William Apess and the Mashpee Revolt (Pt. 2)

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, we just wanted to remind all of you that we have a live streaming event coming up that will be on March tent that eight p m Eastern five pm Pacific. We will be talking about some of history's weirdest and wildest disputes and feuds and other arguments. This is on a platform called Looped, So if you have a ticket to the show, you basically get a front row seat to our live virtual stage. And then we also have as a v if E add on a meat and greet with Holly and Meat. You will use the Looped app to have a call with each of us because we will not be in the exact same place when we do this event. So again, that is March tenth at eight p m Eastern five pm Pacific. You can go to looped live dot com that is l O O p E D l i v E dot com to buy tickets. We've also got the link pinned up at the top of all of our social feeds. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This is Part two of our episode on Methodist minister and Indigenous rights activists, William APIs. APIs was Peaq what and in our previous episode we talked about how he was raised primarily by a white family before running away and joining the militia, fighting in the War of eighteen twelve and being ordained in eighteen thirty one. Throughout a lot of that time, he had also struggled with alcohol misuse, and consequently, after becoming a minister, he was also a temperance activist. He set up temperance societies and multiple places where he lived. APIs is religious work and writing consistently stressed the inherent humanity and worth of Indigenous people, but in eight years of his career he also became involved in more direct activism and mash p Massachusetts. We're gonna be talking about all of that today. As we noted in part one, William Apes was traveling all over New England, and often the congregations he addressed were racially integrated. Some of them had come to see him because of his reputation as a minister, while others were more interested in the relative novelty of a preacher who looked like him. He was Peaquat, and his mother probably also had African ancestry. In eighteen thirty one, Apes started preaching to predominantly black congregations in Boston, and many of the people there were abolitionists. APIs gave one known address on a subject of slavery, although its text does not seem to have survived, but it does seem like his involvement with the abolitionist movement led him to broaden his ideas from a focus on the oppression of indigenous people to the oppression of people of color all over the world more generally. While in Boston, Aps also met Cherokee activist Elias Boudinau. We talked about his namesake, lawyer and politician Elias Boudineau in part one this Elias boudina had been educated at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. That was a school that had been established with the goal of quote civilizing indigenous students and preparing them to be missionaries so they would return to their native communities and carry on that work. A lot of this same mindset carried over to the systems of boarding schools in the US and residential schools in Canada that reached their Peaks. A few decades later. We talked about the Foreign Mission School on the show back in tween, although we didn't really talk about the students later lives in that much detail. By the time Boudina and APIs met, Boudineau had started a newspaper called Cherokee Phoenix, which published articles in both English and Cherokee I. He was advocating against the removal of the Cherokee people from the southeastern United States. Apes Is preaching and writing were already critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of white Christians, things like trying to convert indigenous people to Christianity in the name of civilizing them while continuing to treat them as so called heathens. Afterward, he became more strident and direct in these criticisms while working among black abolitionists and indigenous activists like Buddinau, and he faced retaliation for this. In eighteen thirty one, a white man broke into his home in Groton, Massachusetts and beat him. In eighteen thirty two, he filed suit against a Methodist clergyman named John Reynolds for libel. Reynolds had made a bunch of unsubstantiated allegations about APIs doing things like buying lottery tickets and misappropriating donated money. It's possible that this was connected to Apes not supporting reynolds efforts to become an elder in the church. In a eighteen thirty three Aps printed the experiences of five Christian Indians of the Peaquat tribe. As that title suggests, these were five spiritual narratives Aps his own, his wife Mary's written in her own words, and those of three women, Hannah, Caleb and Wampy, and his aunt Sally George, which were presented as having been told to APIs. At the end of this collection, Aps also printed an Indians Looking Glass for the White Man, which was a scathing essay about injustice and religious hypocrisy. We're going to read a significant portion of this because it's so evocative of his advocacy and his thought process. It began, quote, having a desire to place a few things before my fellow creatures who are traveling with me to the grave and to that God who is the maker and preserver both of the white man and the Indian, whose abilities are the same, and who are to be judged by one God who will show no favor to out word appearances, but will judge righteousness now? I ask if degradation has not been heaped long