Captivity Narratives are narratives by people who are taken a prisoner. Captivity narratives hold an essential place within American history as it exp0lores the encounters between European explorers and settlers and Native peoples throughout the Americas. Captivity Narratives by Mary Rowlandson, who was a Puritan settler in Massachusetts and Mary Jemison, a fifteen-year-old Irish immigrant hold a cultural and historical significance, both from the British-American and Native-American standpoint.
The Wampanoag natives take Mary Rowlandson a prisoner during King Philip’s, and her captivity narrative reveals her time with the natives. As it was not common for women to write during the seventeenth-century Puritan America, her narrative holds cultural relevance as it shows what it means to be a woman within the dominant, patriarchal values. Rowlandson’s organized narrative is made of twenty removes during her 12 weeks of captivity (Rowlandson 2). It is interesting to note how Rowlandson changes the sue of words when mentioning the Native Indians and draws a distinct lien with the use of “we” and “they.” However, the distinction gets blurred over as she looks at herself as part of the Indian community and refers to the English as “they”. She mentions Indians as “Black creatures” and their dancing to carry “resemblances of hell” and their singing to be distasteful and demonic (Özen 175). She uses the Bible as an anchor to remain distinct from the Indians completely and never doubts the Will of God. Her narrative reflects the uncertainty of life and how there is no guaranteed life. Rowlandson believed in fate and how humans had no alternative (Özen 173). She lived and behaved like a Native American during her captivity. Based on her experiences, she reflects how she found many similarities between Native Americans and European and with each re-location she moves closer to the spiritual redemption as asserted by Özen (174). In her narrative, she uses “the wonderful power of God” several times, and this points out to the strict Puritan belief in God (Özen 175). Puritans in the American land believed that one could lead to a moral lesson with experience of pain and suffering. Rowlandson’s captivity narrative deals with the individual struggling against harsh climate, landscape and the enemies (Özen 177). Her work shows the conflict of being a female captive subject in American Puritan society and how she celebrates God’s influence.
The definitions of natives are often complicated as they were seen from different perspectives. British-Americans defined them in diverse forms to explain to the European audience back home. The natives were considered authentic only as long as they fit within the preconceived generic constructions by the preconceived generic constructions. Mary Jemison challenges the British-American assumptions about Native American identity at multiple levels. Her unconventional background and complex affiliations with numerous cultural categories defy ethnic markers set by Euro-Americans. From an Irish protestant immigrant family settled on the Pennsylvania frontier, during the French and Indian war, Jemison was captured as a girl by Indians and thus lived her life as a Seneca woman (Hilary 63). Jemison encompassed a multiplicity that was personal, ethnic, and religious, all at once and creates a “mixed” identity to describe the Native definition of race. She destabilizes traditional and Euro-American assumptions about racial identity. Jemison as a woman commits herself to her Native tribe, and her narrative records her certain historical facts and her sufferings. Her submission as a woman to the “cruelty” of the racial “other”; gender complexes the anxiety of race (Hilary 63). As Jemison does not return to Anglo-American society, her layered narrative contradicts the rhetoric of captivity. Her search for identity is full of contradictions as her conversion narrative endeavors to create a Native identity as a white woman.
Mary Rowlandson and Mary Jemison’s narration of their captivity hold a cultural and historical significance regarding both the British-American and Native-American standpoint. Their narratives not only are a record of historical facts but give a dramatic account of the conflicts between European settlers and Native Americans, impacting the cultural, political, and social changes.
Works Cited
Hilary E. Wyss. “Captivity and Conversion: William Apess, Mary Jemison, and Narratives of Racial Identity.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 3/4, 1999, p. 63.
Özen, Özlem “A Critical Linguistic Approach In A Narrative Of The Captivity And Restoration Of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. (Turkish).” Journal of International Social Research, vol. 11, no. 58. 2018, pp. 173–178.
Rowlandson, Mary. “The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.” Narrative of the Captivity & Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Aug. 2017, p. 2. EBSCOhost, lib-proxy.sunywcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=21212988&site=eds-live. Accessed 6 Oct. 2018
