Publisher's Synopsis
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. After becoming ordained as a Methodist minister in 1829, he published his autobiography the same year. It is among the first autobiographies by a Native American writer. Apess was part Pequot Indian. An itinerant preacher in New England, Apess visited the Mashpee on Cape Cod in 1833. Hearing their grievances against white overseers and settlers who stole their wood, he helped organize what was called the Mashpee Revolt of 1833-34. Their attempt to regain civil rights was covered sympathetically by the Boston Advocate, while criticized by local journals in Cape Cod. Apess published a book about the experience in 1835, which he summarized as "Indian Nullification." Apess alienated many of his supporters before dying in New York City, New York at age 41, although he has been described as "perhaps the most successful activist on behalf of Native American rights in the antebellum United States William Apess was born in 1798 in Colrain in northwestern Massachusetts to William and Candace Apess of the Pequot tribe. According to his autobiography, Apess' paternal grandfather was white and married a Pequot woman. He claimed descent from King Philip through his mother, who also had European-American and African ancestry. Until the age of five, Apess lived with his family, including two brothers and two sisters, near Colrain. After his parents separated, the children were cared for by their maternal grandparents, who were abusive and suffered from alcoholism. After continued abuse, a neighbor intervened with the town selectmen on behalf of the children. They were taken away for their own safety and indentured to European-American families. The then five-year-old Apess was cared for by his neighbor, Mr. Furman, for a year until he had recovered from injuries sustained while living with his grandparents. His autobiography does not mention any contact with his Pequot relatives for the rest of his childhood. He remarks that he did not see his mother for twenty years after the beating. In contrast, he grew to love his adopted family dearly, despite his status as an indentured servant. When Mrs. Furman's mother died, he writes that "She had always been so kind to me that I missed her quite as much as her children, and I had been allowed to call her mother."[6] Apess was sent to school during the winter for six years to gain an education, while also assisting Furman at work. Mrs. Furman, a Baptist, gave William his first memorable experience with Christianity when he was six, and she discussed with him the importance of going to heaven or hell. Even as a young child, his devotion was ardent. He describes the joy he gained from sermons, and the deep depression he suffered when Mr. Furman eventually forbade him from attending. William was brutally shocked out of this happy period of his life at age eleven, when Mr. Furman discovered his plans to run away. He never really wanted to leave, but, despite his reassurances, the family he had come to regard as his own sold him to Judge James Hillhouse, a member of the Connecticut elite. The elderly judge, being much too old to discipline an unruly and rejected child, quickly sold his indenture to Gen. William Williams, under whom Apess spent four years. It was during these four years that Apess grew increasingly close to the "noisy Methodists," a community composed mostly of mixed-race, black, or poor people considered outcasts