enough upon the Indians. He went on to say, quote, I know that many say that they are willing, perhaps the majority of the people, that we should enjoy our rights and privileges as they do. If so, I would ask, why are not we protected in our persons and property throughout the Union? Is it not because their reigns in the breast of many who are leaders a most unrighteous unbecoming an impure black principle and as corrupt and unholy as it can be. While these very same unfeeling self esteemed characters pretend to take the skin as a pretext to keep us from our unalienable and lawful rights, I would ask you if you would like to be disenfranchised from all your rights merely because your skin is white, and for no other crime. I'll venture to say, these very characters who hold the skin to be such a barrier in the way, would be the first to cry out injustice, awful, injustice. PAPIs went on to question why if white people were somehow superior, where there's so many fewer of them than people of color, quote, But reader, I acknowledge that this is a confused world, and I am not seeking for office, but merely placing before you the black inconsistency that you placed before me, which is ten times blacker than any skin that you will find in the universe. And now let me exhort you to do away with that principle, as it appears ten times worse in the sight of God and candid men than skins of color, more disgraceful than all the skins that Jehovah ever made. If black or red skins, or any other skin of color is disgraceful to God, it appears that he has disgraced himself a great deal, for he has made fifteen colored people to one white, and placed them here upon this earth. From there he detailed what he saw as a core ypocrisy in how many in the white Christian community had approached race. Quote. Now let me ask you, white man, if it is a disgrace for to eat, drink, and sleep with the image of God, or sit or walk and talk with them, Or have you the folly to think that the white man being one in fifteen or sixteen are the only beloved images of God assemble all nations together in your imagination, and then let the whites be seated amongst them. And then let us look for the whites. And I doubt not it would be hard finding them, for to the rest of the nations they are still but a handful. Now, suppose these skins were put together, and each skin had its national crimes written upon it, Which skin do you think would have the greatest? I will ask one question more? Can you charge the Indians with robbing a nation almost of their whole continent, and murdering their women and children, and then depriving the remainder of their lawful rights that nature and God require them to have, and to cap the climax, rob another nation to till their grounds and welter out their days under the lash, with hunger and fatigue, under the scorching rays of a burning sun. I should look at all the skins, and I know that when I cast my eye upon that white skin, and if I saw those crimes written upon it, I should enter my protest against it immediately and cleave to that which is more honorable. And I can tell you that I am satisfied with the manner of my creation. Fully, whether others are or not. And he went on to say, quote, did you ever hear or read of Christ teaching his disciples that they ought to despise one because his skin was different from theirs? Jesus Christ being a Jew, and those of his apostles certainly were not whites. And did not he who completed the plan of salvation complete it for the whites as well as for the Jews and others? And we're not whites the most degraded people on the earth at that time, and none were more so, for they sacrifice their children too dumb idols. And did not Saint Paul labor more abundantly for building up a Christian nation amongst you than any of the apostles. And you know as well as I that you are not indebted to a principle beneath a white skin for your religious services, but to a colored one. He also recognized that the religion he was espousing was being used for oppression, saying quote, I would ask what is all this ado about missionary societies? If it be not to christianize those who are not Christians? And what is it for to degrade them worse to bring them into society where they must welter out their days in disgrace merely because their skin is of a different complexion. What folly it is to try to make the state of human society worse than it is. How astonished some maybe at this, But let me ask, is it not? So APIs ended this by saying, quote, do not get tired, ye noble hearted, Only think how many poor Indians want their wounds done up daily. The Lord will reward you, and pray you stop. Not till this tree of distinction shall be leveled to the earth, and the mantle of prejudice torn from every American heart, then shall peace pervade the Union. Something else Aps learned about in Boston was an effort by the people of Mashp to secure their own autonomy and protect their tribal lands. So he went to help, and we're going to talk about that after a sponsor break. When William APIs got to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and May of eighteen thirty three, the community of mash P was in the middle of a six year dispute with both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the trustees of Harvard College. Mash P had been established during the colonial era as sort of a proto reservation for displaced indigenous people. Many of them were wampanag but people from other nations were included as well. Initially, mash P was supposed to have a set