MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE REPEALS 1675 COLONIAL LAW ENTITLED “INDIANS PROHIBITED BEING IN BOSTON”

BOSTON – State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (D-Boston) and State Representative Byron Rushing (D-Boston) announced yesterday that the Massachusetts Legislature repealed a 1675 Colonial Law known as the “Indian Imprisonment Act of 1675”. The colonial law, which called for the arrest of Native Americans entering Boston, was a result of colonial involvement in a war with several Indian tribes during “King Philip’s War”. Though not presently enforced, the law continued to cause apprehension within the local Native American community.

“This law was an archaic vestige of a war between Europeans and indigenous peoples. Although it had never been specifically repealed, it is no doubt nullified by the Massachusetts Constitution. None the less, it is appropriate and important for the Legislature to repeal such acts when called to do so by the community and thus go on record condemning these archaic laws,” said Rushing. “We finally righted a 330 year wrong,” said Wilkerson, who sponsored the Act to repeal the archaic law.

Wilkerson said that this example should serve as a precedent for removing other colonial era laws which may symbolically affect contemporary Boston visitors and residents.Both Rushing and Wilkerson first learned of the home-rule petition while working to bring to Boston the Unity: Journalists of Color Inc., the nation’s largest gathering of journalists of color.

While Boston is a finalist for the 2008 conference, conveners said that without removing the ordinance, the conference would defer to either Chicago or Washington, D.C. The home rule petition to repeal the Act was created through the efforts of various Native American groups along with City Councillor At-Large Felix Arroyo and Mayor Thomas Menino in November of last year.

The legislation went through the Committee chaired by Wilkerson and on the floor of the House and Senate in one week and is expected to be signed by the governor today. “We hope that the governor will resolve this issue as expeditiously as we did,” said Wilkerson.