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The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives
Among the most celebrated captivity narratives, Rowlandson's account of her abduction by the Narragansett Indians in 1676 details her hardships and suffering, along with invaluable observations on Native American life. Also includes three other famous narratives of captivity among the Delawares, the Iroquois, and the Indians of the Allegheny.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1915
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 21, 2011
I think readers need to remember this is a primary source. It biased and one sided as many primary sources are. I think readers want it to be happy, balanced, and politically correct. History us rarely any of the above listed. What is unfortunate is the lack of indigenous accounts during this era, just statistical data, archeological date and accounts gleaned from European colonist. But to disregard these narratives as comedy is disturbing, just because Mary Rowlandson doesn't think like us at present shouldn't dismiss what she is saying. She is needed for context as much as the suffering and diaspora of native peoples are needed for full understanding. Mary Rowlandson era was brutal and short sighted. How will our era be remembered by history?
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June 15, 2013Four 1st person accounts of American colonists taken captive by Native Americans:
James Smith, adopted by the Delawares 1755-1759, provides an insightful view of his adoptive family's culture
Jesuit priest Father Bressani, captured and tortured by the Iroquois, 1644; amazingly, after healing from this ordeal, he returned to Canada to continue missionary work
Mary Rowlandson, minister's wife, captured and enslaved by the Wamponoags, 1676
Mercy Harbison's heroic and amazing escape from Native Am warriors, 1792
From James Smith's story - During part of one winter, Smith lives alone in the woods with his old, crippled uncle, Tecaughretanego, and a small boy. Smith is their only source of food, but a time comes when Smith has been hunting for 2 days without catching any game and without eating more than broth cooked from bare bones. His adoptive uncle advises him:
"'Brother, - As you have lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of knowing that the great Being above feeds his people, and gives them their meat in due season, as we Indians have, who are frequently out of provisions, and yet are wonderfully supplied, and that so frequently, that it is evidently the hand of the great Owaneeyo that doth this. Whereas the white people have commonly large stocks of tame cattle, that they can kill when they please, and also their barns and cribs filled with grain, and therefore have not the same opportunity of seeing and knowing that they are supported by the Ruler of heaven and earth.
"Brother, - I have been young, but now am old; I have been frequently under the like circumstances that we are now, and that some time or other in almost every year of my life; yet I have hitherto been supported, and my wants supplied in time of need.
"Brother, - Owaneeyo sometimes suffers us to be in want, in order to teach us our dependence upon him, and to let us know that we are to love and serve him; and likewise to know the worth of the favors that we receive, and to make us more thankful.
"Brother, - Be assured that you will be supplied with food, and that just in the right time; but you must continue diligent in the use of means. Go to sleep, and rise early in the morning and go a-hunting; be strong, and exert yourself like a man, and the Great Spirit will direct your way.'"
The next morning, Smith's hunt again is futile, and in despair he decides to run away and abandon the old man and young boy. As he is starting his flight, he comes across buffalo tracks and succeeds in killing a cow, which he takes back to his adopted uncle.
James Smith, adopted by the Delawares 1755-1759, provides an insightful view of his adoptive family's culture
Jesuit priest Father Bressani, captured and tortured by the Iroquois, 1644; amazingly, after healing from this ordeal, he returned to Canada to continue missionary work
Mary Rowlandson, minister's wife, captured and enslaved by the Wamponoags, 1676
Mercy Harbison's heroic and amazing escape from Native Am warriors, 1792
From James Smith's story - During part of one winter, Smith lives alone in the woods with his old, crippled uncle, Tecaughretanego, and a small boy. Smith is their only source of food, but a time comes when Smith has been hunting for 2 days without catching any game and without eating more than broth cooked from bare bones. His adoptive uncle advises him:
"'Brother, - As you have lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of knowing that the great Being above feeds his people, and gives them their meat in due season, as we Indians have, who are frequently out of provisions, and yet are wonderfully supplied, and that so frequently, that it is evidently the hand of the great Owaneeyo that doth this. Whereas the white people have commonly large stocks of tame cattle, that they can kill when they please, and also their barns and cribs filled with grain, and therefore have not the same opportunity of seeing and knowing that they are supported by the Ruler of heaven and earth.
