ny term or terms of years to
be void, unless license was obtained for such lease from
the County Court of Sessions. _Provided_, nevertheless, that
nothing in this act shall be held or deemed in any wise to
hinder, defeat or make void any bargain, sale or lease of
land, made by an Indian to another Indian or Indians.

1718. This is the first act which took from the Indians
their civil capacity to make contracts. It says, "whereas,
notwithstanding the care taken and provided (by the former
act,) a great wrong and injury happens to said Indians,
natives of this country, by reason of their being drawn in by
small gifts, or small debts, when they are in drink, and out
of capacity to trade, to sign unreasonable bills or bonds for
debts which are soon sued, and great charge brought upon them,
when they have no way to pay the same, but by servitude";
therefore no contract whatever shall be recovered against any
Indian native, unless entered into before two Justices of the
Peace in the County, both to be present when the contract is
executed by the Indian.

The act of 1725, recognizes the rights of Indians to employ persons
to build houses on _their own lands_. Their own lands then were the
commons, including the parsonage.

In 1763, Marshpee was incorporated as a District, including the land
now called the parsonage. "_Be it enacted_, &c. that all the lands
_belonging_ to the Indians and mulattos in Mashpee be erected into a
district, by the name of Mashpee." The Proprietors are empowered to
meet "IN THE PUBLIC MEETING HOUSE," [the one now claimed by Mr. Fish,]
to elect a Moderator, five Overseers, two to be Englishmen, a town
Clerk and Treasurer, being Englishmen, two Wardens, and one or more
Constables. The majority of the Overseers had the sole power to
regulate the fishery, to lease such lands and fisheries as are held in
common, not exceeding for two years, and to allot to the Indians their
upland and meadows. This act was to continue for three years and
no longer. It does not appear ever to have been revived. The
revolutionary war intervened, and there is no act after 1766, until
the act of 1788, after the revolutionary war, which last act put the
Indians and their lands under strict guardianship.

In this interval between 1766 and 1788, the only transaction on which
Mr. Fish can found any claim to the parsonage look place. There
was then either