William Apess Notes

A Son of the Forest http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=23008220

Apess, William. On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, a Pequot. Barry O'Connell, ed. Amherst: UMA, 1992.

Apess published what's likely the first Native American autobiography, A Son of the Forest,

His Pequot grandparents and later, an uncle, raised him as an Indian under white dominion. His alcoholic grandparents beat him regularly until he was taken away by an uncle (4-5). The grandparents' abuse may in part have derived from their difficulties under white dominion. Speaking of the Pequot tribe and of native Americans in general, Apess writes:

"But the violation of their inherent rights, by those to whom they had extended the hand of friendship, was not the only act of injustice which this oppressed and afflicted nation was called to suffer at the hands of their white neighbors -- alas! They were subject to a more intense and heart-corroding affliction, that of having their daughters claimed by the conquerors, and however much subsequent efforts were made to soothe their sorrows, in this particular, they considered the glory of their nation as having departed" (4).

Apess almost casually mentions being "bound out" -- that is, his family sold him into indentured slavery; per the footnote, this was a common fate for unwanted children. He converted to Methodism in 1813 although his owner resisted his preaching.

Apess re-assessed Scripture to justify universal and equal humanity for all humans. Apess throughout manages to remain dispassionate about his own substantial sufferings and generous with his tormentors to the extent allowed by truthfulness. However, some of his arguments seem obscure. Several supporting points seem generated by speculations attempting to unite the abrahamic tribal histories of the Old Testament with the distribution of mankind as it was known to New England at the time.

". . . we are the only people [in the Americas, perhaps] who retain the original complexion of our father Adam" (10).

While I find such statements a bit mysterious, they do seem consistent with ideas around the worship of la Virgin de Guadalupe throughout Latin America, and make a study of how conquered peoples integrate and adopt the ideology of their conquerers en defensa propia.