Indian Nullification Of The Unconstitutional Laws Of Massachusetts Part 10

As witness our hands, in behalf of our brethren, By permission, MARY X[Note: sideways X] GEORGE, By permission, LUCY X[Note: sideways X] ORCHARD, WILLIAM APES, By permission, MARGARET X[Note: sideways X] GEORGE.

I, Pardon P. Braton of Groton, New London County, State of Connecticut, do depose and say, that I am acquainted with the Pequod tribe of Indians empowering William Apes, Sen. as their Delegate to the New York Conference, as is above stated; and further the deponent saith not.

PARDON P. BRATON.

_Groton, Dec. 3, 1832_.

New London County, ss.--Groton, Dec. 3, 1832. Personally appeared, Pardon P. Braton, and made solemn oath to the truth of the above deposition, by him subscribed. Before me,

WILLIAM M. WILLIAMS, _Justice of the Peace_.

_To all whom it may concern_.

This may certify, that we, the undersigners, are acquainted with William Apes and his tribe, of Pequod, and that we live in the neighborhood with them, and know all their proceedings as to their public affairs, and that Mr. Apes, as far as we know, has acted honest and uprightly; and that he has done his duty to his Indian brethren, as far as he could consistently.

And that he has duly made known his accounts, and appropriated the monies that was in contemplation for the Indian Meeting-house, for the Pequod tribe; and we also certify that said monies shall be duly appropriated.

Dated North Groton, Conn, Aug. 28, 1833.

JONAS LATHAM, ASA A. GORE, JOHN IRISH, WILLIAM M. WILLIAMS.

[Footnote 1: Here we were a little mistaken, not knowing in our ignorance, that we were making the Lieut. Governor commander in chief, and using his name to nullify the existing laws. Nevertheless, our mistake was not greater than many that have been made to pa.s.s current by the sophistry of the whites, and we acted in accordance with the spirit of the const.i.tution, unless that instrument be a device of utter deception.]

[Footnote 2: "In respect to the measures you may deem advisable, let them be confined in their adoption to an application of the _civil power_. If there is resistance, the Sheriff will, with your advice, call out the _posse comitatus_, and should there be reason to fear the inefficiency of this resort, I will be present personally, to direct any _military_ requisitions," &c.]

[Footnote 3: Surely it was either insult or wrong to call the Marshpees citizens, for such they never were, from the declaration of independence up to the session of the Legislature in 1834.]

[Footnote 4: I do not recollect uttering this expression, and it is not one that I am in the habit of using. It surprised me much, too, that the Sampsons should all swear alike, when it was impossible that they could have heard alike. If I used the word _s.h.i.+ne_, it must have been in speaking to Mr. William Sampson, in a low tone, about fifty yards from the others.]

[Footnote 5: Christmas.]

[Footnote 6: By an Act of the Legislature in April last, 1835, _One Hundred Dollars_ is hereafter to be appropriated annually, from the School Fund, for the public schools in Marshpee. For this liberal act the Marshpees are indebted to the representations made to the Committee on education by their Counsel, B.F. HALLETT, Esq. This is an evidence of the paternal care of the Legislature, for which we can never be too grateful.]

[Footnote 7: Meaning Envoy.]

[Footnote 8: His Excellency LEVI LINCOLN, who proposed to raise a regiment to exterminate our tribe, if we did not submit to the Overseers.]

[Footnote 9: The Counsel for the Indians, B.F. HALLETT, Esq. could not find a member of the House from Barnstable County, who would present the pet.i.tion. The Indians will not forget that they owed this act of justice to Mr. CUs.h.i.+NG of Dorchester.]

[Footnote 10: Mr. Apes did not attend.]

AN INQUIRY INTO THE EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE MARSHPEE INDIANS.

On the subject of the means taken to educate the Indians, I will say a few words in addition to what has already been said, because we wish to show that we can be grateful when we have favors bestowed on us. Up to 1835, the State had done nothing for education in Marshpee, except build us two School-houses in 1831.

Last winter the subject came up in the Legislature of distributing the School fund of the State among the towns. A bill was reported to the House, in which Marshpee was made a School District and ent.i.tled to receive a dividend according to its population by the United States census. Now this was meant well, and we feel obliged to the Committee who thought so much of us as this; but had the law pa.s.sed in that shape, it would have done us no good, because we have no United States census. The people of Marshpee, nor the Selectmen knew nothing of this law to distribute the School fund, and our pretended missionary, Mr.

