July 2, 2024: Models of Critical Patriotism: “Eulogy on King Philip”

[For my Patriots’Day series this year, I highlighted examples of mythic patriotism fromacross American history. So I thought for my July 4th series I wouldAmericanStudy examples of the other, directly opposed category at the heart of OfThee I Sing: critical patriotism. Leading up to a weekend post on the stateof critical patriotism in 2024!]

On onespeech that offers two complementary models of critical patriotism.

Many ofthe ways I’d make the case for WilliamApess as an exemplary American critical patriot were summed up in this post. I don’tthink it’s the slightest bit hyperbolic to describe Apess as the 19thcentury’s Martin Luther King Jr.—a fiery preacher of supreme oratorical andrhetorical talents who dedicated his life to pursuing civil and human rightsfor his people and for all his fellow citizens of the world, one whose life wastragically cut short but who achieved a great deal in that time and has left alasting legacy down into our own. If Apess’ era had had the technology torecord and broadcast his speeches, or even to publish his writings in moremass-market ways, I have no doubt that we’d listen to and read his voice andwords alongside those of King (and yesterday’s subject Frederick Douglass) andour other most potent orators. Andhowever and wherever we encounter them, we consistently find in Apess’ worksmodels of bitingly critical yet still patriotic visions of our shared Americansociety, community, identity, and history.

In thatprior post I focused on Apess’ 1833 essay/sermon “AnIndian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man,” but I would argue that his criticalpatriotism is best illustrated by his January1836 speech “Eulogy on King Philip.” Delivered at Boston’s Odeon lecture and concerthall, which had opened the year before and would go on to hostspeeches and readings by such luminaries as William Ellery Channing, RalphWaldo Emerson, and Edgar Allan Poe, Apess’ stunning speech uses his own lifestory and mixed-race heritage (as scholar Patricia Bizzell traces at length inthis excellent piece) to argue for his alternative vision ofAmerican history, community, and identity. While much of the speech is asrighteously angry about both past injustices and present oppressions as was“Looking-Glass,” the final lines, addressed overtly to his (likely entirelynon-native) audience, reflect the optimistic core of Apess’ criticalpatriotism: “You and I have to rejoice that we have not to answer for ourfathers’ crimes; neither shall we do right to charge them one to another. Wecan only regret it, and flee from it; and from henceforth, let peace andrighteousness be written upon our hearts and hands forever, is the wish of apoor Indian.”

WhileApess thus ranges across a number of topics and themes in the course of hisspeech, its central focus is indeed KingPhilip (Metacomet), the 17th century Wampanoag chiefand distant ancestor of Apess’ mother who was and remains best known inAmerican collective memory for the 1670swar that came to bear his name. Yet from the start of his speech,Apess presents a stunning shift in those narratives, arguing that this supposedenemy of the English should be collectively remembered instead as arevolutionary hero: “so will every patriot, especially in this enlightened age,respect the rude yet all accomplished son of the forest, that died a martyr tohis cause, though unsuccessful, yet as glorious as the American Revolution.”Arguing for that vision of Philip, in the same 1830sBoston that was cementing its collective narratives of theFounding Fathers and the American Revolution, was as bold a rhetorical move asDouglass’ July 4th speech. Yet if we can see the MassachusettsPuritans and the Wampanoags as two founding American cultures (as I’ve arguedmultiple times in this space and elsewhere), there’sno reason why we can’t see Philip as a revolutionary, critical patriot, onewhose tragic end shouldn’t overshadow his worktoward a collective American community.

Nextcritical patriot tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other examples or forms of patriotism you’d highlight?