Katie Lucas (Parnian)

6 December 2012

The Transforming Indian and the Captivity Narrative

            The idea of researching the Captivity Narrative as an independent genre came to me while my initial research regarding the assimilation and missionization of the Native American was underway. At first, I was primarily interested in researching the “why” and “how” some Native Americans chose to adopt Christianity, thus becoming missionaries for a religion, which by and large suppressed their native customs and treated the very fabric of their culture with disdain and suspicion. I found several parallels between the reasons for why assimilating into the White dominant culture inadvertently may have helped Native Americans preserve their identities and pass on their traditions, as it did for other minority groups, including African-Americans and Chicanos in the works we have read in class. This feat was primarily accomplished through literacy and education. It may appear that the reasons for doing so were purely out of desperation for survival and the surrendering of culture norms that were being rapidly stamped out by a the rapid growth of colonization. However, through my readings, I have found that key characters in literary works, such as Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Bless Me Ultima, as well as historical figures like Frederick Douglas, effectively used assimilation to their own advantage.

            Although I did find such parallels interesting and thought-provoking enough, my curiosity began to draw itself in the direction of the captivity narrative itself, in an effort to understand how the dual perception of Native Americans on the part of mainstream society took root. More specifically, I wanted to more clearly understand how a once feared and despised people began to become romanticized in the popular culture of today. While conducting my research, I was astonished to find that the prevalence of Indian captivity was so widespread to the point that it became a seedling for the creation of an entire genre in and of itself. Little did I know that the first-hand accounts of settlers who spent time living amongst the Native Americans, either voluntarily or by force, were often in stark contrast to the propaganda spread by them within the confines of colonial society in order to instill fear and further suspicion. These are the subjects I explored in more depth within the body of my journal.

In their book, The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900, Derounian-Stodola and Levernier convey the grim message that the reality of being taken captive by various Indian tribes during years spanning Colonial America was a very legitimate reality that was often associated in the minds of white settlers as a reality worse than death and one worth taking a bullet for. This was especially true for young white men, who were often times tortured and killed as reparations for the deaths of individual tribal warriors as well as the acquisition of tribal lands by the settlers. According to the same source, “Conservative estimates place the number of captives taken by Indians in the tens of thousands” (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier). The same source continues to mention that during the French and Indian War alone, 750 settlers were captured and taken to Canada as well as 1,641 New England settlers were known to have been captured by various tribes between the years of 1675 and 1763. Although exact figures for later periods are inconclusive, Indian captivity of white settlers continued to remain relatively frequent well into the latter part of the nineteenth century (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier).

            According to the same source, the primary reasons for taking settlers captive on the part of the Indians included revenge, ransom, slavery, and to replace tribal members by war, disease, or through general consequences of white colonization. As previously mentioned, young white men were frequently the target of torture and murder, especially if they tried to portray a courageous or defiant front towards their captors. The primary modes of torture included disembowelment, burning at the steak, decapitation and cannibalism. These would seem to be likely chosen methods due to the fear factor they would perpetuate within white society as well as a tool to keep other prisoners compliant.

            Although there do exist records of instances in which white women were put to death, they were normally adopted into the tribe along with children. The largest fear factor involving the captivity of white women, which one was often exploited by the press in an effort to spread propaganda, framing Native American men as sex-depraved savages, was the fear of rape at the hands of Indian captors. However, the two most famous female captive narratives, that of Mary Jemison and Mary Rowlandson, painted a picture of Native Americans as a people who were respectful of their personal chastity and as a largely peace-loving people. This may have been the case for a number of reasons, which include the possibility of a white female captive becoming a male tribal member’s sister after being officially adopted into the tribe, the questionable perceived attractiveness of white women to Native American men, and the practiced abstinence practiced by tribal men in an effort to sustain a high level of testosterone before going to battle. In addition, white women would also be more likely keep instances of sexual abuse to themselves in order to protect their reputation and not be viewed as sinful or unchaste (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier).

I was personally astonished to discover that there exist roughly close to 250 captivity narratives, a number reflective only of works written prior to 1800. Among these also include narratives written by African-Americans. The narratives written by African-Americans include but are not limited to A Narrative of Uncommon Sufferings and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man (1760), and A Narrative of the Lord’s Wonderful Dealings of John Marrant, a Black (1785). This number also is not reflective of the narratives written in languages other than English (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier).

