Mary Annette Pember
Louise Brady of the Kiks.a’.diclan of the Tlingit tribe. This year, during the sesquicentennial celebration of all things colonial in Alaska, the tribe took steps toward asking whose history is being celebrated.
Gerry Hope of the Sik'nax.ádi clan of the Tlingit tribe sees good reason for native people to question Alaska Day, an annual celebration of the U.S. acquisition of this land from Russia. The acquisition happened 150 years ago, but the Tlingit people have called this land home for 10,000 years.
“Our hurt, anger, and resentment have been simmering and smoldering for the past 150 years,” Hope said.
Alaska Day parades feature charming homemade floats, proud high school marching bands, glad-handing politicians, and folks dressed in 1860s-era costumes. But for Hope and others, none of this can disguise that the event at its core celebrates colonialism, the theft of indigenous lands, and the continued exclusion and disenfranchisement of Alaska natives from the American dream.
Mary Annette Pember
Gerry Hope is a member of the Tlingit, who make up about 25 percent of Sitka’s population. The tribe has been excluded from Alaska Day celebrations. Until now.
This year’s celebrations, on October 18, marked the 150th anniversary of Alaska’s transfer from Russia to the United States in exchange for $7.2 million, about two cents an acre. The state holiday is not widely celebrated. But in Sitka, where the transfer ceremony took place and where the Russians centered their empire, it is the event of the season.
And it’s an event to which the Tlingit tribe, who make up about 25 percent of Sitka’s population, have for years been pointedly not invited. Until now.
Alaska Day celebrants gathered this year, as they have since the 1920s, to reenact the ceremony atop Castle Hill, the former site of the Russian’s fort. Several young non-native people suddenly appeared carrying large cardboard signs that read, “Gunalchéesh Sheet’ka Kwaan for your care of Tlingit Aani for time immemorial.”
The words are a traditional Tlingit expression of gratitude to Tlingit ancestors for caring for the land.
Sitka resident Peter Bradley told The Progressive that the signs were a reference to an unfortunate incident in 2016 when Paulette Moreno of the Tlingit tribe protested the colonial celebration. She stood quietly holding a sign with the same words, and dressed in traditional Tlingit regalia. One of the Alaska Day greeters asked her to leave, describing her sign and presence as threatening.
Mary Annette Pember
Alaska Day features a reenactment of the state's transfer from Russia to the United States in 1867.
Betty Conklin, one of the Alaska Day organizers, said on the radio in 2016 that if members of the Tlingit community want to be involved in the transfer ceremony must have the right attitude. “If they come in just to stir the pot and point fingers and make accusations, well yeah, they should feel uncomfortable, because I’m going to take affront to that.”
Conklin refused to speak with this reporter when approached at the transfer ceremony this year.
At the 2017 ceremony, for the first time in the history of the Alaska Day celebrations, organizers invited the Tlingit to join the festivities. At the annual Tlingit Clan Conference held just a few days before the main Alaska Day celebration, people talked about the history that was commemorated by this event.
Mary Annette Pember
At a Tlingit clan conference held before the Alaska Day events, tribal members discussed possible responses to the colonial holiday.
“For the last 200 years, our people have experienced trauma after trauma after trauma due to the epidemics, the Russians coming in, then U.S. federal policies,” said Louise Bradley of the Kiks.a’di Tlingit clan. “I feel like we are finally at a place where we can be who we are as Tlingit people without shame and tell people that this is our land and [non-natives] need to acknowledge that.”
The crowd grew silent as the familiar re-enactment began. A few tribal members dressed in traditional regalia stood quietly near the reenactors dressed in 1860s clothing. Except for the presence of signs held by young non-native attendees, the transfer ceremony seemed to proceed as it always had. Re-enactors portraying U.S. Army Major Lovell Rousseau and Russian Commissioner Alexi Pestchouroff greeted each other. Rousseau presented the papers signifying that all present now stood on U.S. soil.
But just after the U.S. Army-Alaska Honor guards fired rifle shots signifying the moment of cession, the crowd paused, startled by the unexpected sound of singing rising from the bottom of the hill. A group of Tlingit people had gathered to sing a traditional mourning song. The transfer celebrants were stunned into several moments of uncomfortable silence before they turned and walked quietly down the opposite side of the hill.
Mary Annette Pember
People of the Tlingit tribe sing a mourning song to mark the occasion of Alaska Day. “It is time to talk about the trauma and begin the process of healing,” one member said.
Later, at the bottom of the hill, several members of the tribe and allies talked about the day’s events.
“Unfortunately, we are in a time when any ethnic minority voicing anything to do with historical trauma gets shouted down by the society at large,” said Dionne Howard-Brady of the Kiks.a’.di clan of the Tlingit tribe. “We’re told to get over it and be grateful for what American civilization has given us.”
Simon Gorbaty, a local schoolteacher and one of the non-native attendees, argued that it was up to everyone, native and non-native, to draw attention to the inequities of the holiday. “So often white people are paralyzed over how to help forward these discussions when they feel as though their very existence are wrong,” he said. “But it is possible for us to get creative and take responsibility. We can consult with native peoples and step up.”
Brady smiled as she stood in the waning light. “This feels really good to have all these people here supporting us,” she said. “Our voices were heard here on our land for the first time in many, many years.”
Mary Annette Pember
“We’re told to get over it and be grateful for what American civilization has given us,” said Louise Brady. “This feels really good to have all these people here supporting us. Our voices were heard here on our land for the first time in many, many years.”
Mary Annette Pember is a journalist, author of “Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding Natives’ Inherited Pain,” and frequent contributor to Indian Country Today.