The Life of William Apess, Pequot (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series) - Hardcover

Gura, Philip F.

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9781469619989: The Life of William Apess, Pequot (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1469619989 ISBN 13: 9781469619989

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015

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The Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess (1798–1839) was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess's fascinating and consequential life. After an impoverished childhood marked by abuse, Apess soldiered with American troops during the War of 1812, converted to Methodism, and rose to fame as a lecturer who lifted a powerful voice of protest against the plight of Native Americans in New England and beyond. His 1829 autobiography, A Son of the Forest, stands as the first published by a Native American writer. Placing Apess's activism on behalf of Native American people in the context of the era's rising tide of abolitionism, Gura argues that this founding figure of Native intellectual history deserves greater recognition in the pantheon of antebellum reformers. Following Apess from his early life through the development of his political radicalism to his tragic early death and enduring legacy, this much-needed biography showcases the accomplishments of an extraordinary Native American.

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About the Author:

Philip F. Gura is William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His many books include Truth's Ragged Edge: The Early American Novel and American Transcendentalism: A History, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Review:

Finally, we have an extensive biography of the Native American writer and polemicist, William Apess, one of Native America's most significant early intellectuals. But The Life of William Apess, Pequot is more than just a biography; it is an investigation into how the underrepresented intellectual communities of early American people of color constructed and presented ideas of themselves, looking at the development of American political and legal institutions as they grappled with race, freedom, and land tenure. This is a book of exemplary detail, a much-needed contribution to our understanding of early America and its Native societies.--Phillip Round, author of Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663–1880
Extensively researched and absorbingly written, The Life of William Apess, Pequot delivers by far the most thorough cultural-historical reconstruction to date of the life, career, and significance of antebellum New England's most important Native American writer-activist.--Lawrence Buell, Powell M. Cabot Research Professor of American Literature, Harvard University, author of New England Literary Culture and Emerson
Through painstaking research, Philip Gura's remarkable book brings to life a legendary figure in American letters. He does it by portraying William Apess as a player in the dynamic history of Indigenous New England and the nation as a whole. I love this work and I recommend it highly, not only as literary knowledge but also as cultural, social, and historical knowledge.--Simon J. Ortiz, Arizona State University, author of From Sand Creek, Out There Somewhere, and Beyond the Reach of Time and Change

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