            Although captivity narratives have created their own staple within the fabric of American culture and literature, the female captivity narrative created an especially significant impact in its own right. This is largely due to the preoccupation with feminine propriety at a time in which “the white female was easily seen as representing the community or nation as a whole” (Whitman,7). Therefore, such a delicate issue as women’s propriety became a key instrument in promoting propaganda against Native Americans, regardless whether or not such negative claims were truly founded in the female captivity narratives themselves. Whitman shed further light on the impact this issue carried within White American culture in the following words:

“The stark contrast in the narrative between the white captive and her savage captor reinforces American cultural perceptions of the “other.” Historically, such narratives have been used to promote the duality of “good versus evil,” Christianity versus non-Christianity, and the American way of life versus the way of others. The narratives have therefore frequently become a source of propaganda to promote racial stereotyping and the demonization of the “other.” One may in fact argue that such narratives have persisted because the readily capture the American belief in the nation’s innocence as well as the inherent justice of national actions, even violent ones (Whitman, 8).

            However, according to Derounian-Stodola and Levernier, young girls and children were normally considered the most easily adaptable to tribal life, and there are several accounts of young women who were taken captive and who refused to return to colonial life, even when rescued. Among the most famous of these include Mary Jemison, who was abducted at age 12 in 1755 by a Shawnee tribe. After the initial trauma of witnessing the murder of her family near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, she readily embraced life with her adopted Seneca family after being transported to Ohio. Jemison is remembered in historical accounts as “The White Woman of the Genesee”, thus reflecting the majority of her life spent in the western New York Genesee River Valley, where she was married to two Indian chiefs and bore and raised her children. After spending some years as the leader of her Seneca tribe, she died at age 90 in 1833. To this day, her figure has one its place in American folklore and legend (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier). 

            Frances Slocum, remembered by her family as “the Lost Sister of Wyoming”, was taken captive by a tribe of Delaware Indians in 1778 in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. After being found 50 years later, Slocum delivered the following response to the numerous pleas for her to return to her hometown and to her original family:

            “No I cannot. I have always lived with the Indians. They have always used me very kindly. I am used to them. The Great Spirit has always allowed me to live with them, and I wish to live and die with them. Your Wah-puh-mone (looking-glass) may be larger than mine, but this is my home. I do not wish to live any better, or any where else, and I think the Great Spirit has permitted me to live so long, because I have always lived with the Indians. I should have died sooner if I had left them. My husband and my boys are buried here, and I cannot leave them. On his dying day my husband charged me not to leave the Indians. I have a house, and large lands, two daughters, a son-in-law, three grandchildren, and everything to make me comfortable. Why should I go, and be like a fish out of the water?” (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier)

            After reading such a profoundly heartfelt plea by a colonist to remain in the company of her fellow tribesmen and women, I had to ask myself why living amongst the company of a people so removed from a particular culture and learned customs would be an attractive alternative for some. While such cases of White Americans successfully and permanently naturalizing themselves into Indian society gained notoriety and attention, none were as influential as that of Mary Rowlandson’s autobiographical narrative entitled, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Rowlandson’s account was published in 1682, making it the first published captivity narrative in colonial history.

 Rowlandson’s account of captivity began in in 1675 during King Phillip’s War, otherwise known as Metacom’s War. She, along with her two older children, were among the twenty-four captives who survived the gruesome assault on her town. However, she was quickly separated from her children, who were sold off elsewhere, and she was relocated over 20 times, spanning 150 miles in the dead of winter. Although he was held captive for only a little over a year ( a small amount of time compared with that of Jemison and Slocum) her gripping account of the horrors she witnessed when taken captive and the cruelties experienced at the hands of a fellow tribeswoman were sensationalized in her written work proceeding her return. Her narrative mentioned above was an instant best-seller and quickly established itself as the “first indigenous American literary form, and it was a first example of a publication of a Puritan woman(especially in prose rather than poetry), and it rapidly obtained a reputation as a perennially popular classic”  (Derounian-Stodola and Levernier). The popularity of Rowlandson’s novel was also more than likely linked to her status as the wife of a successful minister, her family’s reputable background, and the fact that her education lent itself to the ability to describe her experiences in high literary form, therefore evoking a more powerful emotional response in the reader. The following excerpt was taken from her novel and illustrates her ability to evoke emotion and imagery through her written skill and learning:

