A Son of the Forest

The 1829 memoir A Son of the Forest, by Pequot author, activist, and Methodist minister William Apess, was the first published book-length memoir written by a Native American. The text offers a firsthand account of the intrinsic moral worth and adaptability of Indigenous peoples, penned by a dynamic Native figure, a preacher and an intellectual, who was not reluctant to highlight the political and economic disparities maintained between settler and Indigenous cultures or bring attention to ongoing settler-colonial injustices. This new edition includes a rich selection of appendices, including Apess’s other writings, works relating to the Pequot War, and other literature by Native and African American writers of the period. The edition situates Apess among the greatest writers of his day—a voice as important for our own times as it was for nineteenth-century audiences.