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[Illustration: MANNER OF INSTRUCTING THE INDIANS.]
1835.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eighthundred and thirty-five, by WILLIAM APES, in the Clerk's Office of theDistrict Court of Massachusetts.
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The red children of the soil of America address themselves to thedescendants of the pale men who came across the big waters to seekamong them a refuge from tyranny and persecution.
We say to each and every one of you that the Great Spirit who is thefriend of the Indian as well as of the white man, has raised up amongyou a brother of our own and has sent him to us that he might show usall the secret contrivances of the pale faces to deceive and defraudus. For this, many of our white brethren hate him, and revile him, andsay all manner of evil of him; falsely calling him an impostor. Know,all men, that our brother APES is not such a man as they say. Whitemen are the only persons who have imposed on us, and we say that welove our red brother, the Rev. WILLIAM APES, who preaches to us, andhave all the confidence in him that we can put in any man, knowing himto be a devout Christian, of sound mind, of firm purpose, and worthyto be trusted by reason of his truth. We have never seen any reason tothink otherwise.
We send this forth to the world in love and friendship with allmen, and especially with our brother APES, for whose benefit it isintended.
Signed by the three Selectmen of the Marshpee Tribe, at the Council
House, in Marshpee.
March, 19, 1835.
To whom it may concern.
The undersigned was a native of the County of Barnstable, and wasbrought up near the Marshpee Indiana. He always regarded them as apeople grievously oppressed by the whites, and borne down by lawswhich made them poor and enriched other men upon their property. Infact the Marshpee Indians, to whom our laws have denied all rights ofproperty, have a higher title to their lands than the whites have, forour forefathers claimed the soil of this State by the consent of theIndians, whose title they thus admitted was better than their own.
For a long time the Indians had been disaffected, but no one wasenergetic enough among them to combine them in taking measures fortheir rights. Every time they had petitioned the Legislature, thelaws, by the management of the interested whites, had been made moresevere against them. DANIEL AMOS, I believe, was the first one amongthem, who conceived the plan of freeing his tribe from slavery.WILLIAM APES, an Indian preacher, of the Pequod tribe, regularlyordained as a minister, came among these Indians, to preach. Theyinvited him to assist them in getting their liberty. He had the talentthey most stood in need of. He accordingly went forward, and theIndians declared that no man should take their wood off theirplantation. APES and a number of other Indians quietly unloaded a loadof wood, which a Mr. SAMPSON was carting off. F