Indian Captive, Indian King: Peter Williamson in America and Britain by Timothy J. Shannon (review)

Peter Williamson crossed the Atlantic twice, once as a self-professed kidnapping victim and once as a prisoner of war. As I write this review while crossing Lake Erie upon the US Brig Niagara, I can perhaps understand to a degree the uncertainty felt by Williamson in 1743 and 1756 as he traveled upon a wooden world similar to the one surrounding me. My sustenance and living conditions, however, are most certainly better than that experienced by him and other eighteenth-century travelers.¹ In Indian Captive, Indian King: Peter Williamson in America and Britain, author Timothy J. Shannon concludes that Williamson’s remarkable life “defies . . . easy reduction” (267). The same might be said of Shannon’s monograph. Williamson’s many and varied experiences allowed (or forced?) the author down many exploratory paths. The result is a deeply fascinating study of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world.

Depending on who one asked, Peter Williamson came either from a respectable family in the hinterland outside Aberdeen, Scotland or a poor background that led to a life on the streets in Aberdeen. Either way, young Williamson found himself bound, by force he claimed, for Britain’s North American colonies as an indentured servant. Sold into servitude in Philadelphia, the young man served out his term, worked as a hired agricultural laborer, and claims (Shannon says untruthfully) to have become a captive of Indians at the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War. After “escaping,” Williamson enlisted in the British service, became a prisoner of war after the fall of Oswego, and returned to England where he built a remarkable career as an entertainer, entrepreneur, and “professional” litigant.

Indian Captive, Indian King, similar to its protagonist, proves difficult to describe. Williamson’s captivity narrative French and Indian Cruelty; Exemplified in the Life and various Vicissitudes of Fortune of Peter Williamson, a Disbanded Soldier clearly inspired Shannon’s study. As he so adeptly demonstrates, the captivity narrative in and of itself is not necessarily unique. It clearly follows, says Shannon, well-developed eighteenth-century literary tropes. Nor is it unique that this narrative provides us with a subaltern view of the British Empire, as Linda Colley’s Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600–1850 and other works have abundantly demonstrated the depth of available subaltern narratives of empire. Instead, French and Indian Cruelty proves remarkable because its author did not, as do authors of similar narratives, disappear into the mists of history. Williamson became a well-known resident of Edinburgh allowing Shannon to further explore his life and derive more worthwhile conclusions about the narrative, the individual, and the British Empire.

The narrative itself tests Shannon’s ability to conduct historical detective work. It too directly mirrors other captivity narratives and contains too much material that appears fantastical to be believable. At the same time, Williamson’s wounded hand and specific knowledge about certain places and events suggests to the author that the narrative contains truths as well. With a fine-tooth comb then, Shannon picks through the narrative, identifying what appears valid and invalid and demonstrating his own depth of knowledge impressively along the way. Few might have done this with the skill wielded by Shannon, and yet the process of separating fact from fiction proves so complicated that, at times, recognizing Shannon’s truthful narrative from his recitation of Williamson’s tall tales becomes trying. Readers should plan to pay close attention when reading the earlier chapters of this text as a result.

Beyond examining the narrative itself, Shannon explores what Williamson’s life tells us about the British Empire itself. He states:

my purpose is not to expose [Williamson] as a fraud. His American experiences, even the fabricated ones, tell us much about the opportunities and hardships encountered by British migrants to colonial America, and his serial reinventions after his return to Britain reflect changing British perceptions of North America and its...