_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 pass current
by the sophistry of the whites, and we acted in accordance with the
spirit of the constitution, 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 _shine_, 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 petition. The Indians will not forget that they owed this act of
justice to Mr. CUSHING 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 entitled 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 passed 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 petitions 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 petitions 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 God for so
turning the hearts of men toward us.
The Bill passed the House and also the Senate, without any objection,
and it is now a law of the State of Massachusetts, 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
gratitude 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 petitions 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 petitioned 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 assembled:
The undersigned beg leave to represent in aid of the petition
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 petition,
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
petition 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 petition 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 Constitution, 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 assemble 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 ambassador 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 petitions, 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 petition 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 Institution. 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 God 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 principal member. He would
find a while man in the pulpit, white singers loading the worship, 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 worship of God, 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 God, 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 worship God 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 unconstitutionally 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 worship, 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.