Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

Narratives about captivity have often intrigued readers in Western culture. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano’s stories helped pave the way for stereotypes within both European and white culture; teaching Europeans to see Native Americans as cruel and allowing whites to see the evil in the American slave market. In both “A Narrative of the Captivity” and “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano share their individual stories of being kidnapped and enslaved. Though the two narrators share similarities in their personal accounts of being held captive, either individual’s reaction sheds light on the true purpose of both Rowlandson and Equiano’s writing.

In her writing titled “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, Mary lies out for the reader her experience of being held in captivity by Indians during the King Philip’s War. Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of this writing is the glimpse that the reader gets into Rowlandson’s faith and religion. Faith was a major aspect of life in the Colonial Period. It was of widespread belief that God was to be feared, and that he was the only way to redemption (Kizer). Mary Rowlandson was no different, but the extreme conditions of her captivity caused her faith to occasionally waiver. Most of the time throughout her journey in captivity, she depended on God, and the

In the story “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” written by Mary Rowlandson herself, we read that she is taken captive by a group of Indians. Rowlandson was torn away from husband, children, and town. Everything she had ever known was taken away from her in an instant and she was taken to unfamiliar territory with her youngest daughter in tow. If being took captive wasn’t

​Despite the cultural differences I learned a lot about Rowlandson and Franklin’s time. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was not an easy book to read. Benjamin Franklin was a remarkable man. He was a printer, author, politician and an inventor (PECO). Because of Franklins, this essay is being written about one of the men responsible for America’s success today. The captivity narratives of Rowlandson served to define goodness and women's proper devotion to their religion, and to give a religious message about the value of faith in times of harsh conditions. The belief of Rowlandson and Franklin in God did help to form our

As young children we are often misled to believe that the stories and movies we are exposed to are presumably based on factual history, but are in reality myths, keeping the truthful, important, and fair facts hidden. Amonute is an accurate example of learning the real events that occurred in a person’s life while the typical myth of Pocahontas saved an Englishmen from being killed by her father. In the beginning of the book we are briefly introduced to Pocahontas, the Powhatan people and the English colonists. As the book continues we follow Pocahontas when she is kidnapped, her married life, and her trip to London where she got sick because of foreign illnesses and died. Camilla Townsends “Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma” wants Pocahontas’ true story to unfold because she is worthy of respect for her bravery and sacrifice and because “everyone subverted her life to satisfy their own needs to believe that the Indians loved and admired them” (Townsend, pg. xi). I also believe that the author was trying to argue that even though the Englishmen believed that the Native Americans were uncivilized and lived like savages, that instead they were wise people.

The Unredeemed Captive affects our understandings of relationships between the colonists and the Native Americans by exploring the Native culture. After a raid by the French and Native Americans, seven-year-old Eunice was taken into captivity along with one hundred more people. Eunice’s father, who was also captured, eventually returned home and went on a mission to get back his family. He received every one of his children except for Eunice. She had adopted the culture and religion of the Natives and they refused to free her. This appalled the colonists and those back in Britain. They did not understand why Eunice would want to take on such a “savage” lifestyle.

In, A Severe and Proud Dame She Was, Mary Rowlandson recounts the treatment she received as prisoner of war from Natives in the Wampanoags and Nipmuck tribes written in her perspective. In 1675, Mary Rowlandson found herself and children held captive in the hands of Massachusetts Native Americans. Mary writes with a bias that seems to paint the Native Americans as a species different than her own, but her tone suggests she tried her best to understand their tribe. The purpose of this article appears to be written with the intent of persuading the masses on account of personal experience; that is the interaction among Natives and their customs to be seen in a light of hypocritical behavior. Through the lens of the captured author, she details the experience of her captivity with merciful gestures on the Native’s behalf, despite them keeping her for ransom. Rowlandson suggests traditional Native warfare surrounds a central recurring theme of manipulating mind-games; psychological warfare.

Rowlandson, Mary. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration.” Baym, Nina. Anthology of American Literature; Beginnings to 1820. 8th. A. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. 259-287.Print.

The passage also shows that God, according to the Puritans, is a very strict God. He does not tolerate evil acts, and requires that His followers obey His will, or they will be cut off from his presence and blessings. God is so intolerant of sin and evil, that Mary accepted that it was ok for God to take way her children and her lifestyle. On the other hand, God, according to the Puritans, is also merciful to His own people. At the end of the phrase, Mary stated that God showed mercy to her by helping her through her afflictions. Also, Mary again stated how merciful her God was in her following statement, “Now hath God fulfilled that precious Scripture which was such a comfort to me in my distressed condition” (Derounian 12-51). According to Mary, God is strict, demands righteousness among his followers, but is also merciful towards His own people. These different principles line up with the Puritan doctrine of the time as well.

The captivity narrative genre includes writings by or about people captured by an enemy, usually one who is considered by the hostage to be a foreign and uncivilized heathen, and was especially popular in America and England in the seventeenth through late nineteenth centuries. Documents from the time show that between 1675 and 1763, at least 1,641 New Englanders were held in captivity as hostages, though many believe that the numbers are drastically low because of poor record keeping (Vaughan, 53). Regardless of the exact number of hostages, the fact is that thousands of people were profoundly affected by being held captive by the Indians. Some of those people, including Mary Rowlandson,

Superficially, The History of Mary Prince documents slavery in the West Indies, adding richly to historical memory of the time period through its firsthand account. At the time of its publication, the genre of the slave narrative was just appearing. The History of Mary Prince, along with other formative texts, shape an important bank of evidence and allow current historians to remember and study slavery in the West Indies with a shred of credibility. Without these texts, the unimaginable pain endured by those brought into the Atlantic slave

This piece was written in medias res and reveals the escape of Hannah Dustan. “… and at the bottom of their canoe lay the still bleeding scalps of ten of the aborigines.” (Thoreau, p. 35) Thoreau referred to the Native Americans who captured Hannah Dustan as aborigines, which means an indigenous people. By doing this he perceives them as a people with their own culture and beliefs and not as savages who would be beneath Hannah Dustan but he considers them equals. This also humanizes the natives, which gives the reader feelings of sorrow for them where if he called them savages the reader would see them as inhumane and would not feel the same compassion. “ The birch striped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe, these are traces of man, -a fabulous wild man to us” (Thoreau, p. 36)

After Rowlandson's capture, she does not judge the actions of the Native Americans in the same way that someone who has not live among them, such as Mather. Rowlandson treats those in King Philip's tribe as equals to her; never talking down to them and not

“There one of them asked me why I wept; I could hardly tell what to say, yet I answered they would kill me. ‘No,’ said he, ‘none will hurt you.’ Then came one of them and gave me two spoonfuls of meal to comfort me, and another gave me half pint of peas which was more worth than many bushels at another time.”(71). The Natives showed her great affection with was not expected of them from her puritanical views. Although she knew no harm would come to her she expected to leave “them” as soon as possible.

February 10, 1675 was a sorrowful day for Mary Rowlandson’s hometown (Lancaster). Indians came and destroyed their town showing no remorse. Many were killed and wounded. Some were taken captive. Among those captive is a women named Mary Rowlandson. Throughout her captivity she kept a journal of all her removals and interactions she had with the Indians.