But while we condemn the conduct of General Jackson toward the
Southern Indians, what shall we say of the treatment of our
own poor defenceless Indians, the Marshpee tribe, in our own
State? The Legislature of last year, with a becoming sense of
justice, restored to the Marshpee Indians a _portion_ of their
rights, which had been wrested from them, most wrongfully, for
a period of _seventy-four_ years. The State of Massachusetts,
in the exercise of a most unjust and arbitrary power, had,
until that time, deprived the Indians of all civil rights, and
placed their property at the mercy of designing men, who had
used it for their own benefit, and despoiled the native owners
of the soil to which they hold a better title than the whites
hold to any land in the Commonwealth. These Indians fought
and bled side by side, with our fathers, in the struggle for
liberty; but the whites were no sooner free themselves, than
they enslaved the poor Indians.
One single fact will show the devotion of the Marshpee Indians
to the cause of liberty, in return for which they and their
descendants were placed under a despotic guardianship, and
their property wrested from them to enrich the whites. In
the Secretary's Office, of this State, will be found a muster
roll, containing a "Return of men enlisted in the first
Regiment of Continental troops, in the County of Barnstable,
for three years and during the war, in Col.
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