Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts Relative to the Marshpee Tribe | Page 2

concerned in the riot, as it was called, and imprisoned for
it, I think were as justifiable in what they did, as our fathers were, who

threw the tea overboard; and to the energetic movements of WILLIAM
APES, DANIEL AMOS and others, it was owing that an impression
was made on the Legislature, which induced them to do partial justice
toward this long oppressed race. The imprisonment of those men, in
such a cause, I consider an honour to them, and no disgrace; no more
than the confinement of our fathers, in the Jersey prison-ship.
BENJAMIN F. HALLETT,
Counsel for the Marshpee Indian.

INTRODUCTION.
* * * * *
The writer hopes that the public will give him credit for an intention to
adhere rigidly to the truth, in presenting his views of the late difficulties
of the Marshpee Tribe, as it is as much his wish as his intention to do
justice to all his brethren, without distinction of colour. Yet he is
sensible that he cannot write truly on this subject without attracting the
worst wishes of those who are enemies to liberty, or would reserve it
exclusively to themselves. Could he speak without incurring such
enmity, he would be most happy to do so; but he is fully aware that he
cannot even touch this matter without exposing himself to certain
calumny. This has been his portion whenever he has attempted to plead
the cause of his ignorant and ever-oppressed red brethren. Nevertheless,
he will endeavour to speak independently, as if all men were his friends,
and ready to greet him with thundering applause; and he would do so if
their voices were to pronounce on him a sentence of everlasting
disgrace. He writes not in the expectation of gathering wealth, or
augmenting the number of his friends. But he has not the least doubt
that all men who have regard to truth and integrity, will do justice to
the uprightness of his intentions. (Heaven be praised! there are some
such men in the world.) He is equally sure that the evidence contained
in this little work will be satisfactory, as to all the points he wishes to
establish, to all who are open to conviction.
It is true that the author of this book is a member of the Marshpee Tribe,
not by birth, but by adoption. How he has become one of that

unfortunate people, and why he concerns himself about their affairs,
will now be explained to the satisfaction of the reader. He wishes to say
in the first place, that the causes of the prevalent prejudice against his
race have been his study from his childhood upwards. That their colour
should be a reason to treat one portion of the human race with insult
and abuse has always seemed to him strange; believing that God has
given to all men an equal right to possess and occupy the earth, and to
enjoy the fruits thereof, without any such distinction. He has seen the
beasts of the field drive each other out of their pastures, because they
had the power to do so; and he knew that the white man had that power
over the Indian which knowledge and superior strength give; but it has
also occurred to him that Indians are men, not brutes, as the treatment
they usually receive would lead us to think. Nevertheless, being bred to
look upon Indians with dislike and detestation, it is not to be wondered
that the whites regard them as on a footing with the brutes that perish.
Doubtless there are many who think it granting us poor natives a great
privilege to treat us with equal humanity. The author has often been
told seriously, by sober persons, that his fellows were a link between
the whites and the brute creation, an inferior race of men to whom the
Almighty had less regard than to their neighbours, and whom he had
driven from their possessions to make room for a race more favoured.
Some have gone so far as to bid him remove and give place to that pure
and excellent people who have ever despised his brethren and evil
entreated them, both by precept and example.
Assumption of this kind never convinced WILLIAM APES of its own
justice. He is still the same unbelieving Indian that he ever was. Nay,
more, he is not satisfied that the learned and professedly religious men
who have thus addressed him, were more exclusively the favourites of
his Creator than himself, though two of them at least have been hailed
as among the first orators of the day, and spoke with an eloquence that
might have moved stocks and stones. One of them dwells in New York
and the other in Boston. As it would avail him little to