William Apess's Indian Nullification: Narrating Mashpee Wampanoag Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century America and Beyond

Abstract:William Apess's Indian Nullification (1835) engages various forms of nullification, drawn from contemporary politics, secular history, and Judeo-Christian tradition, as part of a collective expression of sovereignty meant to gain ground (literally and figuratively) for the Mashpee Wampanoags. This essay argues that, for Apess, nullification emerges as a transformative practice that can be used in the absence of treaties to articulate the Mashpees' political and religious claims and leverage new political possibilities for them, in part through its invocation of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution. References to nullification also allow him to transform and elevate the Mashpees' situation from one of local concern to national and even eschatological importance. Nullification provides an avenue to respond to characterizations of Mashpees that circulated in the New England press in which their situation was used as an occasion, or even a vehicle, for working through issues of concern for many white Americans, such as miscegenation (to use a term common in the era) and growing sectional tensions. The essay concludes by briefly connecting Apess's arguments with the Mashpee Wampanoags' more recent efforts to gain federal recognition and assert their territorial claims.