It appeared that these people had lived without the law, so to speak, in Massachusetts because of their refusal to accept certain regulations which the State desired to impose upon them. By the act of June 25, 1811, the governor was authorized to appoint three persons to be guardians of the Indian, Mulatto and Negro proprietors of Gay Head, which guardians, in addition to the usual powers given to functionaries in such cases, were empowered to take into their possession the lands of Indians, and allot to the several Indians such part of the lands as should be sufficient for their improvement from time to time. The act further provided for the discontinuance or removal of the guardians at the discretion of the governor and council.140 Under this act three guardians were appointed and in 1814 the Indians became dissatisfied with their guardians, who resigned, and the guardianship disappeared.
In 1828 there was enacted another measure providing that whenever the Indians and people of color at Gay Head should by a vote in town meeting accept that act and should transmit to the governor an attested copy of the vote, the governor might then authorize the guardian to take up his duties at Gay Head, and might upon their request, appoint suitable persons to divide their lands. As the Indians had unpleasant recollections of the guardian-system, they never accepted that proposal. For about thirty years they were without any guardians, and their affairs, except that of the public schools, were left to themselves.
It appears, however, that the mere provision for the appointment of a guardian was not the only objectionable feature of the Act of 1828. The guardian was given power to "punish, by fine not exceeding twenty dollars, or by solitary imprisonment not exceeding twenty days, any trespasses, batteries, larcenies under five dollars, gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, disorderly and riotous conduct, and for the sale of spirituous liquors within the territory, or on the lands of these Indians and people of color.141 The guardian or other justice of the peace might issue his warrant directed to the constable of the Indians and people of color, or other proper officer, to arrest and bring before him, any offender against the provisions of this act; and after judgment, he might order execution to be done by said constable or other proper officer; and if the guardian or other justice of the peace should adjudge any offender to solitary imprisonment, such offender should not, during the term of said imprisonment be visited by, or allowed to speak with any person other than the jailer, or the guardian or justice of the peace or such other person as the guardian or justice of the peace should specially authorize thereto; nor should such offender be allowed any food or drink other than coarse bread and water, unless sickness should, in the opinion of a physician, render other sustenance necessary,"142 "With such a provision in the Act," said J. M. Earle, "making a discrimination so odious and unjust, between themselves and other prisoners, the Indians would have been greatly wanting in self-respect had they accepted it. It is a provision disgraceful to the statute book of the State, and discreditable to the civilization of the age. Yet two tribes, the Chappequiddick and the Christiantown, were made subject to the provisions of this law, without the power to accept or reject it, and are governed by it to this day"143 (1861).
The Marshpee tribe doubtless had a larger infusion of Negro blood than any. When the population of this tribe was 327 in 1771, 14 of them were Negroes, married to Indians. In 1832 there were 315 inhabitants, of whom 16 were Negroes. According to the report of the Indian commissioner in 1849 the population was 305 in 1848, of whom 26 were foreigners, all Negroes or mulattoes. The tribe numbered 403 in 1859, "including 32 foreigners, married to natives of the tribe, all Negroes or mulattoes, or various mixtures of Negro, Indian, or white bloodnone of them being pure whites."144
The Punkapog Tribe of Indians formerly dwelt on a tract of land in Canton, Norfolk County, containing five thousand acres, granted them by the General Court of Massachusetts. Before 1861, however, they had lost all of this property, the last of it being sold by the guardian, about 1841, in pursuance of a resolve of the legislature. "The full-blood Indians of the tribe," says the report of 1861, "are all extinct. Their descendants, who, like those of all the other tribes in the States, are of various grades of mixtures, of Indian, white, and Negro blood, number, so far as is ascertained one hundred and seventeen persons."145
According to the survey made in 1861 the moral condition of the Indians was rather low and it was a regret that the people of color exhibiting generally more moral stamina should be degraded by living among them. Accounting for this condition of Affairs a contemporary said of the low moral condition of the Fall River Indians in 1861: "The prejudice of color and caste, and the social proscription to which the colored people are subjected, has a twofold unfavorable effect upon them; first to detract from their self-respect and so to weaken the moral instincts, and then to throw them into the association of the more dissolute and degraded of other races, where they fall an easy prey to immoral habits. There are, however, in this tribe as well as the others, instances of those who rise above all the evil influences with which they are encompassed and maintain a good standing, as worthy and respectable members of the community. It would be a cause for gratification, if it could be said truly that these are increasing, or that there was any decided progress in the general character of the tribe. But, from all the evidence that can be gathered, it does not appear that, for the last twelve or fourteen years, there has been much, if any improvement in their moral and social condition,"146
The situation in the Hassanamisco Tribe shows how the Indians in some of these reservations became extinct. Interbreeding with both races they passed either to the blacks or to the whites. "But little trace of Indian descent is apparent in the members of this tribe," said J. M. Earle in 1861. "It is most marked in the few who have mixed chiefly with the whites, yet some of these have no perceptible indications of it, and have become identified with the white race. The remainder of the tribe have the distinguishing marks of African descent and mixed African and white, of various grades, from the light quadroon and mulatto, to the apparently nearly pure negro, and, in every successive generation the slight remaining characteristics of the race become less apparent."147
Referring to the Yarmouth Indians the investigator informs us that these had tended to go almost altogether over to the white race. "With this exception," said he, "nearly all of his descendants have intermarried with whites, down to the present day, so that they are substantially merged in the general community, having their social relations with white people, with the exception of one or two families."148 It was observed that in all the families, in which both heads are living, there were only two in which one of them was not pure white, and those having the Indian blood were usually so little colored, that it would hardly be noticed by one not acquainted with the fact. Some of them had but one sixteenth part of Indian blood. Of the two widows found there in 1861 one was the wife of a white man. The other was a Marshpee Indian whose husband belonged to the Yarmouth tribe and she associated with the people of color.