            “Thus were we butchered by those merciless heathen, standing amazed, with the blood running down to our heels. My eldest sister being yet in the house, and seeing those woeful sights, the infidels hauling mothers one way, and children another, and some wallowing in their blood: and her elder son telling her that her son William was dead, and myself was wounded, she said, ‘And Lord, let me die with them,’ which was no sooner said, but she was struck with a bullet, and fell down dead over the threshold” (Whitman, 26).          

The remaining aspects and tales of her experiences living among her captors were a bundle of bittersweet accounts. Though she suffered mistreatment at the hands of her mistress, combined with exposure to extreme weather conditions, and little food (not to mention a diet with which she was unaccustomed), Rowlandson did document some positive accounts of kindness towards her from some of the natives she lived amongst and interacted with. One of which being a weathered Bible given to her by an Indian after a town raid. She also claimed that she did not feel pressured to submit her body sexually and that she had not been raped. Throughout her narrative, she consistently attributes her survival to her unwavering faith in God as well as her reading of the Bible to muster the strength to carry on through the trials she endured. Her ransom was eventually paid, and she was returned to her husband, who quickly sought after and were reunited with their remaining children.

            However, it has been speculated that Rowlandson wrote her autobiography years after her return as a quest of spiritual redemption…redemption for going along with the Indians rather than taking her own life. Although Whitman describes the English woman’s assumed role as to be submissive to both husband and God, there was a sense of guilt in that living amongst the Indians was an expression of accepting Indian customs, even if it was by force. A similar attitude prevailed amongst English men as well, who were rather expected to resist and fight. Whitmore illustrates these expectations on English men when she describes the circumstances regarding a male returning captives fate, “Those English male captives returned from captivity were often judged for their capitulation, and in one instance, a male captive had been executed upon his return” (Whitman, 23-24). In addition, Whitman continues to expand on the idea that the issues of captivity and redemption lay at the heart of the Rowlandson narrative. Furthermore, “The issue of whether or not Rowlandson’s behavior made her a hero or a victim is largely predicated upon, not the fact of her survival, but on the nature of survival, that is, is the particular tactics she chose to stay alive (Whitman, 30).

The popularity of the captivity narrative in American culture can undoubtedly be witnessed within its movies and fictional novels, which serve to romanticize the idea of reaching beyond the confines of the familiar and accepted cultural norms and practices of a native culture and, in some instances, embracing it and forsaking that of the native culture. Popular fictional treatments, bringing the integration of Indian and White cultures to a crisis, which have been further promoted through cinema, include Last of the Mohicans and Dances with Wolves. The cinematic treatments of these works serve not only to further sensationalize and romanticize the image of the Native American, but also to promote the historically polarized view of the Indian as either the embodiment of good or evil. This polarized view of the Indian was its roots embedded deeply within colonial history and can be traced to reflect the Divine Right perspective that only an Indian who forfeited both religion and culture (both viewed as interdependent on the other) to assimilate to the White culture could escape the label as an inheritantly evil savage. McCarthy reiterates the above notion of complete assimilation and acceptance of the Native Americans by White society in the following words: “…religious conversion was complete only if it was accompanied by cultural transformation (assimilation); in other words, if assimilation was impossible, so was true conversion” (McCarthy, 354).

            The attitude that a Native American could only truly redeem themselves from their reputation of having a demonic and savage nature through complete assimilation could be seen in the attitudes white society placed upon Native American missionaries. Bross touches on this idea in her article, “Dying Saints, Vanishing Savages” when she  quotes Neal Salisbury’s commentary on Puritans and the idea of conversion in the following words:

“Conversion, as defined by the Puritans, presupposed their domination of the prospective converts and the latter’s isolation from outside influences. These preconditions, in turn, required that the colonists establish complete control over their claimed territory and that they eliminate any powerful “savage” contenders. Missionization officially began only after the Puritan colonies had carried out a war of extermination against the Pequotes in 1637, and began a war of attrition…against the Narragansetts (Salisbury, 30).

