harold Blodgett: https://archive.org/details/samsonoccom0000blod/page/n241

 

“SAMSON OCCOM”: A clipping from the Utica Morning Herald dated February 1894. Contains a lot of accurate (and some inaccurate) information on Samson Occom: Occom  

 

Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England by William DeLoss Love and published in 1899: Includes an index with all of the known Brothertown Indians. samsonoccomchris00love  

 

The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, Mohegan by Joanna Brooks is available to preview on Google: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Collected_Writings_of_Samson_Occom_M.html?id=R9ELRhEdupMC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Occom’s 1774 hymn book, A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Intended for the Edification of Sincere Christians, of All Denominations, (published as words only; no musical notation) contains many reprinted songs and a few of Occom’s own: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N10659.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext).

 

Occom’s 1^st publication, A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul in 1772.  https://archive.org/details/sermonatexecutio01occo

 

Dartmouth College hosts the Occom Circle site which contains both scans and transcripts of a significant number of Samson Occom letters and journals: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~occom/

 

Other original Occom documents are available through the Connecticut Historical Society at http://connecticuthistoryillustrated.org/islandora/search/occom?type=dismax

 

4 sermons recovered from Occom’s trip to England and not included in the Joanna Brooks book, The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, Mohegan:  https://brothertowncitizen.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/recently-discovered-samson-occom-sermons/

 

“A Brief Narrative of the Indian Charity School in Lebanon in Connecticut, New England”briefnarrativeof00whit_bw  This is an interesting collection of letters, endorsements, and accounts from the early to mid-1760’s which, seemingly, were to be used by Reverends Occom and Whitaker on their mission trip to England.  Some highlights are a detailed account of Occom’s 1761 meeting with the Oneida and the wampum belt received, Wheelock’s very clear statement of intent as to what he planned to do with the money raised by the Rev.’s overseas, and an appendix added in this second edition which provides updates from 1766-‘67.

 

Occom programs:

 

Radio program on Occom with NPR’s Alex Nunes and Brothertown’s Kathleen Brown-Perez: https://thepublicsradio.org/episode/ep-4-the-betrayal-of-samson-occom

Joanna Brooks gave a Zoom video presentation to our citizens in 2017 which is available to watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxDDcpbiSYw&t=2s.

Tim Eriksen sings a Samson Occom carol called “O Sight of Anguish”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhO34_w1yW4

Brad Dubos, Rutgers graduate student, who is, in part, researching Samson Occom and the importance of place for the Brothertown Indians talks with Brothertown Forward: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SOeEt28rby0

CNAIR Symposium at Rutgers 2019 (Brad Dubos is the 2nd speaker in this episode – episode 2): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4B7Ka5V5zxE&list=PLJl9Zsw3ptuJ9eCjyLr9XcUPufzyhxk9_&time_continue=727

 

 

Samson Occom

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Why I’m Proud To Be A Brothertown Indian

Reason #1: We Are a People of Hope

Last weekend, we celebrated the birthday of the United States (July 4^th). In less than 4 months, the Brotherton will celebrate the birthday of our Indian nation, Eeyawquittoowauconnuck / Brothertown (November 7^th). Hope is one of the seeds that planted our nation and continues to re-sprout seasonally.

Our ancestors were motivated by many things when they gathered in Mohegan on March 13, 1773 to discuss removal to new lands. Well-known events, such as the Mason Land controversy, the re-appropriation of Indian funds collected during Samson Occom’s missionary trip to Britain, and the execution of Moses Paul stand out as obvious catalysts alongside the continual racism and prejudicial treatment that Native Americans were accustomed to receiving. Yet, rather than accept the status quo or take up arms, 7 Native communities gathered to envision a new settlement where they and their children would be free from land encroachment and from European prejudices and negative influences. This would be a place where they could be free to live and govern themselves; a place where they could hunt and plant and raise themselves up from the poverty that had been thrust upon them.

Hope was alive and well when Samson Occom, Joseph Johnson, Elijah Wampy, Roger Wauby, John Tuhi, Andrew Simon, the Waukeet, Hammer, Coyhis, Dick, Niles, and Fowler families, and the rest of our ancestors gathered in Mohegan that winter day. Hope saw us through again when we were burned out of our lands in upstate NY; when the land promised us in Indiana fell through; when we made the arduous journey to relocate to Green Bay, Wisconsin; and, in the early 1830’s, when we finally settled off the coast of Lake Winnebago. We still had hope when the government decided we must move further west just a few short years later. We asked to become US citizens in 1839 in the hopes that this would prevent another removal. It did prevent it for the moment. Instead, we lost much of that land lot by lot to the tax man.

We also lost many of our men when they took up arms against slavery in the Civil War; we lost our children to the promise of a better life elsewhere, beyond the pock-marked borders of a reservation stagnant with the suffocating smell of prejudice. We lost our native language; buried in the ground with each passing elder; elders who were silent long before death in the hopes that their children would not be marked with the scarlet letter of “Indian”. We lost so much, yet the seed of hope that was planted by our ancestors, will only lie dormant for a time. Each season, it springs forth again and the Brotherton remember. We dream of and work toward a better life. A life where we all live in peace and equity as brothers the way the Creator meant for us to live-respecting the water, land, air, and all of creation; sharing what we have and who we are, and loving and helping each other because we are all children equally valuable in the eyes of the Creator.

Tawbut ni, Ancestors, for the seed and example of hope which you planted.

Samson Occom Day

At their June meeting, the Brothertown Indian Nation Council unanimously passed a resolution to honor the Reverend Samson Occom (1723-July 14, 1792), one of the tribe’s founding fathers, with a national day of remembrance every July 14th.

This marks the second national holiday that the Council has instituted for the tribe in as many years. In 2019, an annual Eeyawquittoowauconnuck (Brothertown) Day was established to commemorate the tribe’s official day of formation on November 7, 1785.