Mary Rowlandson, Puritan supporter or critic?

Many readers see different things when they read at the narrative of “Mary White Rolandson,” many would see the narrative of an Algonquian captive and yet others may see a critique of the way the Puritan society treated the Native Americans. The ideas on the whole give neither a positive or negative representation of the natives, rather, by the explanations of Rowlandson we see this as more of a narrative of faith by one who thinks that her faith was severely tested and now wants a sense of redemption.

The original use for the narrative was to convert people to Christianity and to show the struggles of someone whom God has tested like Job and has not given up faith in Him. Not only was this a way of proselytizing faith but also a way of justifying this war on the natives. During King Philip’s war the sole purpose of the Puritan invading the Native territory was to destroy them and drive them out. Their villages were expanding and they needed the land for their own people and the natives were in the way so they had to be gotten rid of once and for all. The narrative was also a way of justifying the war on what they considered ‘heathen savages’ however, when they started that war they saw no human beings and people of God as they were supposed to do as Christians. However, they used God as a decoy as a means to an end.

Mary White Rolandson was supportive in some cases of her Puritan upbringing and faith. During her entire narrative she used the bible she carried as a tool to explain that her faith that was given to her by her community was what kept her alive and safe. While she uses this there are always scriptural passages that are given to the reader to explain her situation and how she can make the most of it. In scriptural texts she compares herself to Job who was tested by both God and the devil to show that faith in God would be able to bring the good in any situation. In her case, her puritan faith is all she knows and when in captivity she clings to the one thing that she knows and tries to keep that in the foreground, that it is a trial of her faith and that in time it will pull her through all the tribulation she is suffering now.

Her narrative was not published alone; it was done with a copy of a sermon by her husband; a puritan pastor and introduction by Increase Mather. All of these were sort of safeguards to promote the Puritanism life and justify what happened as punishment for sin. When Rowlandson’s child dies in her narrative she becomes to worried about the dead child not only because the child dies but also because of the fact that the child did not have a Christian burial, something she believes is necessity rather than a want.

On the other hand, there are cases in the passage when it is seen that the war on the natives is unjust. During this war for the expansion of territory the Puritans did it without permission from England, and they are using the captivity narrative as propaganda. It is readily seen that those involved, most notably her husband and Mather are worried that she would not say what they wanted her to say thus their reason for including their own say in it.

In the story she used the term ‘it’ to describe her dead child a sort of separation or moving away from something rather than someone. The only place in the passage where she did not use scripture to justify what happened is when her child dies and it may be interpreted as a way of striking back at Puritanism as a critic. It seems as though she believes that if there were no war then her child would not have died.

The war on the whole was purely for selfish reasons chiefly for territory that the Natives had. After the war they wanted to use whatever means were necessary to justify their actions for what was done to the people in England who preferred peace. In any war there are atrocities that are found and in King Phillip’s war it was no different. Rowlandson shows the reader how the Algonquian suffered and she knows about it since she was a captive and a part of the suffering that the people were undertaking. There was a scarcity of food and they ate almost anything that was edible including horse feet. One of the reasons for the people being near starvation is because the Puritans burned their cornfields. Rowlandson makes this clear and mentions it. If she wanted her narrative to be subversive of puritan orthodoxy, then she chose an excellent means to acquire this.

In her writing, which was more for political and social propaganda, we see a sort of brief identification with her captors who are only running to stay ahead and alive of those pursuing them. It reiterates the fact that she believes in a benevolent God and that saves her but also it helped her understand human nature.

In her life she had to write for Puritans to justify butchery of their fellow man and in doing so the patriarchal society she is in does not even trust her to send out her captivity account alone. They had to include their own words for an introduction and conclusion. It is bad enough that She suffers along with the natives who she disdains, but who manage to keep her alive though, she has to return to her ‘civilized society.’ A society where people who commit mass butchery use her to spread their propaganda. It makes a reader wonder, who is the civilized party in the entire scenario? Rowlandson shows almost no remorse for the Algonquin people although at times she identifies with them and society has handed them a raw deal laced with extermination.