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Mary Rowlandson: Trials and Temptation in the Wilderness
As I begin to discuss Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative I feel that it is vital to acknowledge that she is taking part in the highly problematic mode of Colonial discourse. In particular, she creates a persona of the aboriginal as the “heathen” source of temptation to disobey God’s will (24). This characterization is evident when Rowlandson is physically threatened to work on the Sabbath and when she is tempted to escape before God’s time (28, 26). Rowlandson also silences the aboriginals in her narrative by omitting the losses they have suffered at the hands of the colonizers. Despite the problematic nature of Rowlandson’s work, I think it is clear that the captivity narrative is primarily used by her as an opportunity to teach her fellow Christians about the will of God and “the power and necessity of Calvinist tenacity” (Literature Online).
Rowlandson organizes her narrative around episodes of trial and temptation in order to shift the importance of her experience away from her physical suffering. Religious rhetoric is used to point to the true focus of her story. Her sister’s death serves as a parable about the temptation to struggle against God’s will. Rowlandson draws attention to the fact that her sister “lay under much trouble upon spiritual accounts” in her youth (25). This inclusion suggests that her sister’s faith is still flawed because of her desire to follow her own will. Rather than being sure of her sister’s reward in heaven, Rowlandson can only “hope she is reaping the fruit of her good labours” (25). In comparison, when Rowlandson is able to choose her own path she always takes the passive role. She states that although fear “daunted her spirit” she “chose rather to go along… than that moment to end [her] days” (25). Her decision to submit to God’s will is repeated when an aboriginal offers her a chance to escape. She says that she “desired to wait God’s time, that I might go home quietly, and without fear” (28). Her declaration is intended to teach others that submission to God’s will leads to a more secure place at ‘home’ in Heaven. Her emphasis on the virtue of submission is reinforced with another parable regarding the woman who incessantly asks the aboriginals to let her “go home” (26). The parable teaches that the woman’s wilfulness results in her death while Rowlandson’s submission restores her to family, the Christian community, and God.
She continues to use religious rhetoric in an attempt to show that agency belongs with God and not the captives, the aboriginals, or the army. When the army fails to pursue the group she states that they “were not ready” as though they must endure more trials before they are worthy of redemption (26). She includes a Psalm as an authoritative source to back up her claim:
11 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
13 Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!
14 I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries (Psalm 81. 11- 14)
By looking at the first two lines (omitted in her text) we see that Rowlandson is mirroring her trials with the Israelites who followed their own will as opposed to God’s. The second two lines teach that submitting to God’s will is the key to deliverance from their suffering. She also says that she understands “Lot’s wife’s temptation” to disobey God’s command and look back upon her country (27). This biblical reference is used to show that there is sin in the seemingly faithful life she has left behind and she must place her trust in God by going into the “vast and howling wilderness” (27). Therefore, Rowlandson’s captivity narrative about wandering in the wilderness is used for its allegorical qualities to teach her fellow Christians about sin, temptation, and perseverance to understand God’s hand in all things.
Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
(1682) Transatlantic Currents (24- 28). online.
Literature Online Biography. Rowlandson, Mary White, ca. 1635-ca. 1678. Literature Online.
Does the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson transgress or embrace the traditional roles of seventeenth and eighteenth century femininity?
Does the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson transgress or embrace the traditional roles of seventeenth and eighteenth century femininity?
In her work A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson Mary embraces her traditional seventeenth and eighteenth century feminine role but in a distinctly American way. Rowlandson accomplishes this by focusing on the contrast between her religious and submissive female role and that of her captors and of the squaws or wives within the native community she is forced to travel with. This separation described in vivid detail has helped to entrench an American narrative that is not shared within the rest of literature but that qualifies both her femininity and her sense of religious superiority.
Women pioneers and colonizers who documented their experiences existed at this time and later in both Canada and the United States as well as in many colonized countries around this world. Their gender roles have always been a part of the thrill of the narrative, however, what is lacking in Mary’s narrative is the inquisitiveness of other female writers such as Catherine Par Traill.
