Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country by Ian K. Steele (review)

Scholars have long been interested in the treatment and redemption of colonists taken as captives by Native Americans and integrated into their communities. Yet, the extant literature is disproportionately focused on the New England region. The same attention has not been paid to Allegheny country, where “the rich military history of this contested region has paid scant attention to captives” (4). Ian K. Steele’s Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country corrects this gap by refocusing the study of captivity on Allegheny country and “putting captives at the center of a study of the cultural and military war for Allegheny country” (4).

Steele’s investigation of captivity is more than simply an attempt to track those taken by Indians. Instead, it uses the evolution in the taking of captives from 1745–65 to explore the cultural, social, and political implications of captivity within the context of imperial conflicts between the British and French. Steele’s work offers insight into the role of captivity in shaping Indian and colonial cultural values as both sides struggled to understand the changing nature of the cultural borderlands of the Ohio Valley. In charting the shifts to captivity during peacetime and war, Steele illuminates how captives were seized, the grueling process of re-education and integration into Indian communities, and the challenges freed captives faced in returning to colonial society. In doing so, he makes a compelling case for the impact of captivity in forging a unique American identity deeply invested in narratives of personal freedom.

Divided into five sections, Steele’s book addresses three major aspects of captivity: the taking of captives, assimilation into Indian communities, and the consequences for redeemed captives. Parts 1 and 2 address evolving tactics for taking captives from peacetime raids to clashes during the Seven Years’ War and the Anglo-Indian War of 1763–65. While both colonists and Indians took captives, the taking of prisoners by colonists was a practical decision. For Indians, seizing colonists was a symbolic act and part of their cultural framework. Successful raids were seen as rites of passage for young men. Indians often found themselves drawn into imperial rivalries, such as when the Canadian government directed Indian raids on Pennsylvania traders “that disrupted their rivals’ trade and diplomacy” (34). The taking of traders often contradicted the cultural emphasis Indians placed on raids as martial acts, though no such problem occurred when clashing with Virginian and Canadian soldiers in the Ohio Valley. These conflicts became increasingly violent and established a “culture of captivity” on the eve of widespread war (71).

While peacetime captivity was aimed at taking rival Indians, traders, or colonial soldiers, wartime raids transition from a cultural rite to “a contest to preserve and strengthen settlements of one’s own culture, and to thwart rivals” (73). Unlike British or French captives, taken as prisoners and quickly exchanged, Indians took captives with the intent to assimilate them into Indian communities. The re-education of captives, explored in part 3, was a grueling process for captives and a “display of cultural confidence” in the eyes of Indians (185). Before integration could begin captives had to survive the retreat into Indian Territory. This was a “baptism into a different life for captives” (187). Indians killed those too young, too old, or too sickly to make the perilous journey. Survivors were forced through re-education programs. Immersion saw European languages forbidden, death as a punishment for escape, and a forced separation of European captives. Steele’s nuanced discussion of White Indians stands out as one of the more noteworthy moments in the book, as he skillfully illustrates the cultural flexibility experienced by those embracing Indian culture.

Steele’s most powerful conclusions are found in parts 4 and 5, which engage with life after captivity and the cultural impact of captivity...