of five overseers, and by law, two of them were required to be white, but before long all five of the overseers were white, which left an indigenous community under the paternalistic control of white people without any voice in their own governance or the government of Massachusetts. Additionally, by the early nineteenth century, the white community was encroaching into mash P and the Board of Overseers was not doing anything to stop it. The dispute with Harvard went back to seventeen eleven, when a man named William Williams, not the same William Williams we talked about in Part one I don't think, left a bequest. This bequest was meant to pay for a minister who would christianize the people of Mashp. The Harvard Trustees oversaw this bequest and appointed the minister. By eighteen thirty three, the minister was the Reverend Phineas Fish. With few exceptions, though the people of Mashp did not think Reverend Fish was particularly interested in their spiritual or their physical needs, and they also did not care for his preaching. A Wapanag minister known as Blind Joe Amos, who was Baptist, had started holding his own services, but Reverend Fish was refusing to give up control of the town's meeting house for him to use for those services. Amos is usually described as the first ordained Mashp Wapanag minister, and he had become blind as a child. This dispute became known as the Mashp Revolt, although most of it was carried out through written documents, petitions to the legislature and the like, rather than the kind of physical violence that might usually come to mind when you hear the word revolt. William Apes was deeply involved in this work, in collaboration and with the people of Mashp, who described him in written documents as their brother. When APIs got to Mashp, he started by meeting with the Reverend Fish and went to one of his services. He was surprised when he got there that there was nobody there almost to see the Reverend Fish preach. But then he discovered that the people he had expected to see we're all attending the services that were being held. By Joe Amos. Once he realized what was going on, he asked the people of Mashp what their needs were, and then encouraged them to call a full counsel on one that year to discuss their grievances and their steps forward. He eventually brought his wife and children to Cape Cod as well. One of his first steps was to help the Mashp craft a set of demands, which they called an Indian Declaration of independence to present to the Massachusetts Legislature. These demands read quote, resolved that we as a tribe will rule ourselves and have the right to do so, for all men are born free and equal, says the Constitution of the country. Resolved that we will not permit any white man to come upon our plantation to cut or carry off wood or hay, or any other article without our permission after the first of July next. Resolved that we will put said resolutions in force after that date July next, with the penalty of binding and throwing them from the plantation if they will not stay away without They drafted a set of demands to send to Harvard as well. Quote that we will rule our own tribe and make choice of whom we please for our preacher, that we will have our own meeting house and place in the pulpit, whom we please to preach us, that we will publish this to the world. If the above reasons and resolutions are not adhered to, and the Reverend Mr Fish discharged on June, the people of mash P set up their own government and posted no trespassing signs on their land. Not long after, a pest learned that agree of white men was taking wood from the Mashp wood lot, and he and several others went to try to stop them. White neighbors complained to the legislature that they were being threatened, branding Aps as an outside agitator. Aps was arrested on charges of riot, assault and trespass along with several people from Mashp. Aps wound up being convicted and sentenced to thirty days in jail. He was also ordered to pay a fine of one hundred dollars along with a one hundred dollar bond to ensure he would keep the peace for a period of six months. While jailed, he wrote a piece called Memorial of the marshp Indians. That's a spelling that was in use at the time, this was published in William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist to newspaper The Liberator on February one, eight thirty four. This was addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Massachusetts General Court. APIs pointed out the disparity between the sympathy the people of Massachusetts were showing to the Cherokee who were fighting against being removed from their land and what was happening in mash b quote. While he are filled with the fat of our father's land and enjoy your liberties without molestation, will not this honorable body be as benevolent to us poor marshp Indians who are sighing and weeping under bondage, as he are to the poor Cherokees. This document made a number of points that the government had been set up for mashp with its board of overseers, was unconstitutional, that it had been imposed without the consent of their forefathers, that they were not being allowed to worship according to their own views and feelings, that they were being kept out of their own school and meeting houses on their own land, and that their white neighbors were encroaching on their land, including taking wood hay and food crops and fishing from Mashp waters. This document called for the community of Mashp to be able to see to its own governance, with the board