Massachusetts. Guardians of Indians.

The first legislation regulating the Massachusetts Indians (St 1693-4, c 17) provided that the governor appoint "one or more discreet persons...to have inspection and more particular care and government of the Indians in their respective plantations." Fifty years later (St 1746-7, c 12) the General Court began to appoint "near to every Indian plantation in the province, guardians to the said Indians," three to a plantation, empowered to take Indian lands, redistribute them among the Indians, let out the remainder, and use the resulting income to provide for sick and indigent Indians, with accounting of these transactions to be presented to the legislature. Although Indians were not then restricted from selling their land, the renewal of the act (St 1758-9, c 6) put such sales in the hands of the guardians.

Regular renewals of the legislation occurred until 1796, but chapter 69 of that year fails to include it among expiring acts being made perpetual. Nevertheless, appointment and removal of guardians and approval of their accounts and proposed land sales to support the Indians were continued routinely by the General Court. Special regulations followed: to convey guardian accounts to the Committee on Accounts (Resolves 1801, c 17); to have guardians give bond and an account of properties held in trust to the Court of Sessions (St 1824, c 123); to provide for guardians' removal from office for cause by the governor (St 1846, c 216); and for the review of their accounts by judges of probate (St 1850, c 141).

Guardians, sometimes referred to as trustees, were by the mid-1700s associated with at least two dozen localities, of which the following were governed through special legislation:

(1) Marshpee (Mashpee) was made a district (St 1763-4, c 3) in which "Indians and molattoes, proprietors" elected five overseers (two of them "Englishmen") to function as guardians; the district was then abolished and guardians appointed by the General Court were reimposed (St 1788, c 2) , this followed quickly by a new gubernatorially-appointed board of overseers (St 1788, c 38); they would themselves appoint guardians, whose responsibilities were extended to the Herring Pond Indians as well (Resolves 1789, May Sess, c 23). Later, overseers were empowered to act as guardians themselves (St 1818, c 105). The district was reestablished (St 1834, c 166) after an Indian uprising, with the governor appointing a commissioner who replaced the overseers, and in Mashpee (though not at Herring Pond) worked with selectmen chosen by the Indian proprietors. The commissioner was replaced with a gubernatorially-appointed treasurer (St 1853, c 186); next the proprietors were allowed to propose the treasurer to the governor (St 1856, c 286), and eventually to elect him (St 1863, c 183).

(2) Gay Head was to have its guardians appointed by the governor (St 1811, c 78) as were (3) Natick (Resolves 1809, c 125), (4) Grafton (Resolves 1827, c 78), and (5) Dudley (Resolves 1828, c 62). (6) Chappaquiddick and Christiantown in Dukes County were to receive gubernatorially-appointed guardians (St 1827, c 114), who governed with overseers chosen by the Indians, provisions of this act being extensible to Gay Head should those Indians accept it, which they did not.

That fact was noted by John Milton Earle, in an 1861 report (1861 S 96) commissioned by the governor as provided by an act (St 1859, c 266) to extend citizenship conditionally to Indians. Coming after another commissioned report (Resolves 1848, c 82), Earle's generally negative account of the Indians' condition concluded by proposing automatic enfranchisement of all Indians but those of seven plantations (Chappaquiddick, Christiantown, Gay Head, Mashpee, Herring Pond, Fall River, and Dudley), they being allowed individually to become citizens on payment of poll tax. Earle's recommendations were largely enacted (St 1862, c 184), except for the proposal of a state-wide commissioner: the guardians for four plantations remained intact, while Gay Head was set up as a district on Mashpee's model. A few years later franchise was extended to all Indians remaining under guardians (St 1869, c 463), with probate judge-appointed commissioners disposing of remaining common lands, and the indigent being placed under the care of the Board of State Charities. Mashpee and Gay Head were incorporated as towns (St 1870, c 293, 213) and the Board of State Charities examined and closed the accounts of the last guardians of Indians (Resolves 1870, c 80).

NAME AUTHORITY NOTE. Series relating to the agency described above can be found by searching the following access point for the time period stated: 1694-1870--Massachusetts. Guardians of Indians.