A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

Description

Mary Rowlandson provides this strong and empathic account of her captivity at the hands of Nipmuck Indians, when her frontier village of Lancaster, Massachusetts was attacked. Mary, her three children and her husband were all taken captive and held for ransom. Although the natives did not actually harm her – as she says in her own words, none ever offered her the “least abuse of unchastity, in word or action” – Mary and her children coped with many challenges and a significant degree of emotional trauma, before their subsequent release.

From having to cope with witnessing executions, to holding her own youngest son in her arms, as his life faded from his body, Mary Rowlandson suffered through a real ordeal after being uprooted from her home and kidnapped. By keeping track of her difficulties, she manages to create an invaluable account of life as a captive among Indians, as her story quickly became a bestseller of her time, after having been published in 1682 – six years after the events described in the book.

Throughout the kidnapping, Mary stays true to her Puritan upbringing and relies on Bible verses and her own strong faith in God to guide her through the ordeal and keep her safe. Sure enough, Mary and her children are subsequently released, but only after spending 11 weeks as captives, with scarcely any food or drink.

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is the first ever novel published by a female author in the New World, as well as the work that inspired American Colonial literature in later years.

Mary Rowlandson’s account of her captivity is quite an invaluable piece, both from a psychological and historical point of view, while also shedding light on the particularities of Native American culture in its earlier years.
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