While the early, westernized narrative by both men and women has led to the era of post-colonial literature in which the native cultures of colonized countries have re-interpreted their national narrative the United States, it can be argued, had maintained the historical narrative pattern of manifest destiny and religious superiority thanks in large part to early narratives such as Mary Rowlandson’s which can be read as propaganda. As Richard Vanderbeets states in The Indian Narrative as Ritual, ‘Because the earliest Americans countenanced neither play-acting nor the unhealthy influence of the novel, they wrote and read true tales of tragedy and horror in the form of… Indian massacres and captivities…there are over thirty known editions of the Mary Rowland narrative.’ (p.548)
By constantly referencing the native celebrations that she witnesses within her captivity as devilish and hell-like, using descriptions such as ‘Oh the roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell’ the reader sees these actions through Mary’s eyes, as a defenseless and helpless female captive making these actions seem all the more offensive with a strong current of religion. When describing the difficulty of her captivity Mary Rowlandson continually thanks God for giving her the strength to carry on. For example in the Second Remove Mary writes “but the Lord renewed my strength still, and carried me along, that I might see more of His power; yea, so much that I could never have thought of, had I not experienced it.” Mary’s weakness and constant need to depend on other’s to give her scraps of food to survive only exemplifies her femininity against the women within the Indian tribe. Her ability to use her feminine skills such as sewing to earn food qualify her lack of strength and lack of practical skills. After her child is mortally wounded, Mary carries her as far as she can and when the child succumbs to her wounds Mary lies beside her child and continues to feel the loss even as she is returned to her husband and finds the rest of her children are alive. When the squaw Wattimore with whom Mary has been travelling also looses a child there is only a brief mention of the mourning process and Mary does not identify in any way as a mother with Wattimore.
With the recognition that her trials and her survival is due to a higher power and that in the end justice is served to those that oppose and threaten she and her religious husband and other English settlers are attempting in the Rowlandson has combined her weakness and femininity with the power of the bible which acts as her talisman and protector throughout her eleven week ordeal. This narrative was a best seller at the time and its’ triumphant narrative can be said to live on in American literature.
Works Cited
Johnson, Susannah. The Captive American, or a Narrative of the Suffering of Mrs. Johnson during Four Years of Captivity with the Indians and French. 1797. Ed. Joseph Black et al. Second Edition. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012. Print.
Rowlandson, Mary. A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Transatlantic Currents, 1682. p 24- 28
Vanderbeets, Richard. The Indian Captivity Narrative as Ritual. American Literature , Vol. 43, No. 4 (Jan., 1972), pp. 548-562 Published by: Duke University Press
http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/2924653
The Captive and the Heathen: Demonizing Native Americans through Religion in Captivity Narratives
The captive narratives of Susannah Johnson and Mary Rowlandson both contain continuous Christian religious language and imagery that reveals the nature of English perceptions of Native Americans during the eighteenth century. Particularly in Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, religious imagery and language is used to demonize her Native American captors. This sort of demonizing imagery is also present towards the beginning of Johnson’s “The Captive Narrative”, and even her ultimate words of redemption for her imprisoners shows a correlation between Christianity and the author’s attitude towards the Native Americans.
Christianization was a widespread effort during the eighteenth century during the colonization of North America. Native American peoples were othered by European settlers and were in many cases forced into conversion and assimilation through brutality. First Nation Journalist Daniel N. Paul discusses the demonization of these Native peoples on his website that he titles “We Were Not The Savages: First Nation History”. In his article “Systemic Racism in Canada and Nova Scotia”, Paul writes about the Canadian colonization, claiming that: The long term goal was to bring the Native peoples from what the white supremacist politicians and bureaucrats described as their ‘savage and unproductive state’ and force (English style) civilization upon them, thus making Canada a homogeneous society in the Anglo-Saxon and Christian tradition” (Paul). The unconverted Natives were seen as savage pagans who needed to be saved by Christianity. In her narrative, Rowlandson uses the word heathen to describe the Natives who have captured her. The word heathen is used to describe an unconverted person who is not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish (“heathen”). Johnson discusses the presence of a French Friar in the settlement where she is held captive, and explains that he “lived in the midst of them for the salvation of their souls” (Johnson, 860). Christianity was crucial in mediating European settler’s understanding of Native Americans. This can be seen in the narratives of Johnson and Rowlandson, both of whom utilize hell imagery, allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus, and the following of Christian practices, to portray and interpret their Native American captors.
Johnson and Rowlandson both utilize references and imagery of hell in reference to their captors, alluding to traditional demonizing images of Native Americans. Rowlandson describes the Native’s use of fire to destroy her home she describes her experience, “the house on fire over our heads”, creates images of people surrounded by fire in a hellish landscape (Rowlandson, 24). In her text, Johnson directly references traditional depictions of hell when she describes the settlement of her captors, St. Francis, by writing the noise that came from it, might be supposed the centre of Pandemonium” (Johnson, 858). Pandemonium refers to the capital of hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost, which is a classic depiction of hell. Rowlandson also draws upon classical images of hell as she describes her night with her captors She writes “oh the roaring, and singing, and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell!” and creates imagery of the dancing Natives around the fire (Rowlandson, 25). These images of Natives dancing around fires hold many similarities to classical images of a fiery hell.
