![]() ![]() Leaving the southeastern Connecticut home of maternal relatives to visit his father, who had resettled in Colrain, Apess became lost one night in a swamp. Eventually he worked his way southward, through Albany en route to Connecticut. After mustering out of his militia, he traveled and worked in southern Canada, socializing with several Native American families there. Although he was officially a drummer as well as being under the legal age for Army service, Apess saw action in a few battles. I was at times tormented with the thoughts of death, but God had mercy on me and spared my life." Apess' militia unit marched to Plattsburgh, New York, to prepare a siege of Montreal. Initially Apess opposed their blasphemies, as he said in his autobiography, A Son of the Forest, "in little time I became almost as bad as any of them, could drink rum, play cards, and act as wickedly as any. In the Army he was enlisted as a drummer. By the age of 16 he became addicted to drink. In early 1813, at age fifteen Apess finally ran away to New York City with another indentured youth and joined a militia. As a child he was taken to Methodist gatherings and became faithful to the religion. ![]() Furman, for a year until recovered from injuries sustained while living with his grandparents. The then five-year-old Apess was cared for by his neighbor, Mr. They were taken for their safety and indentured to European-American families. After continued abuse, a neighbor intervened with the town selectmen on behalf of the children. Then the family returned to its former home where, upon the parents' separation, young William lived with his maternal grandparents, who were abusive and suffered from alcoholism. ![]() Until the age of five, Apess lived with his family, including two brother and two sisters, near Colrain. Apess' parents went to Colrain from Colchester, Connecticut, one reason for this was to elude Candace Apes' slave master, who did not manumit her until 1805. Nineteenth-century records show that the spelling of the surname was "Apes" with one "s" until son William inexplicably added the letter for his later publications. William apess was born on the 31st of Janyary, 1798 in Colrain in northwestern Massachusetts to William and Candace Apess of the Pequot tribe. His mother, Candace, was a Pequot who may have had part African ancestry. His father, William, a half-blooded descendant of King Philip, was a shoemaker by trade. He internalized the values of the conquering Americans, but utilized a religious zeal to construct a renewed sense of Native American identity and selfhood. The name is probably a variation of Wapanacki, meaning “eastern people.” The Wampanoag have also been cal… Indian Education, Education, IndianĮDUCATION, INDIAN.William Apess was the first Native American to write and publish his own autobiography, A Son in the Forest (1829), and was the most prolific nineteenth century Indian writer in the English language. Metacom (1640-1676) was a Native American chief (sachem) whose tribe, the Wampanoags, waged the most devastating war against the Engish in ea… Wampanoag, Name White New Englanders who coveted farmland but needed help surviving in harsh conditions built uneasy partnerships with… Sachem Of The Wampanoags Philip, Metacom ![]() King Philips War, KING PHILIP'S WAR (1675–1676). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, a Pequot. He returned to New York in 1839, where he died of apoplexy on 10 April. Well-known throughout his career as a powerful orator, by the time Apess gave the eulogy he had lost the support of sympathetic whites as well as the Mashpee leadership. Apess's greatest achievement was his final work, Eulogy on King Philip (1836), in which he produces an alternative account of King Philip's War that defines both history and politics for native peoples in New England. Enlisted by Cape Cod's Mashpee Indians to aid in their petition for self-government, Apess recounts their partially successful struggle in his third book, Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts or, the Pretended Riot Explained (1835), which was well received by Boston's literary and political elite. His second book, Experiences of Five Christian Indians of the Pequot Tribe (1833), shows his exposure to both in its account of the absurdity of color as a signifier of racial inferiority. By 1832, Apess had relocated from New York to Boston, where he became associated with both the anti-removal and antislavery movements. This narrative of Apess's life and conversion to Methodism excoriates Christian hypocrisy toward, and misrepresentation of, native people, a pronounced theme in all his work. SON OF THE FOREST, A (1829 revised 1831) was the first of five books written by the Pequot preacher and orator William Apess. ![]()
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