            However, many Indians openly spoke out against conversion and openly resisted assimilation. On the other hand, there were those, such as the Mohegan, Reverend Samson Occom, who decided to embrace rather than reject Christianity by becoming a New England missionary and teacher. Accounts state that “Occom’s white contemporaries were proud of his accomplishments as a Christian preacher but were uneasy about his Indianness.  The terms they used to describe Occom, such as “Pious Mohegan,” “Indian preacher,” “Red Christian”, and “Praying Indian”, reveal the tensions between his two identities” (McCarthy, 354). However, Occom himself developed into an icon of much debate and controversy regarding the true extent of his “Indian-ness” in that, in his view, there was “no contradiction in these two positions” (McCarthy, 356), or that of his identifiable heritage and his spiritual loyalties. In other words, he viewed Christianity as a state of belief or being independent from language, cultural practices, and heritage, and that the two were not dependent upon one other. Salisbury continues to touch on the points of debate concerning this controversial figure by stating that he was “criticized for being either too Indian or not Indian enough” (Salisbury, 355). The author also suggests that Occom voiced his disapproval of Indian missionaries being used as trailblazers for white missionaries, in that Indian preachers were often used as “stand –in” preachers only until a white minister could be found to replace him at a parish. However, he was spoken of with criticism by his own people for “demanding that his students assimilate by not allowing them to speak in their native tongue or wear traditional Indian dress” (McCarthy, 355). After taking these facts into consideration, I have to wonder if perhaps Occom advocated white standards for behavior in order to appease critical voices and to simultaneously both acquire and pass on skills, such as reading and writing, in order thus to help others and himself preserve their culture. Since these skills were often acquired through schools run by parishes, this would likely be the main avenue to acquire education.

We can see various reasons given as justification for the dominant culture forcing native groups to change their way of life, their home, or their religion. This becomes a topic in literature from Native Americans and other minorities in modern time and in some way relates to the blame that would have been attached to Indians taking Whites into captivity. That blame could be either reinforced by the person relating their captivity experience or defused if the person spoke well of their captors. In either case, the image of the Native American as a vanishing heathen from the lime light of the American frontier was a continual fantasy and celebrated thought by the majority who believed they could win through dividing and conquering. However, its romanticized image appears to hold the true staying power of a people whose very soul lived and breathed the land of it ancestors, the very romantic image of which has kept its people alive and mirrored within popular fiction, cinema, and our collective identity as Americans.

            Initially, I had a couple of very interesting articles that proposed the idea that the American fascination with UFOs, otherwise known as Unidentified Flying Objects, actually has its roots within the captivity narrative itself. For instance, the articles I read explored the idea that the entire fascination  and fear of capture, living amongst a foreign people and relinquishing an entire way of life previously known was based upon the accounts of those who had to relinquish their previous identities an adapt another for survival purposes. I had actually included a couple of pages of very interesting information derived from Michael Sturma’s article, “Aliens and Indians: A Comparison of Abduction and Captivity Narratives.” However, due to persistence headaches with technology, much of this information was lost, so I chose to wrap up the information that I had gathered previously and use this topic as the focus of what I would like to further explore on this subject. Among the questions I would like to propose would be, “In what ways has the captivity narrative,” as a genre, inspired alien abduction stories?” and “What are their parallels?” Furthermore, I would also like to discover what factors lay at the source of how and why the notion of alien abduction and Indian captivity narratives have become so romanticized and popular within American culture.

Works Cited

Bross, Kristina. "Dying Saints,Vanishing Savages 'Dying Indian Speeches' In Colonial New England Literature." Early American Literature 36.3 (2001): 325. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Z, and James Levernier. The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900. New York: G.K. Hall & Co, 1999. Internet resource.

McCarthy, Keely. "Conversion, Identity, and The Indian Missionary." Early American Literature 36.3 (2001): 353. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Sturma, Michael. "Aliens and Indians: A Comparison of Abduction and Captivity Narratives." Journal of Popular Culture 36.2 (2002): 318-334. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Whitman, Gailyn F. “Female Captive Stories in the United States From the Colonial Era to the Present: A Study in the Pervasive Elements of the Traditional Narrative.” Diss. Kansas State University, 2005.