This image calls upon traditional stereotypes of Native Americans and depicts them dancing among flames. The fiery dance evokes images of hell for religious Europeans.
Both Johnson and Rowlandson texts describe the forced stripping down of the European settlers during their native captivity. Johnson describes how her children were “driven naked” to her own naked self upon their capture. The image of the naked captives also returns the reader to religious images of hell, where captives are held naked. In particular, Sandro Botticelli’s Punishment of the Panderers and Seducers and the Flatterers from his imaginings of Dante’s Inferno contain similar imagery to that which is used to describe the experience of Native captivity in Johnson and Rowlandson’s narratives. The illustration shows naked prisoners being led by dark demonic figures which harp back to Rowlandson’s description of the natives as “black creatures” (Rowlandson, 25).
Sandro Botticelli’s “Punishment of the Panderers and Seducers and the Flatterers” from his imaginings of “Dante’s Inferno”
While Johnson and Rowlandson actively engage with traditional religious hell imagery in their narratives, their texts, particularly that of Rowlandson, also contain allusions to the crucifixion of Jesus which highlights the struggles of European captives and demonize their Native captors. As is mention above, both Johnson and Rowlandson describe instances where the European prisoners are stripped down by the Natives, and often this action is done right before the moment of death. Rowlandson describes the death of a man by his Native imprisoners where they “knocked him on the head, stripped him naked, and split open his bowels” (Rowlandson, 24). Later in the text Rowlandson also describes the brutal death of a woman who was imprisoned with her, and later killed. She describes that the Native Americans “gathered a great company together about her, and stripped her naked, and set her in the midst of them; and when they had sung and danced about her (in their hellish manner)” (Rowlandson, 26). These two instances, especially the later, allude to the tenth station of the cross where Jesus is stripped of his clothing and mocked by the soldiers who captured him. The Gospel of Matthew describes the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion: “They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him they stripped him” (Matthew 27:30-31). The two passages hold many similarities in the mocking and stripping of the victims, and create a metaphor which portrays the Native captors as killers of a Christ like figure.
In the tenth Station of the Cross Jesus is stripped of his clothes before his crucifixion.
Rowlandson continues to make allusions to the Gospel, in particular to the moment of Jesus’ death. In the death of the woman, Rowlandson reveals to the reader that at the time of her death, the woman is supposed to have “not shed one tear, but prayed all the while” (Rowlandson, 26). This faithful death is similar to the death of her sister, which she describes earlier in the text. Rowlandson describes how her sister called out to God, “she said, Lord, let me die with them, which was no sooner said but she was struck with a bullet, and fell down dead over the threshold (Rowlandson, 25). These moments of prayer, and especially the moment of her sister’s appeal to God, allude to the death of Jesus. Right before his death it is written in the Gospel of Luke that “Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last” (Luke 23: 46). Rowlandson creates a connection between her sister’s death and the death of Jesus by describing this appeal to God, and again places the Native American peoples in the role of the villain through allusion the Christian biblical narrative.
Both Johnson and Rowland’s final conclusions of their captivity are mediated through their religious experience with the Native peoples. Rowland describes how the Natives who held her captive did not observe the Christian traditions, specifically the Sabbath, and also kept her from doing so. She explains her experience writing: “when the Sabbath came, they bade me go to work; I told them it was Sabbath-day, and desired them to let me rest, and told them I would do as much more tomorrow; to which they answered me, they would break my face” (Rowlandson, 26). Not only is she unable to practice her Christianity, but she also threatened with brutal violence. This inability to practice her religion creates an insurmountable distance between Rowlandson and her captors and leads her to see the Natives as the other. She continuously laments over having “no Christian friend near me, either to comfort or help me” (Rowlandson, 26). Johnson’s religious experience in captivity differs greatly from Rowlandson’s, and she describes the presence of Christianity in the settlement where she is captive. Johnson explains that “There was a church, in which mass was held every night and morning, and every Sunday; the hearers were summoned by bell; and attendance was pretty general” (Johnson, 860). Johnson’s experience stands in stark contrast to Rowlandson’s, and leaves her with a very different opinion of her Native captors. Johnson concludes her text by commenting on the civility of her captors and the sympathy they showed in sharing their food with their prisoners and adopting them into their families. Johnson’s experience with her Native captors led her to see beyond the savage stereotype which they held, which was fostered by her opportunity to see their similarities to the ‘civilized people’. Her experience further supports the idea that the Christianization of the Native peoples made them more accessible and tolerable to the European settlers. Johnson and Rowland both mediate their experiences with their Native American captors through their Christian religion, and their contrasting religious experiences during their captivity leave them with opposing understandings of Native American Peoples.
