Sunday, October 10, 2010
Occom and Apess
After reading both pieces from each man, I found few similarities. Both Apess and Occom speak in a very formal english style that most have come from their advanced studies, but their tones are very different. Apess is speaking in a tone filled with anger and an attitude condemning the white man, while Occom speaks with sympathy and pity for the "poor Indians" who were all ignorant in a white man's education. I'm not exactly sure how to compare these two men and their ideologies, except that they were similarly educated, but used their educations for totally different purposes. Apess is trying to express the equality of all men and saying that no race is superior, but Occom feels pity for his ignorant "brothers of the flesh", who seem to be inferior to him because he has a white man's education and a job in the white man's world. I feel that these two indian men are grew up similarly, but ended up using their knowledge and beliefs differently.
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Good observations -- they do seem to have quite different attitudes. Occom does seem almost cold in his analysis, while Apess seems to have taken his displeasure to another level. We do know that Apess became a major leader in the fight for the rights of the Indians. He was half white and so may have been able to move through the white man's world without much problem. Occom was used by Wheelock to raise funds for an Indian school; Wheelock then took the money and founded what became Dartmouth college -- a school for white New Englanders. Keep up the good work.
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