Fish, never interested himself in such matters; but our good friend Mr. Hallett, at Boston, thought of us, and laid our claims before the Committee, by two pet.i.tions which he got from the Selectmen and from himself, and the Commissioner. We are told that the chairman of the School Committee, Hon. A.H. Everett, took much interest in getting a liberal allowance for education in Marshpee. He was once before a warm friend to the Cherokees, and his conduct now proved that he was sincere. He presented the pet.i.tions and proposed a law which would give us one hundred dollars a year forever, for public Schools in Marshpee, which was the largest sum that had been asked for by our friend Mr. H. A number of gentlemen spoke in favor of this allowance, and all showed that a spirit of kindness as well as justice toward the long oppressed red men, begins to warm the hearts of those who make our laws, and rule over us. We trust we are thankful to G.o.d for so turning the hearts of men toward us.

The Bill pa.s.sed the House and also the Senate, without any objection, and it is now a law of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, that the Marshpee Indians shall have one hundred dollars every year, paid out of the School fund, to help them educate their children. Our proportion as a District, according to what other towns receive, would have been but fifteen dollars. By the aid of our friends, and particularly of our counsel, (Mr. H.) who first proposed it, we shall now receive one hundred dollars a year; and I trust the Indians will best show their grat.i.tude by the pains they will take to send their children to good schools, and by their raising as much more money as they can, to get good instructers; and give the rising generation all the advantages which the children of the whites enjoy in schooling. This will be one of the best means to raise them to an equality, and teach them to put away from their mouths forever, the enemy which the white man, when he wanted to cheat and subdue our race, first got them to put therein, to steal away their brains, well knowing that their lands would follow.

The following are the pet.i.tions presented to the Legislature, which will give some light on the history of Marshpee.

To the Honorable General Court:

The undersigned are Selectmen and School Committee of the District of Marshpee. We understand your Honors are going to make a distribution of the School Fund. Now we pray leave to say that the State, as the guardians of the Marshpee Indians, took our property into their possession, so that we could not use a dollar of it, and so held it for sixty years. We could make no contract with a school-master, and during that time, till 1831, we had no school house in Marshpee, and scarcely any schools. We began to have schools about five years ago, but still want means to employ competent white teachers to instruct our children. Our fathers often pet.i.tioned the Legislature to give them schools, but none were given till 1831, when the State generously built us two school-houses.

We also beg leave to remind your Honors that our fathers shed their blood for liberty, and we their children have had but little benefit from it. When a continental regiment of four hundred men were raised in Barnstable county, in 1777, twenty-seven Marshpee Indians enlisted for the whole war. They fought through the war, and not one survives. After the war our fathers had sixty widows left on the Plantation, whose husbands had died or been slain. We have but one man living who draws a pension, and not a widow. We pray you, therefore, to allow to Marshpee, out of the School Fund, a larger amount in proportion than is allowed to other towns and districts who have had better means of education, and to allow us a certain sum per year--and as in duty bound, will ever pray.

EZRA ATTAQUIN, : Selectmen and School ISAAC COOMBS, : Committee of Marshpee ISRAEL AMOS, : District.

To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court a.s.sembled:

The undersigned beg leave to represent in aid of the pet.i.tion of the Selectmen and School Committee of the District of Marshpee, praying for a specific appropriation from the School Fund for the support of public schools in said district, that we are acquainted with the facts set forth in said pet.i.tion, and believe that the cause of education could no where be more promoted in any District in the Commonwealth than by making a specific annual allowance to said Marshpee District. The Legislature have made a specific annual appropriation of fifty dollars to the Indians on Martha's Vineyard for public schools, and the undersigned are of opinion, that an annual appropriation of double that amount, would be no more than a fair relative proportion for the District of Marshpee. It is highly important that the District should be able to employ competent white teachers, until they can find a sufficient number of good teachers among themselves, which cannot be expected until they have enjoyed greater means of education than heretofore. The undersigned therefore pray that the pet.i.tion of said Selectmen may be granted, by giving a specific annual allowance to said District.

BENJ. F. HALLETT, Counsel for the Marshpee Indians.

CHARLES MARSTON, Commissioner of Marshpee.

Here it will be seen that the missionary for the Indians on Martha's Vineyard, did not go to sleep over his flock, or run after others and neglect what ought to be his own fold, as did the missionary, Mr. Fish, whom Harvard College sent to the Marshpees, and pays for preaching to white men. Mr. Bayley, the white missionary on the Vineyard, as I understand, took pains to send a pet.i.tion to Boston, and he got fifty dollars a year for our brethren there, of which we are glad. From all we can judge of Mr. Fish, we should have sooner expected that instead of trying to help our schools, he would opposed our getting any thing for schools, as he also opposed our getting our liberty. He has done nothing for us, about our schools, and even tried to set the Indians against their counsel, Mr. Hallett, by pretending he had lost his influence. When Mr. Fish does as much for our liberty, and for our schools, as Mr. Hallett has done, we will listen to his advice.

