Born on 31 January 1798 in Colrain, Massachusetts, he was the first child of William and Candace Apes. (Apess seemed to favor spelling his last name with a double
s, although he used "Apes" at times as well; there is no definitive spelling of the name.) Apess's father was half-white and joined the Pequot tribe; Apess claimed his mother was a full-blooded Pequot, although one critic has speculated that she may have been African American. When Apess's parents separated in 1801, Apess went to live with his maternal grandparents in Colchester, Connecticut. After a beating from his drunken grandmother that left one of his arms broken in three places, the young boy was bound out to a Mr. and Mrs. Furman, and he was later indentured to two other masters; Apess in fact spent more of his formative years in white households than in Indian ones. Amid the many dislocations of his childhood, Apess received only a slight education, attending school during the winter term from the ages of six to twelve.
A Son of the Forest amply reflects Apess's experiences of living between cultures and attempting to judge and mediate them. In part, the autobiography traces Apess's search for an elusive home, a search resolved, if at all, only through his eventual, life-defining conversion to Methodism.
This is a free page. This page contains 194 words. This
biography contains 3,102 words (approx. 10 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our William Apess Access Pass.