Works Citied
“heathen.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 03 Mar. 2013. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/heathen>.
Paul, Daniel N. “Systemic Racism in Canada and Nova Scotia.” We Were Not The Savages: First Nation History. N.p., 31 Aug. 2008. Web. 02 Mar. 2013.
Whose Voices Matter and Whose Stories are Told in Captivity Narratives
My first impressions upon reading the captivity narratives of both Mary Rowlandson and Susannah Johnson immediately concern the popularity of the genre. Considering it’s frightful and taboo nature, it was also exhilarating and worthy of alot of attention to those reading them at the height of their circulation and production. In this same vein it’s also interesting that it was acceptable for women to write about this kind of topic, let alone their own experience as captors.
Interestingly, The Broadview Anthology mentions at the beginning of Johnson’s narrative that she herself did not write about her own experience, but merely accounted it to a lawyer she knew who published the work. Rowlandson’s text, while written herself, is largely concerned with religious and moral ideals of the time and relates all Native American activity and behavior through a specifically rigid European cultural lense. This is evidence that both women were under the heavy influence of their own society and culture in accounting their experiences of abduction and I believe that this relates somewhat to the feminism of today with respect to the fact that marginalized groups fail to recognize how stories and stereotypes are ascribed to their identities by a larger, hegemonic force, and how they are similar in their experiences of oppression.
Both Rowlandson and Johnson constantly use the word “savage” to describe their captors, which works to emphasize how they misunderstand and fail to even try to relate to Native Americans. Despite being forced to be subservient and be powerless in their own societies by men, they fail to recognize this fact and it only become apparent when they are under someone else’s control. Furthermore, the only way both women are even allowed a voice in their own society is through this medium, which is under male supervision (at least in Johnson’s case).
When reading both of these accounts I was also reminded of another article I had to read for one of my gender studies classes that focused on the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, a white settler that was kidnapped at age 9 and raised by a tribe of Native Americans called the Commanche in Texas in the 1830s. While her story occurs a bit after Rowlandson and Johnson, it is an extreme case of biographical assumptions of experience: Parker’s story has been told and retold by many people, mostly men, who try to twist the story to seem as if a heroic deed was done in rescuing her from her “abductors”. Parker actually adapted to the Native American culture because she was taken at such a young age. She eventually married and had children within the tribe. When she was “rescued” in her thirties she was reluctant to live according to a white Christian lifestyle and detested the culture she “belonged to”. For more information click here: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpa18
Despite Parker’s own resistance to European culture and morals, her story was retold as though she was a victim of Native Americans. Her rescuers were heroes glorified by American culture, as men who stood up for their country and successfully took back another form of their property–an abducted white woman. In this case, I believe Rowlandson and Johnson’s narratives were also celebrated, much less allowed, in their societies because they confirmed the values and ideals of American heritage at the time.
Negotiating Agency in Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative of Captivity
“”Thus we were butchered by those merciless heathen, standing amazed, with the blood running down to our heels.” (24)
Mary Rowlandson was an American colonial woman taken captive by Aboriginals in 1675 and held for ransom for eleven weeks. Rowlandson’s narrative falls into the tradition of the Native Captivity Narrative which positions the Aboriginal body as ‘Other’, a dangerous figure which preys on white women, laying the groundwork for a culture of fear that remains persistent today. Rowlandson is ripped away from her puritanical culture and placed in a position occupied traditionally by the white European male explorer, observing and encountering the new world and its aboriginal inhabitants. And like the explorer, Rowlandson’s writings confirm the Imperial gaze on the Othered subject. To her they are the devils in the dark, the shadows in the wilderness:
“This was the dolefullest night that ever my eyes say: oh the roaring, and singing, and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell!” (25) This sense of threat is amplified not only by the vast numbers of Aboriginal peoples she was surrounded by, but the menacing landscape, what she calls the “vast and howling wilderness” (27) The Aboriginals are cast as agents of Satan, and Rowlandson refers to them numerous times as “black creatures” and ““merciless heathens.” (24)
The trail to King Philip’s Fort at Squakeag, where Mary Rowlandson was taken.
