The challenges Mary Rowlandson faces throughout the book are wildly traumatic. She is ripped apart from everything that she knows and thrown into this chaotic life as someone being held captive. She is forced to see her loved ones die due to the brutality of the Indians. Rowlandson is able to stay somewhat strong throughout the process but she isn’t given many chances to see the kindness of the Indians, so she sees them as savages. I’m sure it is very difficult to see the good in the people that took everything from you and separated you from your family. The death of her brother-in-law and her youngest daughter definitely did not help that cause either.
Rowlandson faces many different types of savagery throughout the book. She is barely given the necessities she needs to survive, while also being constantly ordered around and talked down to, but this is war and thats how it changes people. After Mary and her family settle back in and build a house in Boston, she sees Indians that are now apart of the society there because they are now seen as friendly. This shows that war changes people and having a hate for your enemy will be a vital part in the war if you want to win. War brings savagery out in people and that is the reason Rowlandson views the Indians as savages, because she has only seen that side of them.
A question I pose is, do you think a Native American being held captive would have a similar story?
I think that is a really good question. While I am not familiar with any captivity narratives from the perspective of an American Indian, the paths taken by Massasoit and Metacomet. Massasoit, the sachem of the Wampanoag tribe, formed an alliance with the Plymouth colonists and allied with them against enemy tribes. However, Metacomet’s perspective of the colonists differed greatly from that of his father, Massasoit. This can be attributed to the rapid expansion and intrusion on the Wampanoag’s land, which Massasoit experienced on a far smaller level. The case of Metacomet exemplifies how interactions with colonists clearly altered his understanding of the settlers.
Except one time that Rowlandson was forced to give her apron to her master, I would say that she did not receive other serious mistreatment from the Indians. At the time, the Indian tribe was suffering from hunger and cold weather. The depiction of Thanksgiving was pretty tough,and she barely had anything to eat. Speaking of being a prisoner, I think it would depend on how much threat the prisoner holds in the situation. Rowlandson was just powerless woman, and I think that is why she could live through all her sufferings.
This is a very thought provoking question. If a Native American did in fact get captured by colonists, there is reason to believe he/she would give an account similar to Mary’s. Perhaps the Indians’ thought the colonists were savages, since they were unfamiliar with their customs and beliefs. It would depend on how the Indian was treated while in captivity as well as the colonists’ attitude and behavior towards that Indian civilization. Had the colonists come in and wiped out an Indian village, there is a good chance a captured Indian would describe them as being savages or barbaric.