In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Lion and the Unicorn 25.1 (2001) 70-80



[Access article in PDF]

Indian Captivity in American Children's Literature:
A Pre-Civil War Set of Stereotypes

Paul Neubauer


Ever since the founding of the first English settlements in the future American colonies, the tales of conflict between the new arrivals and the natives already present have had as their dramatic climax incidents of abduction and captivity. The first account of such a perilous separation and isolation of an English explorer, which is still well known today, was formulated in Captain John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia of 1624, where the author describes his rescue from imminent death through the courageous intervention of Pocahontas, daughter of King Powhatan, on his, John Smith's, behalf. This short history of abduction, captivity, and confrontation with its climactic conflict and sudden resolution, a tale that also marked the beginning of an American literature, provides the basic outline for all later "Captivity Narratives" from the New World. 1

The genre proper was established some seventy years afterwards, when Mary Rowlandson published her popular account entitled The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, republished as A True History . . . and printed in London in 1682. 2 In this best-selling book, an Indian surprise attack on a Puritan settlement in New England during King Philip's War and the frightening fierceness and violence of the aggressors are described, followed by a dramatic series of forced removals of the protagonist-narrator--away from her English and Christian home and village into the uncivilized and uncolonized wilderness of the Indian and French territories. Rowlandson, the wife of a Massachusetts minister, was held for seven weeks and five days, was transported to twenty different sites, and was released only after a considerable ransom had been paid. Told from the hindsight of the survivor, the extreme dangers encountered and hardships endured become the scenes of a supreme test of personal [End Page 70] integrity and individual strength. In this context, the continuing conflicts between the Puritan settlers and the American Indians gain political and ideological implications, which can best be described through the typological identification of the Puritan society with the tribes of Israel, as a people fleeing from religious persecution and coming to a promised land, only to find another series of tests and trials awaiting them. At the same time, the eschatological promise of a "New Jerusalem" to be found on this new continent placed a further level of importance on the performance of these Puritan settlers in a New England, and therefore on the behavior of each and every individual member of their society. Thus Mary Rowlandson was able to regard her physical salvation from the dangers of a hostile environment and from fierce and frightening antagonists as a symbolic foreshadowing of her spiritual salvation, even as a sign of her personal election as a true Christian woman, and as a visible assurance by the invisible powers that ruled this world as well as the next one.

A True Historie . . . provided the justification for both the speaker's and her audience's presence on these shores, a reassurance of their shared beliefs and fears, and of the moral standards embraced by all of Puritan New England. The untold story of the narrator's own re-integration into this regimented and strictly supervised society, a process to be regarded as successfully accomplished by the very act of publication and reflected in its products' surprising appeal, presents a justification of the codes of behavior and model character traits demonstrated in the narration. This behavioral model became even more impressive and could in turn be interpreted as imperative for Rowlandson's readership. As these codes of behavior and these character traits prove reliable during her abduction as well as upon her return, their exemplary status for the emerging order of the frontier society in general seems clear. And as this new type of literary reflection of...

pdf

Share