“Hell on Earth: A Puritan Woman’s Experience with the Natives”
“[A] lively resemblance of hell”—this is how Mary Rowlandson describes her first night of captivity by the Wampanoag Indians. This kind of description leads her contemporaries to view the Native Americans near English settlements as barbaric, immoral beasts. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” was written around 1676. The narrative discusses her eleven-week captivity from Lancaster by the Wampanoag Indians. At this time, the Indians were laying siege on colonial towns as part of “King Phillip’s War” (Rowlandson 257). Rowlandson’s home is ransacked, and she and her children are taken captive while her husband, the prime minister of Lancaster, is out of town
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The Puritans and Rowlandson address the indigenous people as agents of Satan; she often refers them as “hell-hounds” and “pagans” (Rowlandson 267). She describes, “This was the dolefullest [first] night that ever my eyes saw: 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” (Rowlandson 259). Rowlandson begins to feel terrified and suffocated by the “black creatures” that are enjoying the destruction they cause to the innocent people in Lancaster. She believes the Native Americans are the tools God is using to punish the colonists for committing sins and to test the Puritans’ faithfulness. As Lang says, “Each incident of Rowlandson's life in captivity--from the fact that she did not get her feet wet in her first river crossing to her new distaste for tobacco--confirms the justice of God's past and present dealings with her, and each finds its type in the Bible” (“Mary”). Rowlandson does an excellent job reinforcing her faith throughout the journey; she follows the scriptures in the Bible for every good or bad event that occurs to