It is clear that Rowlandson understood the importance of commercial exchange as essential to her survival. When describing the instance of her capture, Rowlandson says “I had often before said that is the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive; but when it came to the trial my mind changed.” (25) She is given the choice of going with them unharmed or being killed, and chooses survival. The Nineteenth Remove contains Rowlandson’s account of the negotiations which returned her from her captivity. Rowlandson as a captive is also a physical commodity, but the question of her agency remains a complicated one. The price of her freedom she sets herself at twenty pounds (28) Rowlandson joins negotiations, which she indicates is part of Aboriginal cultural practice: “when I came, I sat down among them, as I was wont to do, as their manner is.” (28) In this culture women are included in the decision-making process, on equal ground, with equal authority, to the men.
Rowlandson describes her decision: “I was in a great strait. I thought if I should speak of but little it would be slighted, and hinder the matter; if of a great sum, I knew not where it would be procured; yet at a venture, I said twenty pounds, yet desired them to take less.” (28) Indicating a clear understanding of what is a feasible ‘price’ for her return. Although she indicated numerous times that her husband will come for her, it is Rowlandson’s active participation in this trade through which she gains her freedom. She describes the Aboriginals’ reactions: “At first they were all against it…but afterwards they assented to it, and seemed much to rejoice in it” (28). They are reluctant, and then focus on the goods she can provide them with. (focus is on material goods such as tobacco and bread, not on gold. Although Rowlandson was made a physical commodity, a prize won in the raid, she was treated as a human being, even granted some small kindnesses during her time as a captive. Rowlandson goes on to recount the good Christian charity she received and the reuniting of her family upon returning to Puritan society. She is a body to be bought and sold, although she actively participates in her own emancipation from captivity. There are hints that during her time with the Aboriginals she is beginning to see and take advantage of the new freedoms not afforded to her as the good, quiet Puritan wife.
Works Cited
Rowlandson, Mary. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”. Transatlantic Currents: 1682. p 24- 28.
Captivity leads to Revisionist Views
Captivity narratives are the accounts written by men and women reporting on their experiences as abductees of Native Americans. An interesting observation that is made of these narratives and evident in the two readings that were required for this week was that “the heroism of the captives and their deeds–became more exaggerated, at the same time, portrayals of Native Americans became more sympathetic; instead of condemning Native American cultures wholesale, they allow some noble characters to emerge” (Wishart). Even though both story tellers began their stories by enforcing the myths of native culture and behavior, that resides in the historical relation between colonizers and colonized, by the end of their story they adopt a more sympathetic outlook on their situations and realize that they stayed alive due to actions of their captors.
In The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mary Rowlandson Rowlandson recounts her experience of been captive by the Native Americans during the war of King Phillip. The story is prominent not only for being a captivity narrative but also a “puritan restoration” of a good puritan woman. Rowlandson’s first observation of the Natives that surrounded her after her captivity was vividly described: “Oh the roaring, and singing, and dancing, and yelling of those black creature in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell”. Here it is demonstrated that she referring to the myth that she knows of Native Americans. Similarly, in The Captive America, Susannah Johnson expressed her “fears” of the “secreted savage [that] might start forth to take their scalp” (857). Throughout Johnson’s story there are descriptions of their “truly savage yell”, “native gluttony” and their behavior being “more resembled cows in a shed than human beings in a house”. These observations and images presented by the two narrators adhere to the myths that were told to them.
However, a shift in the observations can be seen with little nuances in the story, of course they could not be outright stated observations because it was also argued that captivity narratives remain a formula – they deal with the conflict between Native and European Americans in terms entirely satisfying to the latter (Wishhart). However, these nuances are still evident. In the beginning there are speculations that these people are violent savages however, as the stories progress there becomes established similarities between the two, supposedly, binary groups. This creates a worldview for the two narrators that have more ambiguity than the strict good and evil, civilized and uncivilized that they saw before. Some examples of these can be seen in Rowlandson’s narrative in Wettimore, one of Quannopin’s three wives. Wettimore is proud and vain, concerned primarily with wealth, status, and her own appearance (Sparksnotes editors). These characteristics can clearly be traced back to actions of white women at this time. Another example, is when Robert Pepper, another captive, shares with Rowlandson the knowledge he learned from the Natives, teaching her how oak leaves can help to heal her wound. Here, the captives are learning to use nature to their advantage, which was seen as ‘savage’ feature of Natives.
