The Puritan narratives of the early American settlers often depicted the Native Indians as brutal savages, equating the Natives with the devil, attributing to them wicked, inhuman deeds. Specifically, the captivity narrative of Puritan Mary Rowlandson advances these notions and leads the settlers to stereotype the Indian Natives as savage creatures bent on destroying the holy Puritan culture. Sadly, many of these notions still persist today. However, when one studies both sides of the conflict, one notices that, through the narratives of the Native Indians themselves, we see a completely different Indian persona developing. The Native narratives, such as from Indian leader Pontiac, reveals a Native Indian character that is far different, personally, morally, and culturally, than that which is depicted by the Puritan and English narratives. Here, we see a Native persona that is well-spoken, intelligent, civilized, and capable of rationality and an appeal to common justice. The disparity between the Puritan captivity narratives and the speeches and writings of the Native Indians themselves reveals a pervasive system of cultural stereotyping and stigmatization by the early English settlers, a system of wrongly-held belief that still persists today.
Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative is of one the most famous examples of early Puritan surviving literature. There is no doubt that Rowlandson survived a great deal of tragedy through the Puritan-Indian conflicts in the 17th century, including the tragic loss of a child and her sister. Rowlandson was taken captive, held for three months, along with other Puritans, in a raid on Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1676. Two years after her release, Rowlandson detailed the events of her capture and captivity, in what would be known as a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. It is important to note that Rowlandson’s chronicling is not a real-time, diary-like account, but her recollections years after the actual events. The time and space between the events and her account of them allows Rowlandson the ability to craft a “narrative” of events that suit her purpose, specifically to display themes of holy “restoration” in the eyes of God. In the interests of storytelling, Rowlandson simplifies the Puritan-Indian conflict into a reductive “good versus evil” parable that pits the holy Puritans against the unholy savages, as shown here by this quote from the text regarding the capture at Lancaster: “Thus we were butchered by these merciless heathen, standing amazed, with the blood running down to our heels” (Rowlandson 258). Rowlandson’s diction and imagery implies the stereotypical notion equating Indians to savage “heathens” who butchered the Puritans without remorse. Rowlandson’s narrative, commonly anthologized and reprinted in over thirty different editions helped cement the stereotypical view of Indians as brutal and masochistic purveyors of sadism. For example, in one of her first “Removes,” where she is taken from camp to camp, Rowlandson describes what appears to be a satanic ritual conducted by the Natives: “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” (259). Though it is likely that Rowlandson (perhaps intentionally) misunderstands the ceremony she witnesses, its imagery of devilish and barbaric custom yet persists in American history’s conceptions of the Indians. (Since Native religion was polytheistic, it did not hold for traditional orthodox Christian conceptions of heaven and hell; thus, satanic worship would not have been something in which the culture would have engaged.)
Moreover, because of brutality of the captivity narratives like Rowlandson’s, a commonly held belief amongst the Puritan and English cultural consensus was that the Natives sexually assaulted the Puritan women, a notion that has no basis in factual truth, as shown here by this quote from scholar Lisa Logan:
Not only did the Puritans believe (wrongly) that Native Americans raped their female captives, their assumption was compounded by a published report that Rowlandson had been forced to marry the “one-eyed sachem,” John Monoco, a Nashaway chief
who led the raid on Lancaster. (262-63)
The fact that this sexual assault and/or the forced marriage never took place evinces the point that the hyperbolic nature of Rowlandson’s and others’ Puritan stories allowed a space for the narrative imagination to run away with itself and imagine all types of brutal horrors perpetrated by the “savages” on the holy Puritans.
In contrast to the stereotypes perpetrated by Rowlandson’s narrative, readers see, from the writings of the Native Indians themselves, a far different personal and cultural persona, one that is eloquent, rational, charismatic, and persuasive. For example, in a famous speech to Ottowan tribes, Delaware Indian leader Pontiac showcases his oratory skills and ability to captivate an audience in his appeal to the various tribes to unite against British oppression. In this excerpt from his speech, readers begin to see the Native Indians in a far different light:
Why do you suffer the white men to dwell among you? My children, you have forgotten the customs and traditions of your forefathers. Why do you not clothe yourselves in skins, as they did, and use the bows and arrows, and the stone-pointed lances, which they used? You have bought guns, knives, kettles, and blankets … Fling all these things away; live as your wise forefathers lived before you.
In this passage, readers gain insight into Pontiac’s spirited character, one that values time-honored tradition, culture, history, and legacy, things that European settlers into the New World value as well. Through reading Pontiac’s speech, readers see the other side of the conflict, i.e., the oppressive influence of British culture and its capacity to destroy an entire way of Native life (which it eventually did). Pontiac’s rhetoric, which alternates between rational and passionate, is convincing in its empowering appeal, and it is difficult for readers to reconcile this vision of the Native Indians with the “savage heathens” of Rowlandson’s narrative. Sadly, history’s retelling of the events of the Puritan-Indian conflict of the 17th-18th centuries sides more with Rowlandson’s view than with Indian leaders such as Pontiac.
In her book, Captivity and Sentiment: Cultural Exchange in American Literature, Scholar Michelle Burnham notes the essential difference between public and historical perception and Native Indian reality. She writes, “Rowlandson’s description of her participatory experiences contradict the interpretive conclusions she draws from them, when her record of an Indian’s
sympathy and generosity nevertheless leads her paradoxically to declare the universality of Indian savagery and barbarity” (17). From Burnham’s analysis, one can conclude that for writers like Rowlandson, reality and autobiographical narrative are not exactly one and the same. The fact that Rowlandson crafts her narrative two years after her experiences, along with the specifically thematic bent of her journey—i.e., one in which her stringent faith guides and saves her, just as God punishes her, sending heathens to abuse her for not being chaste enough—makes the reader implicitly understand that the stereotypes that Rowlandson advances in her text are not exactly historically accurate representations of Native Indian character or culture. Luckily, the stereotyping and stigmatization of Native Indian culture is offset by the speeches and writings of the Natives themselves, such as from Delaware Indian leader Pontiac, whose eloquent speech shows readers a different side of the Native persona, one that displays eloquence, rationality, passion, and a persuasive appeal to the Indian tribes to rise up against the British oppression that threatens to destroy their history and way of life.
- Burnham, Michelle. Captivity and Sentiment: Cultural Exchange in American Literature. Ed. Michelle Burnham, Dartmouth College Press, 1997, http://collections.dartmouth.edu/published-derivatives/burnham-captivity-1997/pdf/burnham-captivity-1997.pdf.
- Logan, Lisa. “Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity and the ‘Place’ of the Woman Subject.” Early American Literature, vol. 28, no. 3, 1993, pp. 255–277., www.jstor.org/stable/25056945.
- Pontiac. “Speech at Detroit.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume A, Eighth Edition. Ed. Nina Baym, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012, pp. 444-445.
- Rowlandson, Mary. “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume A, Eighth Edition. Ed. Nina Baym, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012, pp. 256-288.
