[In honor of Patriots’ Day,
and inspired by my book-in-progress for the American Ways
series on the history of American patriotisms, a series on that topic and brief
examples of critical patriotism from across American history. Leading up to a
special post on that next book project of mine!]
On one speech
that offers two complementary models of critical patriotism.
Many of the ways
I’d make the case for William
Apess as an exemplary American critical patriot were summed up in this
post. I don’t think it’s the slightest bit hyperbolic to describe Apess as
the 19th century’s Martin Luther King Jr.—a fiery preacher of supreme
oratorical and rhetorical talents who dedicated his life to pursuing civil and
human rights for his people and for all his fellow citizens of the world, one
whose life was tragically cut short but who achieved a great deal in that time
and has left a lasting legacy down into our own. If Apess’ era had had the
technology to record and broadcast his speeches, or even to publish his
writings in more mass-market ways, I have no doubt that we’d listen to and read
his voice and words alongside those of King (and yesterday’s subject Frederick
Douglass) and our other most potent
orators. And however and wherever we encounter them, we consistently find
in Apess’ works models of bitingly critical yet still patriotic visions of our
shared American society, community, identity, and history.
In that prior
post I focused on Apess’ 1833 essay/sermon “An
Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man,” but I would argue that his
critical patriotism is best illustrated by his January 1836
speech “Eulogy on King Philip.” Delivered at Boston’s Odeon lecture and
concert hall, which had opened the year before and would go on to host
speeches and readings by such luminaries as William Ellery Channing, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, and Edgar Allan Poe, Apess’ stunning speech uses his own life
story and mixed-race heritage (as scholar Patricia Bizzell traces at
length in this excellent piece) to argue for his alternative vision of
American history, community, and identity. While much of the speech is as
righteously angry about both past injustices and present oppressions as was
“Looking-Glass,” the final lines, addressed overtly to his (likely entirely
non-native) audience, reflect the optimistic core of Apess’ critical
patriotism: “You and I have to rejoice that we have not to answer for our
fathers’ crimes; neither shall we do right to charge them one to another. We
can only regret it, and flee from it; and from henceforth, let peace and
righteousness be written upon our hearts and hands forever, is the wish of a
poor Indian.”
While Apess thus
ranges across a number of topics and themes in the course of his speech, its
central focus is indeed King
Philip (Metacomet), the 17th century Wampanoag chief and distant
ancestor of Apess’ mother who was and remains best known in American collective
memory for the
1670s war that came to bear his name. Yet from the start of his speech,
Apess presents a stunning shift in those narratives, arguing that this supposed
enemy of the English should be collectively remembered instead as a
revolutionary hero: “so will every patriot, especially in this enlightened age,
respect the rude yet all accomplished son of the forest, that died a martyr to
his cause, though unsuccessful, yet as glorious as the American Revolution.” Arguing
for that vision of Philip, in the same 1830s
Boston that was cementing its collective narratives of the Founding Fathers
and the American Revolution, was as bold a rhetorical move as Douglass’ July 4th
speech. Yet if we can see the Massachusetts Puritans and the Wampanoags as two
founding American cultures (as I’ve argued
multiple times in this space and elsewhere),
there’s no reason why we can’t see Philip as a revolutionary, critical patriot,
one whose tragic end shouldn’t overshadow his work
toward a collective American community.
Next critical
patriot tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other examples or forms of patriotism you’d highlight?
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