Likewise, these similarities can be seen as creating a more sympathetic view of the culture of the Natives in Johnson’s story. In the except from Chapter one she describes how they killed a horse for food. She described the natives as “they with their native gluttony, satiated their craving appetities”, however, in the same train of thought she states that “my children, however, ate too much, which made them unwell for a number of days” (858). These two descriptions demonstrate that these two sets of people were human alike, and after enduring hunger for a long time would eat more than they could take. Johnson, also speaks of the help from her master when she had fainted and how he was angry at the savage that “threatened her life”. The ultimate revisionist statements of the Natives made by Johnson was at the end of the chapter five except. She says: “In justice to the Indians I ought to remark that they never treated me with cruelty… modesty has been a characteristic of every savage tribe…those who profited by the refinement and education ought to abate part of the prejudice which prompts to look with an eye of censure on this untutored race… I am justified in doubting whether, if I had fallen into the hands of French soldiery, so much assiduity would have been shown to preserve my life” (860). Even though Johnson maintains the view of Natives as “savages”, “untutored race”, she is advocating for a revisionist view of Native Americans after her captivity. However, she still needs to maintain the mythical aspect of their characteristics in order satisfy the European American readers.
What is significant about these observations of the narratives is that they present a blurring between the strong binary of the civilized and the savage. It is also a different perspective of the readings that we have been doing in this class. Most of the issues raised by previous readings were related to gender and ‘female captivity’ in a social sense. This change in genre presents issues of race and nationality, where gender does not play as prominent a role, but rather the binary of colonized and colonizer, civilized and uncivilized and ultimately, myth and reality is more prominent in real life ‘female captivity’.
Works Cited
“Captivity Narratives”. Ed. David Wishart. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. University of Nabraska: Lincoln, 2011. <http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.gen.007>. Web. 28 Feb, 2013.
Johnson Susannah. The Captive American or A narrative of the suffering of Mr. Johnson during four years captivity with the Indians and French.(1797). in Joseph Black et al, eds. Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Second Edition: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Peterbourough, ON: Broadview, 2012. Print.
Rowlandson, Mary. The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Randolson. 1862.< http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/rownarr.html >. Web. 28 Feb, 2013.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Sovereignty and Goodness of God.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2006. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.’
Rumor Has It: The Fearful Savages are Coming!
Susanna Johnson and Mary Rowlandson not only share in common the experience of being a captive to Native Americans, but also the experience of spreading a rumor about the Natives, or in their eyes, the outsiders. Although the recounting of captivity narratives and the recounting of rumors may seem incomparable, both actions involve combining fact and fiction about someone, and distributing them so that the fiction gains authority and is ultimately used to define someone. In the case of the captivity narratives, the rumor that is spread is the depiction of the Native Americans as frightening, subhuman peoples. The constant circulation of these captivity narratives in the 16th century was one of the many ways in which the stereotype of the native American as savage and subhuman gained so much authority in the European world. This is evident in Rowlandson and Johnson’s narratives of captivity when Johnson shares her of feelings of fear and anxiety towards Natives, when Rowlandson recounts stories she heard about those who were tortured by the Natives and as she repeatedly uses religion as an explanation for the acts of kindness shown by the Natives.
What is interesting about captivity narratives is that they claim to be purely factual, yet the readers reaction to these narratives, in particular their reaction to Native Americans, proves that the narrative exists to serve a specific function, and that is to build up fear and anxiety about Native Americans. For instance Johnson begins chapter one of her novel by recounting the shared feelings of fear and anxiety among the Europeans as they anticipate the arrival of the Natives: “Everyone “was trembling alive” with fear, the Indians were reported to be on their march for our destruction, and our distance from sources of information gave full latitude for exaggerations of news before it reached our ears. The fears of the night were horrible beyond description, and even the light of day was far from dispelling painful anxiety” (Johnson, 857). Even without using words like “savage” and “inhuman” to describe natives, readers are disposed to view natives in a fearful light since the simple thought of natives arriving causes a disruption in the normal daily lives of European families which are filled with cheerfulness. The way that chapter one opens, with this comment on the fear of the outsider invading European space, turns the so called factual document into a suspense or mystery novel. It encourages the readers to sympathize with the protagonists and victims of the novel (the Europeans) and also fear the villains (the natives). In other words, as the negative talk concerning the arrival of the Natives circulates, the stereotype of Natives as fearful circulates and gains authority.
