Essay On Mary Rowlandson

The document of Mary Rowlandson’s time in captivity during King Philip’s War, is a very different primary source that truly shows a glimpse into the complexities and levels of depth of colonial relationships between Native Americans and English settlers. Rowlandson’s narrative details her harsh experiences as a captive of the native tribes and reveals her complex attitudes toward her captors. Despite the trauma and fear she experienced during her captivity, Rowlandson also expresses compassion and kindness towards her Native American captors. As hard as it might seem to understand how someone could possibly feel the way she did, there were many factors that led to her views, including her background, her connection to religion, and her overall

She saw everyone as a child of God, and she saw the Natives, not as bad people, but as simply lost in the eyes of God. Throughout her descriptive narrative, she goes back many many times to reference her belief in the sovereignty and goodness of God. These are found as a large attribute of her survival; many think this was the pivotal reason for her eventual release from captivity. She was very different from the people around her because, in her eyes, her captivity was a test of her faith. She often saw and felt kindness towards her captors as a way to demonstrate and attempt to also spread her Christian virtues and beliefs. Rowlandson writes at the beginning of her passage, “I had often before this said, that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial, my mind changed… I remembered how Abraham entertained the angels, and Lot the men of Sodom; so I entertained them.” Here, Rowlandson compares her kindness towards her captors to the hospitality shown by biblical figures and sees it as an opportunity to demonstrate her Christian faith. She felt she was often living in her own version of The Holy Bible, by demonstrating the previous experiences she believed

As a captive, she was entirely dependent on her captors for food, shelter, and protection, and she recognized that her chances of survival were greater if she could establish some degree of rapport with them; she would obviously die much faster on her own. She chose that the best way to survive was to simply not bite the hand that fed her. By showing kindness and gratitude towards her the people who realistically kept her alive, Rowlandson was able to earn their trust and favor, which in turn made her captivity more bearable and less miserable. In her narrative, she describes how she was eventually allowed to leave the camp and gather firewood, and was given permission to visit other English captives. These privileges were likely granted to her because she had established a degree of trust with her captors. She built a better life for herself by growing that relationship with the Natives that her fellow survivors chose not to.
Finally, Rowlandson’s kindness towards her captors can also be understood in the simple ideas of gender. As a woman, she had a very different set of cultural expectations and norms than male captives. In particular, she was to perform domestic and basic tasks such as cooking and cleaning. By showing kindness and gratitude towards her captors, Rowlandson was able to fulfill these expectations and avoid punishment or mistreatment. Once again, by showing gratitude