of Overseers just charged. After an extensive back and forth, as we said, this dispute went on for six years. The people of mash b took up their cause during the Massachusetts legislatures General Session, which APIs attended along with delegates from Mashp, and Massachusetts did restore some autonomy to Mashp, incorporated the area as the Marshp District, which was entitled to the same process of self government as any other Massachusetts community. In eighteen thirty six, Mashp also convinced Harvard to provide them with half the funding from that seventeen eleven bequest for them to use to hire a clergyman of their choice. Took a lot longer to get Reverend Fish to give up control of that meeting house, though. In eighteen thirty five, APS published a book called Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts relative to the Marshpe Tribe or the Pretended Riot explained. This was a collected work of writing about the events in MASHP, assembled in collaboration with the MASHP community and representing the work and views of multiple people in the community. In a article in the European Journal of American Studies, neil Meyer describes this work as quote both a reflection on the Christian Indian community and a model of its politics in action. The word nullification harkened back to the nullification crisis, which started in eighteen twenty eight when South Carolina argued that a state had the right to block enforcement of federal laws in a dispute over federally imposed tariffs. It was a formal connections to the mash P wampanag seemed to have ended shortly after this. He had kept preaching through all of it, and he had gotten continual criticism in the press, along with accusations that he was raising money for charity work and keeping it for himself. He seemed to have been unfounded. He also had another dispute with Reverend Fish and which Fish refused to let him use land for a camp meeting. At some point after all this, he left Cape Cod, although it seems like his wife and children stayed behind. Before we move on to the end of APS's life, The eventual incorporation of mash p Is a town was not the end of the mashp Wampanog's efforts to protect their own land and identity as a tribe. In the nineteen seventies, the mashp Wampanag We're trying to reclaim some of their ancestral lands, and a court ruled that they weren't a tribe anymore, that they had quote voluntarily assimilated into the general society starting about a decade after the mashp Revolt. The mash p Wampanog pushed back on this for decades until finally gaining federal recognition as a tribe in two thousand seven. But the mash p Wampanog have continued to face ongoing struggles with their federal recognition and tribal autonomy. We talked about this in our Unearthed episode for the first quarter of twenty twenty. After the U S Secretary of the Interior announced that the Tribes reservation was going to be disestablished, they made I'm still angry about this. They made this announcement at four pm on a Friday, in the middle of a pandemic. A federal judge ended up issuing a pause on that order and described a court decision that it rested on quote arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law. In late December, the Department of the Interior confirmed the status of the reservation, which includes land in Taunton and Mashp, But residents of Taunton, where the mash P Wampanag are working toward building a resort casino, are using those same arguments to oppose its construction. The events of the eighteen thirties that we just talked about were also, of course, part of the legal arguments around all of this, and those arguments were kind of circular. The community of Mashp had organized itself politically in the eighteen thirties to advocate for their own autonomy successfully, and then opponents to the tribe's recognition argued that the end of that advocacy, which again ended because they had completed their objectives, signaled an end of the tribe. It's like you got what you were after, so you stopped asking for things, and that meant you're not a tribe anymore. We should also take a quick moment to circle back to Elias Boudino when William Apes met him. He was advocating against the forcible removal of the Cherokee from the southeastern United States, but he eventually came to believe that removal was inevitable and that instead the Cherokee should work to preserve their own rights and sovereignty as much as possible. After moving west, along with some other Cherokee, including his Foreign Mission school classmate John Ridge, Boudino signed the Treaty of New Echota. In this treaty, surround dared seven million acres of Cherokee ancestral land in the Southeastern US and exchanged for five million dollars and land in Oklahoma. There were only about five hundred Cherokee involved in this treaty out of the nation's roughly sixteen thousand citizens. They did this without the participation or consent of Principal Chief John Ross. After this, most of the Cherokee were removed from the Southeastern US in a forest relocation that, of course, has become known as the Trail of Tears. And on June nine, after they had moved to Indian Territory, an unknown group of Cherokee attacked and killed Elias Boutineau along with John Ridge, and his father, Major Ridge. We will return to the last years of Apis's life after another quick sponsor break. William Apis's last published work was a eulogy on King Philip, which was both an address that he delivered at multiple venues and a book that he published. The first time