The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives

In 1675, New England sees war breakout between Native American and English forces. Over one half of New England’s towns and settlements are rampaged by Indians, and both sides suffer thousands of casualties. However, through the bloodshed and wreckage, one woman lives to tell the story of her capture by Native Americans. Mary Rowlandson, the lucky survivor, spends eleven weeks in brutal captivity, after being seriously wounded and seeing her own child die in her arms. How she survives her experience is nearly impossible to pinpoint directly, but her devotion to her religion can be tied to her method of survival. Rowlandson’s commitment to her religion equips her with a coping mechanism and keeps her thoughts positive during her

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

It held many struggles and disagreements, which lead to many retaliations, from both the Indians and the settlers. The Indians had been alliances with the white men until the massacre, which stated the settlers betrayal to all tribes.

The atrocities the English committed against the Powhatans were comparable of those of the Spanish. One instance in 1610, a Powhatan chief was convicted for being rude. An English officer and his men invaded the Native American town, “seized some of the natives, ‘putt some fiftene or sixtene to the Sworde’ and cut off their heads. Then he ordered his men to burn homes and crops. When the expedition returned to its boats, his men complained that Percy had spared an Indian ‘quene and her Children.’ Percy relented, and threw the children overboard ‘shoteinge owtt their Braynes in the water.’ His men insisted that he burn the queen alive, but Percy less cruel, stabbed her to death.” The English saw themselves superior and considered the Native Americans as savages.

The Indian attackers took many colonists while the war was raging on, including Rowlandson and her loved ones. Being a Puritan woman, Rowlandson stated that the unfamiliar environment stripped her from her culture and femininity. The role of motherhood and femininity occurs several times throughout her account as she focuses on her beloved children. When her young child dies, Rowlandson felt a great amount of motherly distress. The death of her child is only one factor that makes Rowlandson loathe Native Americans and their culture. They were not Christian, which made them of little worth to

The poem, “The Theft Outright” by Heid E. Erdrich, a Native American poet, refutes claims made in another poem, “The Gift Outright” by Robert Frost, that America was empty before the colonists. In his poem, Frost claims that America was “unstoried, artless, [and] unenhanced,”(Frost 15) demonstrating blatant racism by erasing the entire Native American culture and race from American history. Erdrich counters his beliefs by citing the colorful, full lives of Indians in the past and now, directly juxtaposing his work by saying that the Americas are “still storied, art-filled, [and] fully enhanced”(Erdrich 30) from the Native Americans that lived there. Similarly, the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie deals with racism. It tells the story of Arnold Spirit Jr, a Native American boy who wants a better life, so he switches schools from his poverty stricken school to an all white school in a small town called Reardan. Junior frequently faces challenges of racism; he is seen as less than his white peers at his new school because he is Indian, and he is constantly being shown by others’ words and actions that he does not deserve a quality education because of his heritage. Despite the novel’s humorous style, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” provides accurate commentary on education and racism in recent times through Junior’s experiences at Reardan, with his developing friendship with Gordy, his views on the pedestals that white

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.

In another instance she consumed raw horse-liver which she described in this manner: “I was forced to take the rest and eat it as it was, with the blood about my mouth, and yet a savory bit it was to me; for to the hungry soul every bitter thing was sweet” (Rowlandson 68). Her description of eating the horse liver with the image of the “blood about her mouth” is particularly savage and would normally by associated only with the Native Americans. She attempts to justify her behavior with her desperate hunger, and this further reveals the ability of the frontier to create a world in which the “civilized” attempt to rationalize their own savage behavior. After she later ate a piece of fawn so tender that she was able to eat the bones as well as the flesh, Rowlandson relied upon her faith and credited God for making the normally detestable food delicious to her. She portrays the food as a gift from God when she states, “I would tell the world what a blessing the Lord gave to such mean food” (Rowlandon 76). This also reveals Rowlandson’s shifting perspective in the narrative as to what is and is not considered savagery; At the beginning of the novel, a Native American committing these same actions would have been considered by Rowlandson to be the most “barbarous heathen.”

The book “Lakota Woman,” is an autobiography that depicts Mary Crow Dog and Indians’ Lives. Because I only had a limited knowledge on Indians, the book was full of surprising incidents. Moreover, she starts out her story by describing how her Indian friends died in miserable and unjustifiable ways. After reading first few pages, I was able to tell that Indians were mistreated in the same manners as African-Americans by whites. The only facts that make it look worse are, Indians got their land stolen and prejudice and inequality for them still exists.

The book “A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” is set in a time where the English in Colonial America and the Indians were constantly at conflict. In the year 1675, the Indians besieged the English city of Lancaster (Rowlandson 4). The Indians captured and killed the inhabitants of that city. Rowlandson was one of the few people who were captured instead of killed. She had to fight through to survive the harsh captivity of the Indians, even though she had lost everything.

Mary Rowlandson was held captive by the Wampanoag peoples. In this narrative she gives details on what happened to her while she was a prisoner for weeks. Mary was captured along with her three children, two of which she was separated from and the other one died in Mary’s arms on the ninth day. She then went and saw her ten year old, who, upon seeing her mother, broke down in tears resulting in them not being able to have much further contact. Her captors made her march along for miles until they reach a river that they crossed on canoes. Mary stays there a while sewing and knitting for some of the Native peoples living there. She then is given a knife in which she promptly returns to her master, who lets her go see her son. She gets lost in

Mary Prince was a slave in the West Indies in the early 1800s. In her book, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, she talks about her life as a slave, and the treatment she received from the different families she lived with. This paper focuses on the cruel treatment of Mary by her slave owners, specifically the Inghams, Mr. D- and his wife, and the Woods.

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

According to the Puritans, women were only to attend to household duties and not to appear in the public sphere. Rowlandson does more than she was able to do in her old habitat; she began to work for profit and used her special skills. “During my abode in this place Phillip spoke to me to make a shirt for his boy, which I did, for which he gave me a schilling. I offered the money to my master, but he bade me keep it, and with it I bought a piece of horse-flesh. Afterwards he asked me to make him a cap for his boy, for which he invited me to dinner.” (71). Rowlandson vindicated her work by her obvious need to stay fully nourished and healthy. She accepted numerous dinner invitations and gifts of beans, meat and cake. Conversely, some of the “bad” Natives had lied to her when she asked of her son’s welfare; they said he was roasted and cut into pieces and he made good meat. Then she had thought they knew nothing more than to lie. “Yet

The day the Indians invaded their town they used hatchets, arrows, and guns to scare and harm the colonists. Rowlandson herself was shot in the side from a raining cloud of bullets. Her sister’s eldest son gave word to her about them being wounded and she in return says “And Lord, let me die with them” (258). When her sister spoke these words, almost immediately