Rowlandson similarly shares her feelings of fear concerning the Natives but does so indirectly by recounting a story that has been circulated around like gossip, about a mother and daughter who were tortured by the natives: “….As some of the company told me in my travel…they knocked her on the head, and the child in her arms with her. When they had done that they made a fire, and put them both into it; and told the other children that were with them, that if they attempted to go home, they would serve them in like manner” (Rowlandson, 26). Although an experience like this has not happened to Rowlandson, she still feels the need to add it in her narrative of captivity in order to justify her fears towards the natives and her perception of them as savage peoples. The recounting of this story in her narrative is part of the ways in which the stereotype or the fearful Native, again, gains authority.
Moreover, although Rowlandson does have positive experiences with the Natives which prove that they are not subhuman savages that only exist to torture the Europeans, she attributes these experiences as miracles from God: “And now God hath granted me my desire. Oh the wonderful power of God that I have seen and the experiences that I have had! I have been in the midst of those roaring lions and savage bears, that feared neither God nor man, nor the Devil by night and day, alone in company, sleeping all sorts together; and yet not one of them offered the least abuse or unchastity to me in word or action” (28). Evidently, Rowlandson uses her religion to maintain her superiority over the Natives throughout this journey of her captivity. Despite being set free by the Natives themselves, Rowlandson is thankful towards God and believes that only He could have kept the beasts from torturing her or raping her. Thus any act of kindness from the Natives is not seen as a human act of kindness through Rowlandson’s eyes, but a miracle performed by God in which the savage animal acts reasonable. The downplay of certain moments of kindness from the Natives resembles the downplay or the twisting of truth in a rumor, and the recounting of negative aspects of the Natives resembles the circulation of the fictional stories in a rumor as well as the authoritativeness of those stories as a consequence of the circulation. Therefore, like rumors, these captivity narratives are used to construct a powerful and authoritative image of the Native person as fearful and subhuman.
Johnson, Susannah. “A Narrative of The Suffering of Mrs. Johnson During Four Years Captivity with the Indians and French”. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and The Eighteenth Century. Second Edition. Joseph Black (et al). Broadview Press, 1985. pg 857-60. print.
Who is the “Other”?
Mary Rowlandson and Susannah Johnson’s accounts of Native capture and release takes the reader on an adventure through the author’s experience of an unfamiliar world with unfamiliar people. The reader does not need to encounter the atrocity or danger Rowlandson and Johnson depict, but lives vicariously through them. Both authors play a role in constructing the “other” and present themselves in opposition to the Native. This “othering” excites the reader and provides them with an alternative experience.
Rowlandson and Johnson Depict the Danger of the Native
The language both Rowlandson and Johnson use to describe the “Indians” perpetuate anxiety and nervousness. In “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, Rowlandson describes how “their first coming was about sun-rising” (Rowlandson, 24), creating a sense of foreboding. In “The Captive American, or a Narrative of the Suffering of Mrs. Johnson during Four Years of Captivity with the Indians and French” Johnson also uses these techniques to create tension, describing the “dangers of the forest” (Rowlandson, 857). Such ambiguous terminology draws attention to the existence of this mysterious “other”.
Tropes of Animalization are still used in constructing power dynamics today.
The fear of the unknown evolves into the categorization of Natives as animals, a description that both authors detach themselves from. Rowlandson describes them as “murderous wretches” (Rowlandson, 24), “barbarous” and “black creatures” (Rowlandson, 25). Similarly, Johnson draws upon tropes of animalism by directly equating Natives to animals, suggesting that the way they sleep “resembles cows in a shed rather than human beings in a house” (Johnson, 860). This language shapes the reader’s understanding of the Native not only as an “other” but as inhuman. These descriptions function to affirm the author’s identity and the identity of her reader, as the authors feel more confident in their supremacy by providing a justification for it.
This justification becomes more evident in the way both authors present themselves as the white feminine victim, who does no harm and only receives it. Johnson, for example, describes how her narrative supposedly presents “simple facts”, which she says should elicit “pity for my sufferings, and admiration at my safe return” (857). She presents herself as a damsel-in-distress who is “fainting and trembling…” (858). The reader is supposed to be proud and relieved about her eventual escape.
