Response of John Quincy, Trustee of the Ponkapoag Indians, to the Petition of Amos Ahauton and Others

Province of the Massachusetts Bay

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To His Excellency, William Shirley, Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief and the Honorable His Majesty's Council, To the Honourable House of Representatives of the said Province in General Court Assembled this Twenty-Fourth Day of December A.D. 1741

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The answer of John Quincy, Trustee for the Indians of Ponkapoag, within the Town of Stoughton to the petition of Amos Ahaton, Thomas Ahaton, Hezekiah Squamaug, and Simon George sheweth that your respondent is well assured that the Indians even some who are called petitioners are unacquainted with this petition.  One of them a principal man who has been a preacher among them, namely Amos Ahaton, having lately told your respondent that he never heard the petition read nor set his hand to it.  That he has not set his hand to it appears upon the original petition where his name is underwritten at length without his mark, which he always makes.[1]   Another said to be a petitioner, viz., Simon George has been dead about two years.  And from hence it may well be suspected that the rest of the petitioners' names and marks were put to the petitioner by other people without their knowledge or consent.  Whether this be not an Imposition not only on the Indians; but upon this Great and Hon:ble Court your Hon:rs in your wisdom will determine.

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The truth of the matter is the present petition is a transcript of a petition drawn five years ago by a person belonging to Stoughton of no good character, and one whose bond I had some time before put in suit (after waiting many years upon him) in order to recover the interest due upon it by which means I obtained it as well as the principal money, which I then put into better hands. By this person, the Indians were artfully and wickedly practiced with to get their hands to that petition as they then informed your respondent, which petition was left in the hands of Colonel Spurr of Dorchester[2] from whence your respondent had a copy, which is now by me and comparing it with this petition find it differs in nothing material. That petition was not forwarded to Court at that time, because your respondent (as he supposes) was a member of it, as he has been ever since till this year and so (‘tis very probable) is now thought not to be under the like advantages as when a member to lay open the wicked designs and corrupt practises of those who have been active in this affair.

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But granting this to be truly the petition of the Indians, your respondent takes notice that they move in the first place that there may be a reformation among them and that they all may be made to attend the public worship on the Lord's Day.  

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This, your respondent presumes, is not in the power of any Trustee to effect nor is it mentioned (as he conceives) by way of Complain against him. However as to that he begs leave to say; that he has done all that he has been able to do towards this, unless it had been in his power to make them good Christians.

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Some years ago, when Amos, the Indian minister, was about to build a house, your respondent was desired to employ some workman and provide materials as boards and nails for the building a larger house then was necessary for Amos and family.  And your respondent can truly say that he has ever been careful lest that he should overcharge anything they have had of him always remembering that it was a trust reposed in him to which he was under the strongest obligations to be faithful.  And that through the indig[nity?] and importunity of the Indians he has let them have his corn so as that he has been obliged to buy for his own family and given several shillings more in a bushel than he had charged them.

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Your respondent was resolute from the beginning not to sell any drink to the Indians to avoid many inconveniences which he foresaw, though they have always had what was convenient of beer and cider when they came to his house (which having been often) without being charged anything therefor which, in fifteen years' time everybody must think will come to something considerable.  Moreover, the Indians have a fondness for living some time near the salt water in the season of fishing, and your respondent's land adjoining thereto and being convenient for that purpose, some of them have continued for weeks together; when they have burnt up his wood and sometimes not spared even his fencing stuff which so near the waterside is valuable, for which there never was the least consideration made.

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Your respondent would not have troubled Your Honors with a rehearsal of some of these things, but that it seems necessary to shew that he has been a benefactor to these Indians instead of an oppressor of them.  As to their being provided with clothing for themselves and wives against winter; they are now as well-clothed as usual; the old Indians and their wives, having had this fall, each of them a good blanket.

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It is further said that they are able to do little or nothing for a livelihood.  This suggestion is so far from truth that (as I have been lately informed by several principal men of Stoughton) by what the Indians do they earn much more in a year then their annual income and much more might they earn were they diligent, but some of the English people get all for strong drink, and more especially, one who is engaged in bringing forward this petition purchases of their brooms and baskets in one year to the value of fifty pounds if not more, and pays for them in little else besides strong drink, by which they are often intoxicated and it is a common thing to see them lying about his house drunk.  Some effectual methods indeed are needful to be taken in order to prevent such notorious abuse, otherwise, there can be no hopes of the reformation proposed. And it is somewhat wonderful that the man who is chiefly the occasion of these disorders should consent to the mentioning any such thing as a reformation in the petition.  But from hence it may well be concluded that the reformation insisted on is only a pretense.

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What the persons who have stirred so much in this affair have in [ torn ] with your respondent is easily determined.  It seems that aim at having not only the managem.t of the Indians and their affairs in their hand but also the remainder of their land on which is a good growth of wood and timber, which your respondent has been instrumental of preserving hitherto in a great measure. And on which their eyes have been for several years, but that he stands in their way, having prevented their purchasing it in the manner proposed in a petition of some of them for that end years ago.

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As to the appointment of another Trustee in my room, your respondent is under no manner of concern who takes the trouble for the reward, which indeed had been greater had he not, in compassion to the Indians, objected against it when it was moved several times in the Honorable House, pasting my accounts that the allowance to me should be enlarged your respondent said (as he believes diverse gentlemen, now members, can remember) that although what had been allowed was far short of a full recompense for the trouble he had in managing the Indian affairs, yet their annual income was so small, it would not well admit of a greater allowance.  That he knew he served those who were unable to serve themselves, and upon that score, was willing to accept of what had been usually allowed. But if the Gentlemen of truth and fidelity are liable in this manner to be traduced without the least foundation, and their reputation hazarded by the artifices of malicious ill designing men protected as they think by their secrecies.  Those who are best qualified for such a trust will hardly be persuaded to accept it. Your respondent, therefore, hopes for the justice of this Honorable House in his defense.  And makes no doubt of this petition being dismissed with such animadversions upon it as it justly deserves.

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And your respondent as in duty bound shall ever pray, etc.,

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John Quincy

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