Indian Nullification Of The Unconstitutional Laws Of Massachusetts Part 5

Mr. Loring of Hingham, understood that this was the same pet.i.tion which went before the Governor and Council, [Mr. L.

was misinformed; It is a different pet.i.tion,] and as it was very long, it would take up time unnecessarily to read it. He hoped it would be laid on the table.

Mr. Allen of Worcester, thought those who opposed the reading were in fact increasing the Importance of the pet.i.tion by that course. If the House should refuse to hear it read, a course he did not remember had ever been adopted toward any respectful pet.i.tion, from any quarter, it would become a subject of much more speculation than if it took the ordinary course.

Mr. H. Lincoln of Boston, was surprised to hear an objection raised to the reading of this pet.i.tion. It was due to the character of the House, and to our native brethren the pet.i.tioners, whose agents were here on the floor, that they should be heard, and heard patiently. He hoped that out of respect to ourselves, and from justice to the pet.i.tioners, their pet.i.tion would find every favor, which in justice ought to be extended to it.

Mr. Swift of Nantucket, again urged that the pet.i.tion ought not to be read, until the report from the Governor and Council was first heard.

Mr. Chapman.--The pet.i.tioners have a const.i.tutional right to be heard. I know not of what value that provision is which gives a right to pet.i.tion, if the House can refuse to hear the pet.i.tion. They do not ask for action, but to be heard. It can be read and laid on the table. So long as I hold a seat in this House, my hand shall be raised to give a hearing to the humblest individual who presents a pet.i.tion for redress of grievances.

Mr. Loring of Hingham hoped the idea could not be entertained that they wished to throw this subject out of the House. He wanted the whole subject should be brought up, and not that this pet.i.tion should go in first. It was not his wish to prevent the pet.i.tioners being heard.

The Speaker put the question, shall the pet.i.tion be read? and it was carried in the affirmative, nearly every hand in the House being raised. In the negative we saw but five hands. The pet.i.tion was then read by the Speaker.

Mr. Roberts of Salem moved that it be laid on the table and printed for the use of the House, as there must be a future action of the House upon it. The motion was carried without objection.

The attempt to prevent the pet.i.tion of the Marshpee Indians from being read, was repelled in the House with an unanimity which shows the value the Representatives place upon the right of pet.i.tioning. The poor Indians are without advice or counsel to aid them, for they have no means to fee lawyers, but they will evidently find firm friends in the House ready to do them justice. This is no party question. It involves the honor of the State. Let all be done for them that can be wisely done in a spirit of paternal kindness. Let it not be shown that our sympathy for Indians extends only to those at the South, but has no feeling for our own.

[_From the same_.] THE MARSHPEE INDIANS.

The laws which regulate this remnant of a once powerful tribe of Indians, are not familiar to many, and it is one great defect in the present system, that these laws are so difficult of access, and so complex that the Indians neither know nor comprehend them; and it cannot be expected that they should live contentedly under oppressive regulations which they do not understand. Should any new laws be pa.s.sed, they ought to be as simple as possible, and be distributed for the use of the Indians.

By the Act of 1788, Ch. 38, Vol. 1 of Laws, page 342, new provisions were made, the previous act of 1788, Ch. 2, being found insufficient "to protect them and their property against the arts and designs of those who may be disposed to take advantage of their weakness." The wisdom of the whites, at that time, invented the following provisions for that purpose:

SECTION 1. A Board of five Overseers was established, (afterwards reduced to three,) two to be inhabitants of Barnstable County, and three from an adjoining County. (Now two are inhabitants of Barnstable and one of Plymouth County.) These Overseers were vested with full power to regulate the police of the plantation; to establish rules for managing the affairs, interests and concerns of the Indians and inhabitants. They may improve and lease the lands of the Indians, and their _tenements_; regulate their streams, ponds and fisheries; mete out lots for their particular improvement; control and regulate absolutely, their bargains, contracts, wages, and other dealings, take care of their poor, and bind out their children to suitable persons.

The Overseers are directed to hold stated meetings, elect a moderator, secretary and treasurer, and may appoint and remove guardians over any of the Indians, to act under the the Overseers, and to carry their regulations into effect, the guardians to give bonds to the Overseers.

By section 2, the Overseers or the guardians they appoint have power to demand and receive all property or wages owing to said Proprietors or any of them, by any person, and may sue in their own names for its recovery, or for any trespa.s.s, fraud or injury done to their lands or them. They may settle all accounts and controversies between the Indians or any white person, for voyages or any services done by them, and may bind the children of poor proprietors by indenture, to suitable persons.

SECT. 3. No lease, covenant, bond or bargain, or contract in writing, is of any validity unless approved by the Overseer or guardian; and no Indian proprietor can be sued for any goods sold, services done, &c. or for money, unless the account is first approved by the Overseers.

[This, it is said, enables the Overseers to sanction the accounts of those who sell to the Indians upon the expectation of obtaining the favor of the Overseers, and opens a door for connivance.]

SECT. 4. The Overseers are to keep a fair account of all monies, wages, &c. they receive, and all proceeds of the plantation, and shall distribute to the proprietors their respective shares and dues, after deducting reasonable expense of conducting their business, _paying their just debts_, (of which the Overseers are made the judges,) and providing for the sick and indigent, from the common profits, and reserving such sums as can be spared conveniently, for the support of religious instruction, and schooling children. The accounts to be laid before the Governor annually. The Governor and Council appoint the Overseers and displace them at pleasure.

SECT. 5. The Indian Proprietors are prohibited giving any one liberty to cut wood, timber or hay, to milk pine trees, carry off any ore or grain, or to plant or improve any land or tenement, and no such liberty, unless approved by the Overseers, shall bar an action on the part of the Overseers to recover. The lands shall not be taken in execution for debt, and an Indian committed for debt may take the poor debtor's oath, his being a _proprietor_ to the contrary notwithstanding.

The last act relating to this tribe, was pa.s.sed Feb. 18, 1819, Chap. 105, 2d vol. of Laws, page 487. It provides that no person thereafter shall be a proprietor of the Plantation, except a child or lineal descendant of some proprietor, and in no other way shall this _right_, as it is called, be acquired.

Other inhabitants are called members of the tribe.

The Overseers are to keep a record of names, or census, of all who are proprietors, and all who are residents or members of the tribe, a return of which is to be made to the Governor the last of December.

The Overseers, in addition to all former power, are invested with all the powers and duties of guardians of the Indians, whenever such office of guardian shall be vacant. [A very blind provision, by the way, which it may be as difficult for white men as for Indians to understand.]

Any person selling ardent spirits to an Indian, without a permit in writing from the Overseer, from some agent of theirs, or from a respectable physician, may be fined not more than fifty dollars, on conviction; and it shall be the duty of the Overseer to give information for prosecuting such offenders.

The Overseers may bind out to service, for three years at a time, any proprietor or member of the tribe, who in their judgment has become an habitual drunkard and idler, and they may apply his earnings to his own support, his family's, or the proprietors generally, as they think proper.

All real estate acquired or purchased by the industry of the proprietors and members, (meaning of course without the limits of the plantation,) shall be their sole property and estate, and may be held or conveyed by deed, will, or otherwise.

If any Indian or other person shall cut or take away any wood, timber, or other property, on any lands _belonging_ to the proprietors or members, which is not set off; or if any person not a proprietor or member, shall do the same on lands that have been set off, or commit any other trespa.s.s, they shall be fined not over $200, or imprisoned not over two years.

The Indians are declared competent witnesses to prove the trespa.s.s. No Indian or other person is to cut wood without a permit in writing, signed by two Overseers, expressing the quant.i.ty to be cut, at what time and for what purpose; and the permit must be recorded in their proceedings before any wood or timber shall be cut.

[Of this provision, the Indians greatly complain, because it gives them no more privilege in cutting their own wood than a stranger has, and because under it, as they say, the Overseers oblige them to pay a dollar or more a cord for all the wood they are permitted to cut, which leaves them little or no profit, and compels the industrious to labour merely for the support of the idle, while the white men, who have their teams, vessels, &c. can buy their permits and cut down the wood of the plantation in great quant.i.ties, at much greater profit than the Indian can do, who has nothing but his axe, and must pay these white men a dollar or more for carting his wood, and a dollar or more to the Overseers, thus leaving him not enough to encourage industry.]

All accounts of the Overseers are to be annually examined by the Court of Common Pleas for Barnstable, and a copy sent by the Overseers to the Governor.

Any action commenced by the Overseers, does not abate by their death, but may be prosecuted by the survivors.

All fines, &c. under the act, are to be recovered before Courts in Barnstable County, one half to the informer, and the other to the State. These are all the provisions of the law of 1819, and these are the provisions under which the tribe is governed.

As I suppose my reader can understand these laws, and is capable of judging of their propriety, I shall say but little on this subject, I will ask him how, if he values his own liberty, he would or could rest quiet under such laws. I ask the inhabitants of New England generally, how their fathers bore laws, much less oppressive, when imposed upon them by a foreign government. It will be at once seen that the third section takes from us the rights and privileges of citizens _in toto_, and that we are not allowed to govern our own property, wives and children. A board of overseers are placed over us to keep our accounts, and give debt and credit, as may seem good unto them.

At one time, it was the practice of the Overseers, when the Indians hired themselves to their neighbors, to receive their wages, and dispose of them at their own discretion. Sometimes an Indian bound on a whaling voyage would earn four or five hundred dollars, and the s.h.i.+pmaster would account to the overseers for the whole sum. The Indian would get some small part of his due, in order to encourage him to go again, and gain more for his white masters, to support themselves and educate their children with. And this is but a specimen of the systematic course taken to degrade the tribe from generation to generation. I could tell of one of our masters who has not only supported himself and family out of the proceeds of our lands and labors, but has educated a son at College, at our expense.

