Hung for Robbery - Joseph Peese, Jr., of Yarmouth and Barnstable, and other instances of Pees/Pease/Peese found in records: Episode 3 of Yarmouth Indigenous Project
. A footnote in The History of Cape Cod * discusses the authors’ belief that the sole instance of an indigenous person born on Cape Cod being executed was that of Moses Paul in 1772. Paul was executed in New Haven, Connecticut, on September 2, 1772, for the murder of Moses Cook, a white man, during a tavern fight. While the facts of the event were disputed, Moses did admit to the incident, claiming self-defense. Paul suggested that the entire altercation would never have occurred if not for the abuse of alcohol. At Moses Paul’s request, Reverend Samson Occum, a well-educated Native American minister, delivered the sermon at the execution. This sermon, primarily focused on the evils of alcohol, was Occum’s first published work. The event holds importance and I will discuss the Paul family in a future blog. I bring this incident to the fore to refute the notion presented in the History of Cape Cod that, apart from Moses Paul, there were no other instances of indigenous indiv...
