A freedom to suit themselves: Negotiating Mashpee Indian political identity on Cape Cod, 1742--1834 (Massachusetts, Gideon Hawley, William Apess)

This dissertation is a political and religious history of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts from 1742, when the Indian Pastor Solomon Briant replaced the English Rev. Joseph Bourne as missionary to the Mashpees, to 1834, when the Mashpees successfully lobbied the Massachusetts General Court for status as an independent district within the state. Between 1746 and 1761 the Mashpee established political independence under English law. In 1763 they attained district status within the colony and in 1788 survived its revocation by the Massachusetts General Court. After decades of protest, the Mashpee finally reclaimed district status in 1834.; "A Freedom to Suit Themselves" relies on several manuscript collections, most notably the journals and correspondence of Rev. Gideon Hawley (the Mashpees' missionary from 1757 to 1807) and the archives of the New England Company (the missionary society which placed Hawley in Mashpee). It also draws extensively on the records of the Massachusetts General Court, including the Mashpees' many petitions stating grievances endured at the hands of their white overseers and arguing for political autonomy. The petitions, in particular, reveal the means by which the Mashpees convinced the General Court to recognize their political competence and grant them the right to elect a local government.; This study argues for the central role played by Gideon Hawley in Mashpee politics while also emphasizing the influence of previously under appreciated native leaders, including the pastor Solomon Briant. Although Hawley initially supported Mashpee home rule, he had abandoned this position by 1788, an abandonment that was shortly followed by the Court's revocation of district status. That status was renewed in 1834 largely through the efforts of Pequot minister William Apess, who led the Mashpees in organized protests, including locking the meetinghouse and barring non-Mashpees from Mashpee land.; In contrast to earlier histories of the Mashpees, this study accepts the Mashpees' tribal identity rather than trying to establish or defend it. It also firmly identifies the multiple and shifting actors on the landscape of Massachusetts and Mashpee politics. "A Freedom to Suit Themselves" establishes at once the persistence of the Mashpee tribe and its adaptation to and manipulation of Massachusetts' government to gain and then regain political autonomy.