Puritans believed in treating one another as brothers, loving one another and having compassion for members of society. They also believed all persons must be virtuous to one another, for God will reward people based on how well they treat their neighbors. Despite holding themselves to such high standards in society, Puritans’ perception of Native Americans has many flaws which they had failed to realize. Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan and the mistress to Joseph Rowlandson, the minister of the Church of Lancaster. She placed God first in her narrative which shows how committed she was to the Christian religion, how much she trusted the Lord and how much she wanted society to sympathize with her. However, there is clear indication, Puritans just like Rowlandson, were one sided in their view of the ideas of Native Americans, so much that when Natives did not share Puritans’ ideas about life, Indians became an outcast, a social misfit, a savage, a beast or a devil. Native Americans did not have the same views of the world as Puritans; therefore Rowlandson labeled them in her narrative with all the bad names she could imagine to paint them as people with low integrity and animalistic behavior, in other to appeal for public sympathy on her captivity.
To begin with, a major flaw in Puritans’ Prejudiced view of Indians is that, it was okay to take advantage or hurt Native Americans selfishly, but Native Americans have no right to retaliate. Puritans could not spot their mistakes against Indians but they were able to identify and criticize any crime committed or action taken by Native Americans as a pay back for the suppression that Europeans have inflicted on the Native American communities.
Native Americans were the victims of colonization and they suffered the harshest treatments from this group of people who came to their land, took away everything for the sake of civilization and Christianization, and displaced Indian families. Rowlandson’s narrative portrayed the Native Americans as the black sheep; the ones causing unrest and discomfort for others in the community, in other to paint Indians as inhumane to the rest of the world, meanwhile, Puritans and other Europeans have started the problem themselves by invading Indian communities.
Another flaw in Puritans’ perception of the world is they viewed civilization as life that has nothing to do with savagery or wilderness. Rowlandson did not believe that someone who resides in the natural habitat and lives solely on the fruit of the land is civilized; as such she regarded Indians as animals. She failed to see that the lives of Indians are totally connected to the natural world around them. She made constant mockery of the good work of God on the Indians without realizing it in her narrative. She described Indians as people who ate coarse food such as horse meat and bear, lived in wigwams, and spent their days traveling through forests and swamps. She speculated Indians were violent savages and merciless enemies because of Indian’s natural way of living. In Rowlandson’s “Ninth Remove,” when a squaw gave her a piece of bear and ground-nuts to eat with it, she was totally surprised by the kindness but, due to her prejudiced view of savagery, the thought of eating the bear made her tremble because she thought it was enough to turn the stomach of “a bruit of creature” .Ibid., 85. She failed to see that Indians have been living from generation to generation on the type of food that looked disgusting to her and it didn’t remind her of how wonderful God has created the Indians to withstand such difficult life situations that she has witnessed.
Rowlandson did not believe she had anything in common with Indians. She viewed herself as superior to any Indian. This created many problems between her and her Madam, Wettimore. Wettimore was as vain as a rich white woman and Rowlandson spent most of her time with Wettimore, who controlled all of Rowlandson’s activities, creating rivalry and competition between the two of them. She failed to see Wettimore as an Indian woman in the same position of power compared to her, as the mistress of a minister. Rowlandson thought she was still the greatest female in the household of the captors, as such, anything Wettimore told her was a joke unless Wettimore threatened her to comply. Rowlandson’s attitude towards the “Praying Indians” also revealed the lack of respect for equality for Indians. The “Praying Indians” claimed to have converted to Christianity but it is clear Rowlandson did not think they were full children of God. In Rowlandson’s “nineteenth remove,” she encountered a “Praying Indian” who had a brother that refused to eat horse. When he narrated the story to Rowlandson, she said of him that “his conscience was so tender and scrupulous (though as large as hell, for the destruction of poor Christians)”.Ibid., 98. Rowlandson’s description of the “Praying Indian” goes beyond just an insult to these Indians but rather making fool of the conversion of Indians to Christianity. If Puritans and other Europeans could not consider the converted Indians as complete children of God, then they should not have bothered Christianizing them in the first place. It can be construed that Christianization was not actually meant to prepare Indians to accept God and be His Children, but a conspiracy by Europeans and other Puritans to make them feel loved, in other to rip Indians off their land, property and identity.
In addition, despite the fact that Rowlandson ate and enjoyed Indians’ food, and at times behaved with callousness comparable to that of her captors, she denied having anything in common with the Indians throughout her narrative. Even when she recognized the similarities between her life now and the captors, she continued to call them pagans and merciless animals. She forgot all along, the captors were keeping her alive and did not kill her just like they did to other people captured by the Indians. Rowlandson did not slip once into self realization about why the war was perfect, in favor of the Indians, and might be an action from God to teach Europeans lessons on the abuse and humiliation they have caused to Indians, simply because of their skin color and their way of living. It can be argued that at a point in Rowlandson’s experience, it became clear civilization and savagery were no longer so distinct. In her “Nineteenth Remove,” upon meeting King Philip and the king asked a squaw to give her some Beans and meat, she said “I was wonderfully revived with this favor shewed me”. Ibid., 96. Her initial vision of the world as a place defined by opposites – good and evil, civilization and savagery, Puritans and Indians, eventually gave way to a worldview that contained more ambiguity. She realized the King was not as bad as she thought and even described him of not making any sexual intension towards her. She began negotiating deals with the Indians and got involved in trade that would eventually save her. She promised to pay the Indians if they can let her go home and stay with her husband. This shows Rowlandson now considered the captors trading partners toward her release and if you don’t see people as having something in common with you, there is no need to make a trade agreement.
