The Methodist Movement In Apess's A Son Of The Forest

Methodist took America’s tired, poor and huddled masses long before the Statue of Liberty could do this. During America’s Great Awakening beginning in the 1730’s, Methodist became the religious group to tolerate all. In A Son of the Forest, Apess makes this point evident when he writes, “I felt convinced that Christ died for all mankind--that age, sect, colour, country, or situation, made no difference. I felt an assurance that I was included in the plan of redemption with all my brethren.”. Although indigenous, enslaved and indentured men and women were allowed to participate in the Methodist movement, this by no means meant that it was a movement for them. Members of the Great Awakening supported the participation of these oppressed groups,
He was even able to become a methodist preacher around the time that he wrote this book. His new holy status does mean that he was supported. In fact, he admitted that he was afraid to say he wanted to preach to other methodist when the wrote, “Now I did not acquaint my brethren with my feelings or exercises [about preaching], for the devil tempted me to believe that they would take no notice of it.” Apess feared that the white Methodists would have no interest in hearing him preach. Of course this feeling arises from the treatment he was already receiving from the methodist. This was proven in the text when his nightmare turned into a reality. After his second time preaching at the school-house Apess wrote, “I found a great concourse of people who had come out to hear the Indian preach, and as soon as I had commenced, the sons of the devil began to show their front-- and I was treated not with the greatest loving kindness, as one of them threw an old hat in my face, and this example was followed by others, who threw sticks at me”. Here, Apess realized that the Methodist saw him as exactly what he expected them to see him as, “A poor ignorant Indian [who] the people would not hear”. Methodist were happy to have Apess as a meeting attender because they needed more supporters but they had no desire in him ever becoming a preacher because the word
For a while Apess fell off track as a methodist preacher because he was hurt after the horrific preaching episode. But eventually, he did what the white methodist feared, he began to preach and used it to condemn the treatment of indigenous people. One of the last things, Apess wrote in A Son of the Forest was, “Look brethren, at the natives of the forest - they come notwithstanding you call them “savage”, from the “east and from the west, the north and the south” and will occupy seats in the kingdom of heaven before you” . This quote shows that Apess was trying to promote equality by explaining to the white methodists that their cold hearts would not make it to heaven. Although this is the only quote where Apess shares with us how he would preach to Methodists about acceptance, there are quotations throughout his book that show how he used his position as a preacher to uplift the colony’s indigenous population. For example, he wrote, “There are many others who are willing to roll in their coaches upon the tears and blood of the poor and unoffending natives -- those who are ready at all times to speculate on the Indians, and defraud them out of their rightful possessions”. Here, Apess is talking about the colonist, not only are many cruel, and biased toward the natives, but all of them are encroaching upon the natives land and societies. Apess is a prime example of what