that he gave this address was at the Odeon on Federal Street in Boston in eighteen thirty six. As we talked about in Part one, King Philip was Colonists name for Medicom, who was statim of the Wampanog Nation. Apis's grandmother had also told him that he was one of Medicom's descendants. In the sixteen seventies, the Wampanog Nation had fought against the English colonies and their indigenous allies in what came to be known as King Philip's War. The population of North America was much smaller than it is now, and this war has been described as the deadliest war in US history in terms of per capita deaths. We did an episode about this. In four centuries, the vast majority of English language writing about this war and about Medicom portrayed him as a villain, with one exception being Washington Irving's eighteen nineteen Philip of Poconoka, which we talked about on the show last year. Aps on the other hand, compared medicons the men who were regarded as great in Western history that included Alexander the Great, his father, Philip of Macedon, and George Washington, and he argued that medicom was a patriot quote. I appeal to the lovers of liberty, but those few remaining descendants who now remain as the monument of the cruelty of those who came to improve our race and correct our errors. And as the immortal Washington lives endeared and engraven on the hearts of every white in America, never to be forgotten in time. Even such is the immortal Philip honored, as held in memory by the degraded but yet grateful descendants who appreciate his character. So will every patriot, especially in this enlightened age, respect the rude yet all accomplished son of the Forest that died a order to his cause, though unsuccessful, yet as glorious as the American Revolution? Where then shall we place the hero of the Wilderness. In this eulogy, APIs walked through the history of King Philip's people again, that was the colonist's name for Meticom. Tyy talked about the arrival of the Pilgrims and the deep hypocrisy and injustice that he saw in their actions. Quote how they could go to work to enslave a free people and call it religion is beyond the power of my imagination and outstrips the revelation of God's people. Oh thou pretended, hypocritical Christian? Whoever thou art to say? It was the design of God that we should murder and slay one another because we have the power. Power was not given us to abuse each other, but a mere power delegated to us by the King of Heaven, a weapon of defense against error and evil, and when abuse it will turn to our instruction. Mark then the history of nations throughout the world. He also explained the historical context for King phillips Or from multiple angles, including specific incidents of murders, thefts of corn from indigenous graves, broken treaties, and the death of Metacomet's brother Wamsuda, who the colonists called Alexander, possibly by poisoning. He also looked at this context more broadly, exploring social and political concepts that influenced all of these events. For example, he again criticized the removal of indigenous peoples from their lands. Quote, why, my brethren, the poor missionaries want money to go and convert the poor heathen, as if God could not convert them where they were, but must first drive them out. If God wants the red men converted, we should think that He could do it as well in one places and another. But must I say, and shall I say it, that missionaries have injured us more than they have done us good by degrading us as a people, and breaking up our governments and leaving us without any suffrages whatever or a legal right among men. Oh, what cursed doctrine is this? It most certainly is not fit to civilize men with much more to save their souls. And we poor Indians want no such missionaries around us. But I would suggest one thing, and that is, let the ministers and people use the colored people that they have already around them like human beings before they go to convert anymore, And let them show it in their churches, and let them proclaim it upon the housetops. And I would say to the benevolent, withhold your hard earnings from them unless they do it until they can stop laying their own wickedness to God, which is blasphemy. Towards the conclusion of this piece, Aps says of Medicam quote, who was Philip that made all this display in the world, that put an enlightened nation to flight and won so many battles? It was a son of nature with nature's talents alone. And who did he have to contend with with all the combined arts of cultivated talents of the old and new world. It was like putting one talent against a thousand, and yet Philip, with that accomplished more than all of them. Yea, he outdid well disciplined forces of Greece under the command of Philip, the Grecian Emperor, For he never was enabled to lay such plans of allying the troops of Earth together as Philip of Mount Hope did, and even Napoleon patterned after him in collecting his forces and surprising the enemy. Washington, too pursued many of his plans in attacking the enemy, and thereby enabled him to defeat his antagonists and conquer them. What then, shall we say, Shall we not do right to say that Philip with his one talent outstrips them all with their tent housend. William APIs argued for indigenous people's sovereignty and multiple contexts, but it's not always clear how he imagined that sovereignty would work in practice, and that's kind of true. At the end of this piece, after tracing through centuries of injustice, including injustices and massacres