Rowlandson submitted to the captors because she was powerless and had no other option. When she met King Philip, he had a great impact on her. Though as a leader with power and status, Philip seemed to stay away from the politics and violence of his people and seems distant from the war that bore his name. When King Philip first met her, he was very courteous, offering her some of his tobacco in a gesture of friendship. Philip’s action was totally different from what leaders of British colonies will do with a female captive, from Rowlandson’s reaction. Being a king of a sense of entitlement, Philip engaged her in his culture on an economic level by offering her money or food for her services as a seamstress. This exchange, however small it may be, suggests Philip’s decency, humanity, respect, responsibility, businessman, and equality of human beings. Rowlandson may be a captive of his tribe, but she is still a person, and she is not a slave. This made Rowlandson feel more at home with her captors and the idea that the Indians were just bunch of animals without feelings for others started to disappear. However, despite Philip’s basic decency and kindness, he did not set Rowlandson free. Though as a leader, he might have had the power to do so and he also refused to attend the meeting called by the General courts of the Indians to discuss freeing Rowlandson, hence prolonging Rowlandson’s captivity. He later offered Rowlandson her freedom in exchange for clothing, money, and food, but Rowlandson distrusted him, fearing he’ll go back on his word. Rowlandson complained about the lifestyle of King Philip but that wasn’t the worst that could have happened to her, he would have killed her. This reveals another flaw in the world view of Puritans; they think everything must go according to how Puritans wanted it, and if it doesn’t, then it’s uncivilized or devilish but, this could mean a strategy for Indians to clearly send their message out to Europeans to stop invading their lands, property and displacing many of the Indian communities.
Puritans can be argued to believe that the scriptures of the Bible were written only in their favor, so they can use the scriptures as weapons against Indians when they were victims. Rowlandson failed to realize some of the scriptures fitted better into the situation of Native Americans. She read her Bible almost every hour and the scriptures came to her at the time she needed it most to strengthen her weakening soul. In her “second remove”, she said “It is not my tongue, or pen can express the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit, that I had at this departure: but God was with me, in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit, that not quite fail”. Ibid., 71. This scripture fitted very well in her current predicament but the scripture fitted the Indians as well, because they have been molested, rejected, devalued, maltreated and removed from their own land by these Puritans and other Europeans for many years and had no one to complain or tell their story for justification. They lived life by chance all these times and the pain they suffered haunted them every single day. The sorrows of Native Americans were far heavier than what Rowlandson was experiencing on a larger scale, so quoting that scripture was simply one of her calls for the public to sympathize with her, without taking into consideration the pains and humiliation Europeans were inflicting on the Indians.
Rowlandson was successful luring audiences to sympathize with her, especially the British because generally, the British held the same selfish ideas like that of Puritans. The narrative would have been a failure if it were published in Native American communities because the rant about her captivity was nothing compared to the pain and humiliations suffered by Native Americans and also, most of the Natives were illiterate and would not bother purchasing it.
To conclude, Rowlandson’s narrative sounds very pathetic if considered as a single entity but when the harassments and pains unleashed on the Indians by Europeans are considered, her narrative is more of a childish cry which revealed major flaws in Puritans’ prejudiced view of Native Americans.
1. Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (Massachusetts: Bedford Series, 1682)
2. Ibid.
Native Americans, English colonists, and just about every other human group in history has been guilty of savagery and cruelty. Violence and sadism are just some of the unfortunate traits of humanity, regardless of race or nationality. The Indians were simply more justified because America was their home first, and it was the Englishmen who were the intruders. It’s only natural that the Indians would retaliate; their way of life was in danger.
Although Mary may have received kindness from a few Indians, and although she could not put her Puritan prejudices aside, her overall experience with the Indians could not have given her a reason to think well of them. How would that be realistic? She saw them brutally and gleefully murder many of her people–strip them naked, smash their heads in, slice open their bellies. They shot her little girl and let the child die a long, agonizing death. Even when an Indian would sometimes take pity and give Mary a scrap of food, another might steal it if she didn’t eat it fast enough. It is too much to expect a simple and indoctrinated person like Mary to see the “big picture” of the struggle in America, especially after personally suffering so much pain, loss, and horror.
I think it’s possible to empathize with Mary without sharing her views or excusing what the English colonies did. That Mary’s people were guilty of atrocities against the Indians does not cancel out the fact that Mary herself was traumatized by what the Indians did to her. Mary did not have the benefit of our modern education, security, and comforts. We have the luxury to read about and reflect on these historical events without having to worry about whether someone is going to come along and murder us and our families because of who and what we are.
Instead of citing only the diary of one woman who genuinely suffered at the hands of the Indians, it might be more effective to cite other sources that show the flaws and prejudices in Puritan thinking–and, in particular, show how the Puritan attitude led to conflicts like this in the first place.