"Brother, - I have been young, but now am old; I have been frequently under the like circumstances that we are now, and that some time or other in almost every year of my life; yet I have hitherto been supported, and my wants supplied in time of need.
"Brother, - Owaneeyo sometimes suffers us to be in want, in order to teach us our dependence upon him, and to let us know that we are to love and serve him; and likewise to know the worth of the favors that we receive, and to make us more thankful.
"Brother, - Be assured that you will be supplied with food, and that just in the right time; but you must continue diligent in the use of means. Go to sleep, and rise early in the morning and go a-hunting; be strong, and exert yourself like a man, and the Great Spirit will direct your way.'"
The next morning, Smith's hunt again is futile, and in despair he decides to run away and abandon the old man and young boy. As he is starting his flight, he comes across buffalo tracks and succeeds in killing a cow, which he takes back to his adopted uncle.
October 31, 2019
"The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives" shows modern readers what it was like for whites to live alongside and against Native America; however, all of this must not be read as a true history of civility versus savagery, but as a story of bias, misunderstanding, and exaggeration. While it is true that all of the captives presented within these narratives no doubt endured hardships and suffering, it is also evident that they refused to try to understand their captor's cultured, all save Colonel James Smith. Smith's account stands as proof of something closer to the reality of Native American culture; evidence of logic, reason, and a clear, albeit different, civilization.
This text is one that must be read with a grain of salt because on one hand, it gives a unique, primary insight into the reality of the times, but, on the other hand, it paints Native Americans as brute savages, and these depictions have been used for too long as confirmation of ill-founded bias.
This text is one that must be read with a grain of salt because on one hand, it gives a unique, primary insight into the reality of the times, but, on the other hand, it paints Native Americans as brute savages, and these depictions have been used for too long as confirmation of ill-founded bias.
February 1, 2008
If you've never read any captivity narratives, this is where to start. It's entirely engaging, not just as a story in and of itself, but also in terms of the politics that surround it. Read it along with "Puritans Among the Indians", and it becomes evident how various parties used Rowlandson's narrative to further their own agendas.
January 26, 2021
"All the English want to do is exterminate your heathen race from the face of the Earth and you get all fussy about it and you attack my family and now you won't give me any food." –Mary Rowlandson, probably
The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives is a collection of four short captivity narratives, a genre that nobody reads anymore because it's hella problematic, but which used to be the hottest genre in all America for centuries, because it combines adventure and titillation. The Account of Mary Rowlandson was one of the oldest and most popular captive narratives, and reading it is a good, short spotlight on the colonial era, but meh. About fifty percent of the narrative is Mary complaining that no one will give her food, describing food people give her, talking about the food she is eating, and wondering when someone will give her food again. Hunger preoccupies the mind but it makes a boring story. Mary Rowlandson was captured during King Phillip's War, when Natives were fighting on the side of the French against the British and taking white people hostage for ransom, which is what happened to her. Her story is the most poorly told, and it's very hard to gather a sense of what where she was was actually like. Her relatives pop up randomly in the remotest places: "We we were a million miles in the hinterland of a savage forest and my son was there." Wait, what? She meets King Phillip and makes him a shirt. And she is allocated to a Native family and knits them socks and then their baby dies and she's appallingly salty about it: " More room for me!" Happily, her story is short and there are three more in the book:
Father Bressani's Captivity Among the Iroquois is comprised of two letters describing how the Iroquois tortured the bejeezus out of Father Bressani; and the Captivity and Escape of Mercy Harbinson is sad and amazing, because she survived and kept her baby alive while running for days barefoot to get back to white people after seeing her two sons murdered, but also makes one wonder what she was doing living in an unsecured house in a war zone and expecting that to end well.