that continued long after King Philip's war, and arguing that the quote civilization being offered by missionaries was not civil at all, APIs concluded, quote, and so all of my people have been treated, whether Christians or not, I say, then a different course must be pursued, and different laws must be enacted, and all men must operate under one general law. And while you ask yourselves what do they the Indians want, you have only to look at the unjust laws made for them and say, they want what I want in order to make men of them good and wholesome citizens. And this plan ought to be pursued by all mission areas, or not pursued at all. That is, not only to make Christians of us, but men which plan as yet has never been pursued. And when it is I will then throw my might upon the side of missions, and do what I can to favorite. But this work must begin here first, in New England. Had William Apes been able to continue this work through the Indian Removal era in the Civil War, it might have clarified his thoughts on this in a more practical way. But not long after he first delivered this eulogy, he seems to have stopped preaching. He republished some of his earlier books, possibly just to try to make ends meet. Like many other people, after the Panic of eighteen thirty seven, he wound up in debt, and he mortgaged most of his property, including his personal library of religious texts, some of them multi volume works. He went to New York, possibly to get away from his creditors. He died in New York on April tenth, eighteen thirty nine, at the age of only forty one. He had been living in a boarding house in Lower Manhattan with a woman described as his wife. She's named as Elizabeth. He had reportedly been married to her for at least two years. There are some unanswered questions. It's possible that this was the woman he had already been married to, but with a different name given it's possible that he had gotten divorced. We don't really know exactly what happened. His cause of death was listed as apoplexy, in other words, a stroke, and some of his neighbors described him as drinking very heavily in his last days. So for a long time his death was described as alcohol related, but biographer Philip Gura, who's the Life of William ap s Peaquat came out in concludes that it was really acute appendicitis. You know, there were treatments that were given to him that seemed to suggest that that was really the cause, and that it was not something that was related to drinking. The town of Coleraine, Massachusetts, recently made one William APIs Day, that is the anniversary of the day that the mashped Declaration of Independence was issued. That was William APIs. Yes, indeed, I find him fascinating and I love to get to read so much of his writing for this episode. Do you also love to get to read a listener mail? I do? I have. I have listener mail from Halle and Hallie wrote in with a question, and I thought, you know, I'm gonna answer this question in case other people had the same question, Halle wrote, Hi, I love the podcast and thanks so much for everything you do. On the most recent episode about Lucy Parsons, though, Tracy said that Jane Adams was so different from Lucy Parsons. Can you explain what you meant. I thought Jane Adams was a radical, and I know the FBI thought she was the most dangerous woman in America. That doesn't sound too different. Thanks again, Halle. So there's huge overallap between the work of Jane Adams and the work of Lucy Parsons. They were both really focused on the lives and well being of workers and immigrants and poor people, but their methods of going about those things we're almost the opposite. Like, Jane Adams was a pacifist, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was a leader in the movement for women suffrage. Lucy Parsons was telling people to learn the use of dynamite uh and was like kind of mocking of feminists and suffragists, Like she really thought the whole political system needed to be overthrown completely and that the idea that women having the right to vote would would solve anything. She thought that was kind of ridiculous, and sometimes the way that she spoke about this could be pretty insulting. Um so, especially the fact that on one hand we have a pacifist, on the other hand, we had somebody that like called for active violence. Like it was just a totally different mindset of of the way that each of them were approaching work that had to do with the you know, the lives u uh and and well being a lot of a lot of the same people. Um. We did an episode, a two parter about Jane Adams way back in the in the archive, which talks more about a lot of that. Um. But yeah, that was what I meant when I was like, these they seemed a lot like the opposite was the pacifism versus the violence, and then like the suffrage activism versus thinking suffragists were kind of ridiculous. Like those were the biggest things that were immediately at the front of my mind when I said that. So thanks so much for to Hallie for sending that note. If anybody else also had kind of question marks, now, you know, if you would like to write to us about this or any other podcast where a history podcast that I Heart Radio dot com and you can also find us on social media at miss in History. That's where we'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And you can subscribe to our show onto I Heart Radio app and wherever else you like to get podcasts. Stuff you missed in History class is a production I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H