is fully aware that he cannot even touch this matter without exposing
himself to certain calumny. This has been his portion whenever he has
attempted to plead the cause of his ignorant and ever-oppressed red
brethren. Nevertheless, he will endeavour to speak independently, as
if all men were his friends, and ready to greet him with thundering
applause; and he would do so if their voices were to pronounce on him
a sentence of everlasting disgrace. He writes not in the expectation
of gathering wealth, or augmenting the number of his friends. But
he has not the least doubt that all men who have regard to truth
and integrity, will do justice to the uprightness of his intentions.
(Heaven be praised! there are some such men in the world.) He is
equally sure that the evidence contained in this little work will be
satisfactory, as to all the points he wishes to establish, to all who
are open to conviction.

It is true that the author of this book is a member of the Marshpee
Tribe, not by birth, but by adoption. How he has become one of that
unfortunate people, and why he concerns himself about their affairs,
will now be explained to the satisfaction of the reader. He wishes
to say in the first place, that the causes of the prevalent prejudice
against his race have been his study from his childhood upwards. That
their colour should be a reason to treat one portion of the human race
with insult and abuse has always seemed to him strange; believing
that God has given to all men an equal right to possess and occupy the
earth, and to enjoy the fruits thereof, without any such distinction.
He has seen the beasts of the field drive each other out of their
pastures, because they had the power to do so; and he knew that the
white man had that power over the Indian which knowledge and superior
strength give; but it has also occurred to him that Indians are men,
not brutes, as the treatment they usually receive would lead us to