Mr. Bayley, the missionary on the Vineyard, we understand has but two hundred dollars a year from Harvard College, while Mr. Fish, at Marshpee, has between four and five hundred, and wrongly uses as his own about five hundred acres of the best land on the plantation belonging to the Indians. The Legislature in 1809, took this land from the Indians, without any right to do so, as we think, and thus compel them, against the Const.i.tution, to pay out of their property a minister they never will hear preach. Is this religious liberty for the Indians? Mr. Fish is now cutting perhaps, 200 cords of wood, justly belonging to the Indians, when there is scarce five who will go and hear him preach in the Meeting-house, erected by the British Society for propagating the gospel among the Indians, and given to the Indians, but in which Mr. Fish now preaches to the whites, (having but one colored male member of his church,[1]) and keeps the key of it, for fear that its lawful owners, the Indians, should go in it, without his leave. He will not let them have it for holding a camp meeting, or for any religious purpose.

Last August we invited Mr. Hallett to come and address us on Temperance, and to explain to us the laws. We appointed to meet at the Meeting-house, as the most central place. Mr. Fish at first refused to let the Indians go into their own Meeting-house, and the people began to a.s.semble under the trees, when it was proposed for the Selectmen to go and ask for the key, that they might see if Mr. Fish would refuse it. At this moment, a white man who had been there some time, and had tried to pick a quarrel with Mr. Hallett and the Indians,[2] said he was sent by Mr. Fish with the key, and would let the people in, if they would promise to come out when _he_ told them to. Mr. Hallett declined going in on such terms, and proposed to hold the meeting under the trees. This shamed the messenger of Mr. Fish, and he opened the door, and the people went in, where Mr. Hallett addressed them.

While the Indians were thus gratified in meeting their friends, and in hearing good advice from Mr. Hallett, on temperance and their affairs, Mr. Fish's messenger interrupted the speaker, in a very abrupt and indecent manner, and tried to bring on a quarrel and break up the meeting. Captain George Lovell, always a friend to the Indians, tried to keep Mr. Crocker still, and Mr. Hallett declined having any controversy, yet the man persisted in his abuse, until he broke up the meeting. Had it been thought best, this insulting amba.s.sador would have been put out of the house as a common brawler and disturber; but Mr. Hallett forbore to have any controversy with him. He afterwards met the Indians in their School-houses, and delivered two addresses without interruption from the emissaries of Mr. Fish. This is a sample of the way the Indians have been treated about their own Meeting-house. In some of the old pet.i.tions, the Indians speak of this Meeting-house as _our_ Meeting-house, and it was built for them, without a dollar from the white men of this country, except when the Legislature, at the pet.i.tion of the Indians, repaired it in 1816. And now, no Indian can go inside of it, but by the permission of Mr. Fish, whom they will not hear preach.

It seems that the Indians are not to have the benefit of any thing given to them. It must all go to the whites. The whites have our Meeting-house, and make Marshpee pay about one-third the support of a minister they will not hear preach. The other two-thirds comes from a fund. In 1711, a pious man named Williams, died in England, and in his will he said, "I give the remainder of my estate to be paid yearly to the College of Cambridge, in New England, or to such as are usually employed to manage the blessed work of _converting the poor Indians_ there, to promote which, I design this part of my gift."

This was the trust of a dying man, given to Harvard College, that great and honorable Literary Inst.i.tution. And how do they fulfil the solemn trust? They have been and still are paying about five hundred dollars a year to a missionary for preaching to the whites. This missionary, by his own statement, [see Mr. Hallett's argument,] shows he has added to his church _twenty_ members from the tribe of over three hundred persons, in _twenty-two years_. Is not this more expensive in proportion to the good done, than any heathen mission on record? Mr. Fish has now been preaching in Marshpee _twenty-four years_. In that time he has received from the Williams fund, given solely to convert the poor Indians, about five hundred dollars a year, as nigh as can be ascertained, which is TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS for persuading twenty colored persons to join his church. This is six hundred dollars for every member added to his church, and if his other pay is added, it amounts to nine hundred dollars for each member.

Besides this, Mr. Fish has derived an income, we think not much, if any, short of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, from the wood-land, pasturage, marshes, Meeting-house, house lot, &c. which he has wrongfully held and used of the property of the Indians. Add this to his pay from Harvard College, and he has had EIGHTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, of money that belonged to the Indians, and which, if it had been laid up for a fund, would have supplied missionaries for all the Indians in New England, according to the will of the pious Mr.

Williams. We respect the President and Trustees of Harvard College.

