William Apess

Gordon Sayre (University of Oregon)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Robert Clark (The Literary Encyclopedia), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

Born 31 Jan 1798
Died 10 Apr 1839
Activity 1818-1839

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Autobiographer
Biographer
Political writer
Preacher
Reformer
Religious writer
Revolutionary, Activist

Other

Soldier

Resources

A Pequot Indian, Methodist minister, and activist for Native American tribal sovereignty, William Apess lived a remarkable life, one that demonstrates the persistence of American Indian culture in nineteenth-century New England, a culture made up largely of working-class mixed-bloods on the margins of the Anglo-American establishment. Apess published five books bewteen 1829 and 1836, but this work was largely forgotten until the 1980s, when scholarship on nineteenth-century American Literature began to devote substantial attention to the writings of ethnic minorities. The publication of On Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, A Pequot, edited by Barry O'Connell (Amherst, Mass., 1992), made his writings available again, and critical interest has mushroomed since then.

Apess was born in Colrain, Massachusetts, Jan. 31, 1798. His father, also William, was a mestizo, or mixed-blood Pequot who had...

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1642 words

Citation: Sayre, Gordon. "William Apess". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=127, accessed 09 June 2026.]