Letter to the Eastern Indians

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In Provincial Congress, Watertown, May 15, 1775.

FRIENDS AND GOOD BROTHERS: We, the Delegates of the Colony of the Massachusetts-Bay, being come together in Congress to consider what may be best for you and ourselves to do to get rid of the slavery designed to be brought

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Brothers, the great wickedness of such as should be our friends, but are our enemies, (we mean the Ministry of Great Britain,) have laid deep plots to take away our liberty and your liberty. They want to get all our money; make us pay it to them when they never earned it; to make you and us their servants, and let us have nothing to eat, drink, or wear, but what they say we shall, and prevent us from having guns and powder to use and kill our deer and wolves, and other game, or to send to you for you to kill your game with, and to get skins and furs to trade with us for what you want. But we hope soon to be able to supply you with both guns and powder of our own making.

We nave petitioned to England for you and us, and told them plainly we want nothing but our own, and don' t want to hurt them; but they won' t hear us, and have great ships and their men with guns to make us give up, and kill us, and have killed some of our men; but we have drove them back and beat then, and killed a great many of their men. The Englishmen of all the Colonies, from Nova-Scotia to Georgia, have firmly resolved to stand together and oppose them. Our liberty and your liberty is the same. We are brothers, and what is for our good is for your good; and we, by standing together, shall make those wicked men afraid, and overcome them, and all be freemen. Captain Goldthwait has given up Fort Pownall to our enemies. We are angry at it, and we hear you are angry with him, and we don' t wonder at it. We want to know what you, our good brothers, want from us of clothing or warlike stores, and we will supply you as fast as we can. We will do all for you we can, and fight to save you any time, and hope none of your men, or the Indians in Canada, will join with our enemies. You may have a great deal of good influence on them. Our good brothers, the Indians at Stockbridge, all join with us, and some of their men have enlisted as soldiers, and we have given them that enlisted each one a blanket and a ribbon, and they will be paid when they are from home in the service, and if any of you are willing to enlist we will do the same for you. We have sent Captain John Lane to you for that purpose, and he will show you his orders for raising one Company of your men to join with us in the war with your and our enemies.

Brothers, we humbly beseech that God, who lives above, and who does what is right here below, to be your friend, and bless you, and to prevent the designs of those wicked men from hurting you or us.

Brothers, if you let Mr˙ John Preble know what things you want, he will take care to inform us, and we will do the best for you that we can.