During the second half of the nineteenth century, as white citizens of Massachusetts focused on voting rights as the most important symbol of citizenship, Native Americans living in the state struggled to secure property rights. At a meeting with the Massachusetts Joint Special Commission on Indian Affairs in February of 1869, the residents of Mashpee, Massachusetts — which was home to one of the largest Native American communities in the Commonwealth at that time — voted to decide both the issue of removing entailment of lands and the issue of citizenship. Of the 40 recorded votes on land entailment, the majority opposed removing entailment. However, these votes had little influence on the legislation.

Notably, on March 27, 2020, the Trump administration revoked the reservation status of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts. By taking their 321 acres of land out of federal trust, the tribe lost its ability to govern on its land.

Document B

An excerpt from the Joint Special Commission on Indian Affairs in Mashpee, Massachusetts and commentary sourced from “The Massachusetts Indian Enfranchisement Act: Ethnic Contest in Historical Context, 1849-1869” by Ann Marie Plane and Gregory Button. The testimony of several Native American men from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, including Nathan S. Pocknet, gives us a rare view of the justifications used by residents within this community for and against the Massachusetts Indian Enfranchisement and Allotment Act of 1869.

“…Nathan S. Pocknet reminding [sic] his listeners that… The Indians were entitled to special disposition over the land and community affairs because it ‘was granted to us, — a grant from King Charles, I believe, it was, in England, — set off for the Indians, and accordingly it has been in reserve to us for [sic] that time.’

“The enclave split, then, over two different views of community. One group, associated with individualists and ‘foreigners,' thought that the best opportunity for the Indian communities lay in seizing the chance to become self-sufficient individuals, freed from governmental restraints….On the other side was a group of more cautious or more traditionalist Indians, who may have represented the accepted status quo. These residents saw the Indians as a special group, set off by their historical rights. More cautious about change, this group refused to allow whites to shirk their legitimate contractual obligations to Indians. They believed the best course lay in preserving the customary practices of allowing entitled individuals to take up farmlands from the common holdings and caring for their own, including the poor, the elderly, or the ‘intemperate.’”