The whiteness of both authors’ is further represented in their appeal to Christianity. Interestingly, Rowlandson and Johnson both reference Israel in their accounts. While Rowland quotes Psalm 81.13, Johnson suggests that the “Indians” were making her and her family “…sojourn as long as the children of Israel did” (Johnson, 858). They draw upon religious discourse to gain sympathy, emphasize the cruelty done to them, and consequently demonstrate the difference between themselves and the “other”. Christianity is presented as “civilized” and widens the dichotomy between “us” and “them.
This dichotomy is widened further and the adventure continues through the experience of food, as a central aspect of a culture’s identity. Johnson is able to describe the atrocity of her captivity through her experience of food, as it also becomes a symbol of her status. Her hunger for food, “with all its horrors” (Johnson, 858) adds another element of pain to her narrative that is easily identifiable to her reader. Simultaneously however, the fact that her hunger is so prevalent demonstrates how uncommon hunger is for her normally, which therefore indicates a sign of her wealth.
Interestingly, both Rowlandson and Johnson’s experience in captivity largely revolves around, or is measured by, food. Johnson will begin a chapter by describing an event in relation to a meal. She says: “In the morning of the sixth day, the Indians exerted themselves to prepare one of their greatest dainties” (Johnson, 859). Here, food also becomes a way Johnson further constructs a difference between herself and her Native capturers. The type of food the Natives make involves “the marrow bones of old scoggin…pounded for a soup” (Jonson, 859). This description not only provides a glimpse of the Native culture for the reader, but directly contrasts later descriptions of other food-related experiences: Johnson says “we stopped at a French house to dine”, where they were served “soup meager and bread” (Johnson, 859). This second experience is illustrated in a more ‘civilized’ way, and assumedly the food is prepared in a more ‘civilized’ manner as well. Rowlandson also measures time and ‘civility’ with food when she recollects, “in the second week I found my stomach grew very faint for want of something; and yet ’twas very hard to get down their filthy trash” (Rowlandson, 26).
“filthy trash”??
Again, food becomes a symbol of how “uncivilized” Natives are. Food rituals further set Johnson apart, as she describes the way “Indians” sit when eating and her awkward attempt to mimic it (Johnson, 860). This is imagine is strange, new and exciting for her reader.
It is humorous that food becomes a relevant part of Johnson’s experience given that, as indicated in the contextual segment, this document is intended to be Johnson’s dictation, given to a local lawyer regarding her experience of capture.
No: “pleasant and savory”!
While the detail given to food could arguably be irrelevant, perhaps it functions as a metaphor for the way the authors are also able to bridge the gap between themselves and the “Indians”. Food transforms into an instance of recognizable “civility” on the Natives part, according to Johnson, when they give her and her family the best parts of the horse meat (Johnson, 585). Even Rowlandson, who thought their food was “filthy trash”, over time agreed it was “…pleasant and savory to [her] taste” (Rowlandson, 26).
This hint at “civility” adds a twist to the narrative plot of both stories, as they notice and express gratitude for certain acts of kindness the Natives display. While Rowlandson indicates her appreciation when a “squaw laid a mat under [her] and a good rug over [her]” (Rowlandson, 27), Johnson asks more thought provoking, philosophical and moral questions. She complicates the animalistic and inhuman way she portrays the Natives by pointing to their humanity, making this text more intriguing and muti-dimensional. She questions: “Can it be said of civilized conquerors that they in the main are willing to share with their prisoners the last ration of food when famine stared them in the face?” (Johnson, 860). She further suggests that she doubts whether the French would have treated her with as much care as the Natives.
Perhaps ‘Breaking Bread’ is the best way to Build Bridges
Taking a journey not only through time but through an experience of the “other”, the reader is left questioning what the author really intends to convey. Do Rowlandson and Johnson think of “Indians” as less than human or are we all morally the same? I wonder whether Johnson’s last few lines contribute to the white colonial ideology or are intended to make the reader question the meaning of equality. When she asks these final questions, is it patronizing? Is she belittling Native people, giving them condescending praise for their kind actions in attempts to show them what “civility” is? Or, is she truly commenting on the morality of Native people and aligning herself more closely with them. These questions are interesting as a reader with a contemporary lens in terms of understanding how equality was viewed and expressed through language, what ideas have changed, and at what point these changes began to occur.
Works Cited
Johnson, Susannah. The Captive American, or a Narrative of the Suffering of Mrs. Johnson during Four Years of Captivity with the Indians and French (1797). Broadview Anthology of British Literature 3 (2012): 857-860.
Rowlandson, Mary. A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Transatlantic Currents (1682): 24- 28
-Sydney Raeburn-Bell
Women Writers, 1660-1800 