They are honorable men and mean to do right, but I ask them to look at this statement, then to read the will of Mr. Williams, and laying their hands upon their heart, to ask in the presence of the G.o.d of the Indian as well as the white man, whether they have done unto the Indians of New England and their children, as they would that the Indians should do unto them and their children? We are told that we might bring a suit in equity, or in some way, to compel the Trustees of the Williams fund, to distribute it as the pious donor meant, not for the conversion of the whites, even to the taking away from the Indians of their Meeting-house and lands, but for "the blessed work of converting the poor Indians," as Mr. Williams says in his will.

But it is hard for Indians to contend in the courts of white men, against white men. We can have none of our people to decide such questions, and what could we do against all the power and influence of the Corporation of Harvard College? If the President and Fellows of Harvard College prefer to deal unjustly by the poor Indians, and violate the trust of Mr. Williams, by giving the funds to the whites instead of the poor Indians, they must submit to the wrong, we suppose, for there are none strong enough to help them. They can take the money from the Indians, but cannot compel them to hear a preacher they dislike.

Some people may say that William Apes wants to get what Mr. Fish has, but all he asks is, that Harvard College and the State will not support an _established religion_ in Marshpee, but leave the Indians free to choose for themselves. Mr. Williams did not give his property to the Marshpee Indians, more than to any others. It was designed for all the Indians in New England, and we cannot see what right Harvard College has to give it all for the whites near Marshpee and the Indians on Martha's Vineyard. If they are afraid that blind Joseph or William Apes, the Indian preachers, should have any of this money, if it is withdrawn from Mr. Fish, let them take it, and send a missionary among the Marshpee Indians they like. Or let them employ a man, some Elliot, if they can find one, to visit all the Indians in New England, to find out their condition and spiritual wants, and try to relieve them. This would be doing some good with money that is now only used to disturb the Indians, to take from them their Meeting-house, to create divisions among them, and turn what the pious Williams meant for a blessing into a curse to the Indians. What would the pious Williams say to Harvard College, could he visit Marshpee on a Sabbath?

He might go to the Meeting-House built for the Indians, by the society in England, of which I believe he was a princ.i.p.al member. He would find a while man in the pulpit, white singers loading the wors.h.i.+p, and the body of the church occupied by seventy or a hundred white persons, of the neighboring villages, scarcely one of whom lives on the plantation. Among these he would see four, five, six, or possibly ten persons with colored skins; not but one male among them, belonging to the church. He would probably think he had made a mistake, and that he was in a white town, and not among the Indians. He might then go to the house of blind Joseph, (the colored Baptist preacher,) or to the School-house in Marshpee, and he would there find twenty, thirty, or forty Indians, all engaged in the solemn wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, united and happy, with a little church, growing in grace. He might then visit the other School-house, at the neck, where he would find William Apes, an Indian, preaching to fifty, sixty, or seventy, and sometimes an hundred Indians, all uniting in fervent devotion. After the sermon, he would hear a word of exhortation from several of the colored brethren and sisters, in their broken way, but which often touches the heart of the Indian, more than all the learning that Harvard College can bestow. He would hear the Indians singing praises to G.o.d, and making melody in their hearts if not in their voices. What would he say then, when told that Harvard College had paid twelve thousand dollars of his funds for converting the poor Indians, to the white minister, who had made twenty members in twenty-four years, while the two Indian preachers, with forty-seven members to their churches, added in three years, were like St. Paul, laboring with their own hands for a subsistence?

All the Indians ask of Harvard is, take away your pretended gift. Do not force upon us a minister we do not like, and who creates divisions among us. Let us have our Meeting-house and our land, and we will be content to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d without the help of the white man.

This Meeting-house might as well be in India as in Marshpee, for all the benefit the Indians have of it. It is kept locked all the time, with the key in Mr. Fish's possession. It is seen that he would not let the Baptist church of Indians have it to ordain their beloved pastor, blind Joseph in, and we see how it was granted to the Indians, when they wanted it for Mr. Hallett to address them last summer. Not only were we forbidden the use of the Meeting-house, but even the land which the Legislature unconst.i.tutionally as we think, took from the Indians to give to Mr. Fish, is considered by him too holy to be defiled by the Indians, who are its true owners.

Last summer, sometime in July, my church desired to have a Camp-meeting, of which we had had one before, attended, as we believe, with a great blessing. We selected a spot some distance from the Meeting-house, in a grove, beside the river; but though not in sight of the Meeting-house, it was on the ground which Mr. Fish thinks has been set apart for his sole use. After the notice was given of the Camp-meeting, I received from Mr. Fish the following note, which is here recorded, as an evidence of the Christian spirit with which a church in Marshpee consisting of thirty-five members, who were Indians, was treated and molested in their wors.h.i.+p, by the missionary Harvard College has paid so liberally to "convert the poor Indians,"

and who had but five Indians in his church, not one being a male member.