Petition of Solomon Weeks and Other Christiantown Indians to the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives
To the Honourable the Senate and the Honourable House of Representatives of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Humbly sheweth the subscribers, Indian inhabitants of that part of the Town of Tisbury known by the name of Christiantown in Dukes County, that without the aid of Your Honours, they in the present mode of the encroachments made on their lands by White people and Black persons who come from other parts and bring their wives and children and leave them amongst the original inhabitants. The men are sent long voyages to sea by those who practice in a more soft manner that of kidnaping, who, when they return with ever so great success, they are still in debt and have nothing to receive, and their wives and children are, in a great part, supported by those of the town who are left behind. We would further inform Your Honours some considerable time since previous to the American Revolution, one David Capey, an Indian who was an inhabitant in said town, whose practice was to enclose any spot of ground left by anyone deceased who ever held in common and thereby amassed a very considerable spot and, at his decease, left a will to a number of children amongst them was one dafter,1 who married one John Aweocke of the Gay Head. All his sons are dead and left no heirs.2 The dafter is dead,3 and there is but one of her posterity living who lives on the Gay Head and, by the influence of some White men, she hired it out for a trifle and thereby the Indians have no profit besides the destruction of their young wood, which is very valuable for enclosing the ground. We, therefore, pray that justice may be done us persons who are strangers and have no right be prevented from coming amongst us to reside.4
And we as in duty bound ever pray that a similar law may be passed to that for the settlement of the Indians' lands on the Island of Chappaquiddick,
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Certification: |
We, the subscribers, Selectmen of the Town of Tisbury, do hereby certify that the within petition is just and in our opinions ought to be granted. Attest, Ezekiel Luce, Thomas Dunham |
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Legislative Action: |
In the House of Representatives, January 26, 1805. Read and committed to Mr. Black, Mr. Rowe, and Mr. White with such as the Honorable Senate may join to consider and report. Sent up for concurrence, H.G. Otis, Speaker. In Senate, January 28, 1805. Read and concurred and the Honorable Isaac Thomson and William Hildreth, Esqrs., are joined. David Cobb, President / Solomon Weeks, and others / Mr. Black, Mr. Rowe, and Mr. White to be joined. In Senate, March 2, Monday 11:00 O’clock, Second Reading. Mr. Coffin, Mr. Hill of West Tisbury |
- 1. An English and American regional form of the word daughter. OED
- 2. Capey's sons Japhet and Moses are assumed to have died by 1764, since they are not mentioned in their father's will. Solomon and Noah died in the Revolution. Pierce and Segel, Wampanoag Families of Martha's Vineyard, 95.
- 3. Elizabeth died by 1788.
- 4. Since this line occurred at the bottom of the page in the original document, the instruction " Turn over" was indicated there.