SOURCE: "'A Mark for Them All to … Hiss At': The Formation of Methodist and Pequot Identity in the Conversion Narrative of William Apess," in Early American Literature, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1996, pp. 25-44.

In this essay, Haynes examines concepts of identity in Apess's autobiography and Christian conversion narrative, A Son of the Forest.

Despite the fact that his literary output was among the most prolific of any Native American in the early nineteenth century and that he led the only successful Indian revolt in New England prior to 1850, the writings of William Apess, a Pequot Indian, have received relatively little critical attention. One possible reason for the paucity of Apess scholarship may be his pervasive and unabashed use of Protestant rhetoric. Notes Arnold Krupat, one of the few critics to assess his work, "the voice of Protestant rhetoric that sounds everywhere in Apes's text seems to mirror very closely a...