William Apess's ordination as a minister in the Protestant Methodist Church preceded by only a few months the publication of his A Son of the Forest (1829), the first published autobiography -- and one of the earliest books of any genre wholly written -- by a Native American. In 1831 he was appointed a missionary to his people, the Pequots, and eventually settled with the Mashpees (the name was spelled Marshpee in the early nineteenth century), the inhabitants of the last remaining Indian town in Massachusetts. He quickly became a leader in their struggle to govern their town free of white guardians and to appoint a minister of their own choosing for the local church. The Mashpee Revolt broke out in 1833, and Apess's name became briefly known throughout the United States: he was, in effect, the leader of one of the first Indian rights movements. In large part because of Apess's brilliance as a polemicist and a tactician, the Mashpees achieved most of their demands by 1834.
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