Overview

Mary (White) Rowlandson was a colonial American woman who was captured during an attack by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held ransom for 11 weeks and 5 days. After being released, she wrote A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, also known as The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. It is a work in the literary genre of captivity narratives. It is considered to be one of America's first bestsellers, four editions appearing in 1682 when it was first published. Rowlandson learns that there is a thin line between savagery and civilization. Her forced journey from civilization to the wilderness changes her perception on what is and what is not civilized. She first views civilization as things that are not savage and are not wild. Naturally she depicts the Native Americans as violent savages but later the similarities of the Native Americans and the settlers become apparent to her. Some of the Indians wear the colonists clothes and pray, claiming that they have converted to Christianity. Rowlandson finds herself eating and enjoying the Indian food and often behaving like the Indians. This causes savagery and civilization to be indistinct. Because the narrative is from Mary Rowlandson's point of view, the story could be completely different if it were told by an outside observer. This is the nature of a captivity narrative. It has value, not because it is historically accurate, but because it captures the perceptions of a person living through particularly harrowing historical experiences.

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