Colonel James Smith's Life Among the Delawares is the best and longest of the narratives. He is adopted into the tribe as a man, has a goof with a gun that demotes him to a boy, and then lives with the Delaware for another four years. He's the only writer to give good detail about the people he was living with, and he's funny: Some women ask him to help them tend the field and he does, but then his brother makes fun of him and tells him that gardening is unmanly, and he says, "...not being inclined toward work," he would not help the women again. He lives with one brother, who's an adoptive relative somehow, but then is invited to go with another brother, and the first brother says that going with that brother would be a good experience, so he goes with him; there's a lot of going from summer camp, to winter camp, to other camp, to the French occasionally. He becomes a skilled hunter when, but he has a couple stories about being lost outside over night. This was definitely the best of the bunch and I appreciate his skill as a storyteller and observer of another culture.
The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives is a collection of four short captivity narratives, a genre that nobody reads anymore because it's hella problematic, but which used to be the hottest genre in all America for centuries, because it combines adventure and titillation. The Account of Mary Rowlandson was one of the oldest and most popular captive narratives, and reading it is a good, short spotlight on the colonial era, but meh. About fifty percent of the narrative is Mary complaining that no one will give her food, describing food people give her, talking about the food she is eating, and wondering when someone will give her food again. Hunger preoccupies the mind but it makes a boring story. Mary Rowlandson was captured during King Phillip's War, when Natives were fighting on the side of the French against the British and taking white people hostage for ransom, which is what happened to her. Her story is the most poorly told, and it's very hard to gather a sense of what where she was was actually like. Her relatives pop up randomly in the remotest places: "We we were a million miles in the hinterland of a savage forest and my son was there." Wait, what? She meets King Phillip and makes him a shirt. And she is allocated to a Native family and knits them socks and then their baby dies and she's appallingly salty about it: " More room for me!" Happily, her story is short and there are three more in the book:
Father Bressani's Captivity Among the Iroquois is comprised of two letters describing how the Iroquois tortured the bejeezus out of Father Bressani; and the Captivity and Escape of Mercy Harbinson is sad and amazing, because she survived and kept her baby alive while running for days barefoot to get back to white people after seeing her two sons murdered, but also makes one wonder what she was doing living in an unsecured house in a war zone and expecting that to end well.
Colonel James Smith's Life Among the Delawares is the best and longest of the narratives. He is adopted into the tribe as a man, has a goof with a gun that demotes him to a boy, and then lives with the Delaware for another four years. He's the only writer to give good detail about the people he was living with, and he's funny: Some women ask him to help them tend the field and he does, but then his brother makes fun of him and tells him that gardening is unmanly, and he says, "...not being inclined toward work," he would not help the women again. He lives with one brother, who's an adoptive relative somehow, but then is invited to go with another brother, and the first brother says that going with that brother would be a good experience, so he goes with him; there's a lot of going from summer camp, to winter camp, to other camp, to the French occasionally. He becomes a skilled hunter when, but he has a couple stories about being lost outside over night. This was definitely the best of the bunch and I appreciate his skill as a storyteller and observer of another culture.
October 10, 2018
I have to admit, I read this book for my American Lit. class about a week ago. This was a semi challenging read simply because of the difference in writing style and the racist undertones. I have an issue with 1st person narratives. They all seem to be with out bias but in reality there is some form of it somewhere within this book. I feel sorry for Mary Rowlandson but also I am not sure if it wasn't justified. Puritans and soldiers were killing and kidnapping hundreds of native american's at this time in America and for people to think that it was only fair to do this to them and not vice versa I think is wrong. Also, what she goes through is terrible no doubt but how much of it is embellished? Drama was a popular thing during this time and portraying natives as heathens and barbarians certainly launched her and her family into some popular aspect of the culture. Overall, I would not have read this if not for class but I do think it is interesting seeing a change in narrative writing.
