author
William Apess
1798–1839
A Pequot writer, Methodist minister, and activist, he used sermons, autobiography, and political writing to challenge racism in early 19th-century America. His voice is direct, forceful, and still strikingly modern.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Massachusetts in 1798, William Apess was of Pequot and mixed ancestry and became one of the earliest Native American authors to publish an autobiography. His 1829 book A Son of the Forest stands out as a powerful account of hardship, faith, and self-education, and it helped establish him as an important literary voice in New England.
Apess was also an ordained Methodist minister whose writing joined religious conviction with sharp social criticism. In works including An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man and his writings on the Mashpee community’s struggle for self-determination, he argued against prejudice and pushed readers to confront the injustice faced by Native people.
He died in 1839, but his legacy has only grown. Today he is remembered not just as a pioneering Indigenous autobiographer, but as a public thinker and speaker who used language with unusual clarity and courage.