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.
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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 26 November 2024.]