November 18, 2020
This wasn't the easiest book to get through. Some of the excerpts of Indian Captivity Narratives were tedious, however I do respect that they are primary documents, told through the words of the people that experienced them. I particularly enjoyed the tales of Mercy Harbinson (1792) and Father Bressani among the Iroquois (1644). I identified with Mercy Harbinson's desperate escape, clutching her surviving baby to her chest, picking up over 150 thorns in her feet and running desperate back towards the fort at the Ohio/Indiana border. And Bressani endured incredible torture and pain among the Iroquois. Having grown up in upstate NY where the Iroquois originally inhabited, I enjoyed reading his experience and give him all the praise in the world for his resilience, persistence, and grit. Though a short read, it took a lot to maintain focus as some were tedious to read.
June 6, 2017
Disclaimer: grab tissues. I am reading the books on our school's summer reading list for MS & HS so I can converse with them in the Fall on their summer reading. Yes. In Choir. The first night I read the account of the book's namesake (Mary Rowlandson), I was not at all prepared. I wept. While these accounts may not narrate a beautiful part of our nation's history in many ways, their stories boast of heroes future generations need to know. This statement by the Italian Jesuit missionary Father Bressani speaks to the value and purpose for it's place on the summer reading list: "...I consoled myself, seeing that God granted me the favor of suffering in this world..." (pg. 50).
October 23, 2025
This edition contains the fairly detailed account by Mary Rowlandson regarding her captivity during Metacom's (or King Philip's) War in 1676 (with the narrative being published six years later), and a short account by Mercy (a.k.a., "Massy") Harbison of her 1792 kidnapping and escape. Both contain small glimpses into the tribal culture and practices of the Indians of each region. Both women lost children during their ordeals. Above all, these captivity narratives offer evidence of the strong faith of these women in God's sovereignty and the sufficiency of his Providence, even in the midst of terror, great suffering, and tragic loss.
August 11, 2019
Boring
This book is absolutely terrible. This book was required for my summer reading assignment for my school and it was so hard to follow. I was having trouble staying awake throughout the whole book. It picked up in the last story, but the first one was absolutely dreadful. Not to mention the first story is half the entire book!!! What a waste of time.
This book is absolutely terrible. This book was required for my summer reading assignment for my school and it was so hard to follow. I was having trouble staying awake throughout the whole book. It picked up in the last story, but the first one was absolutely dreadful. Not to mention the first story is half the entire book!!! What a waste of time.
August 26, 2017
This was four different accounts by settlers that had been taken captive by Native Americans. They are all pretty graphic and horrifying - except for James Smith's story. A lot of it is hard to read.
March 22, 2026
North America's first bestseller (1682), and the book that created the "captivity narrative". Three other narratives are included, from 1755, 1644, and 1792. Interesting as historical and anthropological (esp. James Smith, 1755) documents.
January 28, 2023
Interesting… had to read for school and would never recommend. This was bland and inconsistent. “I never saw him again until I saw him again” was said multiple times.
April 9, 2023
Publ. 1682, one of the most popular of the Captivity narratives. Interesting and very short
November 28, 2023
Pretty grim and strange to think that all of these things happened where I now live.
November 22, 2016
In the late 1600s Mary Rowlandson was taken captive by Native Americans who were fighting a war with the English settlers. Honestly, I chose this book because of my previous reading about Mary in Flight of the Sparrow, and I found her narrative engaging as well. I feel that Mary was very brave for enduring captivity not only for her perseverance, but for her heightened awareness of the Native American plight. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in American history.
May 21, 2012
I love this book because it's real, it tells the story like it is, unrestrained from the pathetic political correctness that pervades our culture like an insidious smoke screen asphyxiating the true and natural self.
March 1, 2012
A better (okay, shorter) read than Hope Leslie, but I'd still rather never pick this up again.
April 15, 2014
Very interesting and very gory.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews