Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: Or, the Pretended Riot ExplainedApess, William
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Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: Or, the Pretended Riot Explained
Apess, William
Indians of North America -- Legal status, laws, etc.; Mashpee Indians -- Land tenure; Mashpee Indians -- Legal status, laws, etc.
The consequences have been precisely what the Indians and
their friends feared. Party divisions have grown up among
them, arising out of the want of confidence in their
Commissioner. He is found always on the side of their greatest
trouble; the minister who unjustly holds almost 500 acres of
the best land in the plantation, wrongfully given to him by an
unlawful and arbitrary act of the State, which, in violation
of the Constitution, appropriates the property of the Indians
to pay a man they dislike, for preaching a doctrine they will
not listen to, to a _white_ congregation, while the native
preachers, whom the Indians prefer, are left without a cent,
and deprived of the Meeting-house, built by English liberality
for the use of the Indians. The dissatisfaction has gone on
increasing. The accounts with the former Overseers remain
unadjusted to the satisfaction of the Selectmen. The Indians
have no adviser near them in whom they can confide; those who
hold the power, appear regardless of their wishes or their
welfare; no pains is taken by the authorities to punish the
wretches who continue to sell rum to those who will buy it;
and though the Indians are still struggling to advance in
improvement, every obstacle is thrown in their way that men
can devise, whose intent it is to get them back to a state of
vassalage, that they may get hold of their property. All this,
we are satisfied, from personal inspection, is owing to the
injudicious appointment made by Gov. Davis, of a commissioner,
and yet the Governor unfortunately seems indisposed to listen
to any application for a remedy to the existing evils.
The presses around us, who are so eloquent in denouncing the
President for his conduct towards the Southern Indians, say
not a word in behalf of our own Indians, whose fathers poured
out their blood for out independence. Is this right, and ought
the Indians to be sacrificed to the advantage a single man
derives from holding an office of very trifling profit? Let
us look at home, before we complain of the treatment of the
Indians at the South.
The following; extract refers to the act passed to incorporate the
Marshpee District, after so much trouble and expense to the Indians.
I should suppose the people of Massachusetts would have been glad to
have done us this justice, without making so much difficulty, if they
had been aware of the true state of facts.
THE MARSHPEE ACT
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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