It is true that if any Indian elected to leave the plantation, he might settle and acc.u.mulate property elsewhere, and be free; but if he dared to return home with his property, it was taken out of his hands by the Board of Overseers, according to the unjust law. His property had no more protection from their rapacity than the rest of the plantation. In the name of Heaven, (with due reverence,) I ask, what people could improve under laws which gave such temptation and facility to plunder? I think such experiments as our government have made ought to be seldom tried.

If the government of Ma.s.sachusetts do not see fit to believe me, I would fain propose to them a test of the soundness of my reasoning.

Let them put our white neighbors in Barnstable County under the guardians.h.i.+p of a Board of Overseers, and give them no privileges other than have been allowed to the poor, despised Indians. Let them inflict upon the said whites a preacher whom they neither love nor respect, and do not wish to hear. Let them, in short, be treated just as the Marshpee tribe have been, I think there will soon be a declension of morals and population. We shall see if they will be able to build up a town in such circ.u.mstances. Any enterprising men who may be among them will soon seek another home and society, which it is not in the power of the Indians to do, on account of their color. Could they have been received and treated by the world as other people are, there would not be so many living in Marshpee as there are by half.

The laws were calculated to drive the tribe from their possessions, and annihilate them, as a people; and I presume they would work the same effect upon any other people; for human nature is the same under skins of all colors. Degradation is degradation, all the world over.

If the white man desired the welfare of his red brethren, why did he not give them schools? Why has not the State done something to supply us with teachers and places of instruction? I trow, all the schooling the Marshpee people have ever had, they have gotten themselves. There was not even a house on the plantation for the accommodation of a teacher, till I arrived among them. We have now a house respectable enough for even a white teacher to lodge in comfortably, and we are in strong hopes that we shall one day soon be able to provide for our own wants, if the whites will only permit us to do so, as they never have done yet. If they can but be convinced that we are human beings, I trust they will be our hindrance no longer.

I beg the reader's patience and attention to a few general remarks. It is a sorrowful truth that, heretofore, all legislation regarding the affairs of Indians, has had a direct tendency to degrade them, to drive them from their homes, and the graves of their fathers, and to give their lands as a spoil to the general government, or to the several States. In New England, especially, it can be proved that Indian lands have been taken to support schools for the whites, and the preaching of the gospel to them. Had the property so taken been applied to the benefit of its true owners, they would not and could not have been so ignorant and degraded a race as they now are; only forty-four of whom, out of four or five hundred, can write their names. From what I have been able to learn from the public prints and other sources, the amount annually derived to the American people, from Indian lands is not far from six millions, a tax of which they have almost the sole benefit. In the mean while, we daily see the Indian driven farther and farther by inhuman legislation and wars, and all to enrich a people who call themselves Christians, and are governed by laws derived from the moral and pious puritans. I say that, from the year of our Lord 1656, to the present day, the conduct of the whites toward the Indians has been one continued system of robbery.

I suppose many of my readers have heard of the late robbery at Barnegat, and are ready to say, that the like has never been known in this country, and seldom in any other. Now, though two-thirds of the inhabitants, not excluding their magistrates, have been proved to be thieves, I ask, was their conduct worse, or even so bad as that constantly practised by the American people toward the Indians? I say no; and what makes the robbery of my wronged race more grievous is, that it is sanctioned by legal enactments. Why is it more iniquitous to plunder a stranded s.h.i.+p than to rob, and perhaps murder, an Indian tribe? It is my private opinion that King Solomon was not far wrong when he said, "Bring up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." He might have said with equal propriety, "in the way he should _not_ go." I am sorry that the puritans knew no better than to bring up their children to hate and oppress Indians. I must own, however, that the children are growing something better than their fathers were, and I wish that the children of Barnegat had had better parents.

The next matter I shall offer is in two more articles from the Boston Advocate. The first is by the Editor.

THE INDIANS.

The arms of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, which appear at the head of all official acts, and upon the seals of office, are an Indian with his bow and arrows. Over his head is an arm holding the sword of Justice. Is this sword designed to protect or oppress the Indians? The Legislature now have the opportunity to answer this question, and as they answer, will be the record in history. The princ.i.p.al community of Indians in this State, the Marshpee tribe, have presented their complaints before the Legislature. Though an unwise attempt was made by some few of the Representatives from the neighborhood of the Indians, to prevent the reading of their pet.i.tion, it was received with marked kindness by the House, and ordered to be printed, a favor which the Indians did not think of asking.

There is evidently a disposition in the House to prove that our sympathies are not confined merely to the Georgia Indians, for political effect.

MR. HALLETT,

I perceive that your paper has spoken a good word now and then for the native Indians of Ma.s.sachusetts. There is no cla.s.s of human beings in this State, who have more need of a candid and humane advocate.

I do not know much about the remnants of a once n.o.ble and hospitable race, and yet I know enough to make me grieve for them, and ashamed of the State.