The ordained Mashpee Wampanoag Indian minister was a pastor with substantial credentials, a reputation for great sermons and a propensity to fiddle. In 1834 Amos joined William Apes, a Pequot minister and led an insurrection against Whites coming to Mashpee and taking the plentiful and valuable wood. The State of Massachusetts called the peaceful removal of wood from the carts a "riot". The Mashpee began the first phase of true self governance thanks to Amos. The relationship with outsiders would never be quite right, but the intelligent and wise Amos initiated the tradition of questioning the insensitivity of those who were unfamiliar with the ways of the People of the First Light.