Recognized for his pioneering status as a Native American public figure, William Apes was an astute recorder of a life in between. An indentured servant, soldier, minister, and activist, Apes lived an uncommonly rich life for someone who died at just 41 years of age. Apes was evidently born "in the woods" in Massachusetts, his father "a half-breed who joined the natives and married a descendant of King Philip". A Son of the Forest (1829) is an autobiography by William Apes. The 1914 Hubbard Sale said, "The author was an Indian Preacher of the Pequod Tribe, who espoused the cause of the Indians." His leadership of the tribe ended the crudest forms of exploitation by the Massachusetts government and predatory whites. "If all the statements of the author, who claims to be a lineal descendant of the tribe, which suffered such murderous slaughter at the hands of Captains Church and Underhill, are true, there is a long score of wrongs to be settled with the State of Massachusetts." Field 43. The Experience of William Apes, A Native of the Forest. Only in 1840 were they able to finally banish him from their lands and from their cherished Meetinghouse.Item #48832 APES, William. This paper explores the several resourceful and non-violent methods through which the Wampanoag sought to remove the defiant clergyman. Therefore, on top of trying to navigate the intricacies of autonomous governance, the first six years of the District of Mashpee’s existence were also marked by repeated attempts on a variety of fronts to get rid of the minister. Yet, as abundant as their complaints against the missionary Phineas Fish had been, the Massachusetts Legislature failed to address the issue in drafting its bill. The Wampanoag’s grievances had been not only political and economic, but also religious. Within the context of Jacksonian America and of the general devastation of indigenous societies at the time, this was a significant, if minor victory. Following a short and largely non-violent "revolt," and following negotiations held mostly through public discourse, the State of Massachusetts granted Mashpee a certain amount of political autonomy in 1834. Led by William Apess, a Methodist preacher of mixed Pequot origins, the Wampanoag of Mashpee, on Cape Cod, rebelled against their encroaching neighbours, their indifferent state-appointed overseers, and their indolent Harvard-appointed missionary in 1833. The book evokes en passant the discrimination he had to face within the White community and within the Church because of his deemed inferior background. how Apess s self-expression always was entangled in a kind of treacherous double bind, for it made of him a child of the woods or son of the forest despite the fact that he was raised mostly in white households, engendering a double consciousness unique to many Northeastern Natives (p. His autobiography describes the writer’s suffering inside his native society and his escape from that situation thanks to the intervention of “white” people. He does not only write about himself, but about the experiences and accomplishments of all the Native American people. In his autobiography, William Apess tells his life story as an ‘Indian’ raised by White Christian people. To start with, I will give a brief inroduction about both Oral and written Native American literature, then I will proceed to define the typical characteristics of Native American Autobiography. It is among the first autobiographies by a. After becoming ordained as a Methodist minister in 1829, he published his autobiography the same year. To pave the way to that, I will give an overview of the author’s life, because knowing about his life journey can help us understand better his work. William Apess (1798-1839) (also William Apes before 1837), was an ordained Methodist minister, writer, and activist of mixed-race descent, who was a political and religious leader in Massachusetts. I intend to highlight the different relationships that the writer presented in his book to show their importance for him as someone who is situated between the American Indian and the White societies. In this paper, I intend to deal with William Apess’s autobiography, A Son of the Forest.
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