Captivity narrative
Encyclopedia
The first American Barbary captivity narrative was by Abraham Browne (1655). The most popular was that of Captain James Riley
James Riley (Captain)
James Riley was the Captain of the United States merchant ship Commerce.-Sufferings in Africa:Riley led his crew through the Sahara Desert after they were shipwrecked off the coast of Western Sahara in August 1815, and wrote a book on their ordeal detailing his memoirs...
, entitled An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Brig Commerce (1817).
American Indian captivity narratives, stories of men and women of European descent who were captured by Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
s, were popular in both America and Europe from the 17th century until the close of the United States frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
late in the 19th century. Mary Rowlandson
Mary Rowlandson
Mary Rowlandson was a colonial American woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held for 11 weeks before being ransomed. After her release, she wrote a book about her experience, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and...
's memoir A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a classic example of the genre.
Jonathan Dickinson
Jonathan Dickinson
Jonathan Dickinson was a Quaker merchant from Port Royal, Jamaica who was shipwrecked on the southeast coast of Florida in 1696, along with his family and the other passengers and crew members of the ship....
's Journal, God's Protecting Providence ... (1699), an account by a Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
of shipwreck survivors captured by Indians in Florida, has been described by the Cambridge History of English and American Literature as "in many respects the best of all the captivity tracts." American captivity narratives were often based on true events, but they frequently contained fictional elements as well. Some were entirely fictional, created because the stories were popular. One spurious captivity narrative was The Remarkable Adventures of Jackson Johonnet
Jackson Johonnet
"Jackson Johonnet" was the pseudonymous author of a spurious Indian captivity narrative that enjoyed much popularity in the mid-1790s and was thereafter incorporated into the “canonical” body of accounts of white imprisonments, tortures and sufferings due to Native Americans.The narrative tells the...
, of Massachusetts (Boston, 1793).
Ann Eliza Bleecker
Ann Eliza Bleecker
Ann Eliza Bleecker was an American poet and correspondent. Following a New York upbringing, Bleecker married John James Bleecker, a New Rochelle lawyer, in 1769. He encouraged her writings, and helped her publish a periodical containing her works.The American Revolution saw John join the New York...
's epistolary novel
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
, The History of Maria Kittle, first published in 1793, is considered the first known Captivity novel. It set the form for subsequent Indian Capture novels.
Because of the competition between the French and English in North America, colonists in New England were frequently taken captive by Indians. The Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
s tended to write narratives with negative images of the 'Indian' to show that the captivity was a warning from God concerning the state of the Puritans' souls, and that God was the only hope for redemption. As a result, historians treat captivity narratives with caution, and regard many of them more as folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
or ideology than historical accounts. But, contemporary historians such as Linda Colley
Linda Colley
Linda Colley, CBE, FBA, FRSL, FRHistS is a historian of Britain, empire and nationalism. She is Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University in the United States.-Early life and education:...
and anthropologists such as Pauline Turner Strong
Pauline Turner Strong
Pauline Turner Strong is an American anthropologist specializing in literary, historical, ethnographic, media, and popular representations of Native Americans. Theoretically her work has considered colonial and postcolonial representation, identity and alterity, and hybridity...
have found the narratives useful in analyzing how the colonists constructed a Native American "other", as well as what the narratives reveal about the settlers' sense of themselves and their culture, and the experience of crossing the line to another. Colley studied the long history of English captivity in other cultures, both the Barbary pirate captives who preceded those in North America, and British captives in cultures such as India, after the North American experience.
The historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Frederick Turner, in his book Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness (1980), discusses the effect of some captivity narratives in which the white captive comes to prefer and eventually adopts a Native American way of life. In some cases, during prisoner exchanges the white captives had to be forced to return to their original cultures. Children who had assimilated to new families found it extremely painful to be torn from them, often after several years' captivity. Having assimilated, numerous adult and young captives chose to stay with American Indians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and never returned to live in Anglo-American or European communities. The story of Mary Jemison
Mary Jemison
Mary Jemison was an American frontierswoman and an adopted Seneca. When she was in her teens, she was captured in what is now Adams County, Pennsylvania, from her home along Marsh Creek, and later chose to remain a Seneca....
, who was captured as a young girl (1755) and spent her whole life among the Indians until death at age 90, clearly illustrates this point.
Original captivity narratives
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de VacaÁlvar Núñez Cabeza de VacaÁlvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer of the New World, one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition...
(1542), La Relacion (The Report); Translated as The Narrative of Cabeza De Vaca by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz. - Hernando de Escalante FontanedaHernando de Escalante FontanedaHernando de Escalante Fontaneda was a Spanish shipwreck survivor who lived among the Indians of Florida for 17 years...
(1575) Memoir On the Country and Ancient Indian Tribes Of Florida - Mary RowlandsonMary RowlandsonMary Rowlandson was a colonial American woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held for 11 weeks before being ransomed. After her release, she wrote a book about her experience, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and...
(1682), The Sovereignty and Goodness of God" - Cotton MatherCotton MatherCotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...
(1696–97), The Captivity of Hannah Dustan - John Williams (Reverend)John Williams (Reverend)John Williams was a New England Puritan minister who became famous for The Redeemed Captive, his account of his captivity by the Mohawk after the Deerfield Massacre during Queen Anne's War. He was an uncle of the notable pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards. His first wife Eunice Mather was a...
(1709), The Redeemed Captive - Jackson JohonnetJackson Johonnet"Jackson Johonnet" was the pseudonymous author of a spurious Indian captivity narrative that enjoyed much popularity in the mid-1790s and was thereafter incorporated into the “canonical” body of accounts of white imprisonments, tortures and sufferings due to Native Americans.The narrative tells the...
(1793), The Remarkable Adventures of Jackson Johonnet, of Massachusetts - Susannah Willard JohnsonSusannah Willard JohnsonSusannah Willard Johnson was an Anglo-American woman who was captured with her family during an Abenaki Indian raid on Charlestown, New Hampshire in August 1754, immediately prior to the breakout of the French and Indian War...
(1796), A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson, Containing an Account of Her Sufferings During Four Years With the Indians and French - Ann Eliza BleeckerAnn Eliza BleeckerAnn Eliza Bleecker was an American poet and correspondent. Following a New York upbringing, Bleecker married John James Bleecker, a New Rochelle lawyer, in 1769. He encouraged her writings, and helped her publish a periodical containing her works.The American Revolution saw John join the New York...
(1797), The History of Maria Kittle - John Ingles (c. 1824), The Story of Mary Draper InglesMary Draper InglesMary Draper Ingles was an American pioneer and early settler of western Virginia. She was abducted by Indians and later escaped, making a harrowing trek over hundreds of miles of rough terrain to return home.-Biography:...
and Son Thomas InglesAvailable online through the Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection
Modern versions
- In 1956 John FordJohn FordJohn Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
directed the film, The SearchersThe Searchers (film)The Searchers is a 1956 American Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, and set during the Texas–Indian Wars...
, a fictional captivity narrative starring John WayneJohn WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
. This film was influential because of its multiple psychological layers, as well as John Wayne's taking on a different character than usual.
- Cello-rock band Rasputina parodied captivity narratives in their song "My Captivity by Savages" from their 2004 album Frustration PlantationFrustration PlantationFrustration Plantation, the fourth studio album recorded by cello-dominated rock group Rasputina, was released by Instinct Records on March 16, 2004...
.
- The song "Cannibal Buffet" from the 2007 album Ooky Spooky by VoltaireVoltaire (musician)Voltaire , is a popular dark cabaret Cuban-American musician...
is a humorous take on captivity narratives.