Biography
As William Apess tells it in his autobiography, A Son
of the Forest (1829), his grandfather was a white man
who married the granddaughter of King Philip, or Metacom,
the loser of the 1678 "King Philip's War." As a small boy,
Apess was abused by his alcoholic grandparents and then
sold as an indentured laborer. The boy's master allowed
him to attend school and introduced him to Christianity,
the most important influence in Apess's life. As an adult,
he became a preacher, and in 1833 he moved to Mashpee,
the last Indian town in Massachusetts, to preach. Apess
saw Christianity and racial prejudice as completely incompatible,
and this became one of the central themes of his writings
and sermons. In his famous Eulogy on King Philip,
delivered in 1836 in Boston, he insisted that Indians wanted
only what the descendants of the Pilgrims wanted: justice
and Christian fellowship.
Explorations
From the historical and literary record, we have only a
glimpse of Apess, and he seems a tragic figure, expressing
a deep sense of betrayal by the culture whose faith and social
practices he was essentially coerced to accept as a boy. An
Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man (1833) is an
epilogue to a book about the experiences of several Native
American children growing up in an increasingly white world
-- and this essay can also be read as an epilogue, or epitaph,
to Apess's own life. 1. Apess has a powerful sense of irony. Select passages
in which he uses this rhetorical strategy, and compare
these moments to passages in Edwards's Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God.
2. A central theme of An Indian's Looking-Glass for
the White Man is the inherent incompatibility of
race prejudice with the tenets of the Christian faith.
How does Apess first express that discontinuity? How
does he develop it, rather than merely belabor it, over
the course of this essay?
Other sites to consult:
Cultural
Readings: Colonization and Print in the Americas.
An exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania
Library. Explains the history of Apess's A Son
of the Forest and includes links to materials
on native cultures and their printed literature.
Apess
bibliography and study questions. From PAL:
Perspectives in American Literature site maintained
by Paul P. Reuben (California State University, Stanislaus).
Native
American Authors Project: William Apess.
A brief biography of Apess and selected bibliography
of his works.
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