Indians as the Imminent Threat: The Portayal of indians in Captivity Narratives

• Thesis title in Czech: Indiáni jako bezprostřední nebezpečí: Portrét Indiánů v příbězích zajatců
• Thesis title in English: Indians as the Imminent Threat: The Portayal of indians in Captivity Narratives
• Key words: Mary Rowlandson, Indiáni, střet civilizací, první osadníci, vyprávění zajatců, Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson, divošství
• English key words: Mary Rowlandson, Native Americans, captivity narratives, clash of cultures, Indians, Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson, civilization, savagery
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2012/2013
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: David Lee Robbins, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 06.05.2013
• Date of assignment: 06.05.2013
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 23.04.2015
• Date and time of defence: 26.05.2015 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 01.05.2015
• Date of proceeded defence: 26.05.2015
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Pavla Veselá, Ph.D.

Guidelines

In my MA thesis I would like to concentrate on the portrayal of Indians in captivity narratives of the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the essential source material being Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. I would like to explore the relationship between Native Americans and settlers who saw Indians as a threat to their own existence. The thesis will focus on the confrontation of savagery and civilization and the common presuppositions and prejudices about the Native Americans as it is portrayed in several captivity narratives. Moreover, the necessary definition of the genre of the captivity narrative will be provided with regard to the reaction of the reading public in the period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
From the first arrivals of settlers and explorers the American continent symbolized a land of vast opportunities. Nevertheless, the continent, not yet fully explored, was shrouded in mystery. Explorers and adventurers were fascinated by the extensive natural resources they found in theNew World. Moreover, the New World was often calledNew Canaanor the Garden of Eden, as it symbolized for the newcomers a possibility to start a new life. The settlers were impressed by the wilderness of the American Frontier. Crèvecœur, one of the most representative thinkers, called the settlers “the western pilgrims.”[1]The settlers who came to the “virgin land” had to rely entirely on their own strength and resistance to the apparent hostility of their surroundings and to the potential danger of Indian attacks.
The confrontation between civilization and savagery provided source material for many writers and thinkers from the early sixteenth to almost the twentieth century. Adventurers and explorers gave rise to a common presupposition of Native Americans' being illiterate and brutal, torturing and scalping the white settlers. These myths were partly based on truth, partly embellished for the attraction of the reading public, and partly distorted or invented. It has to be mentioned that most of the portrayals from this time were written not from the point of view of the writer but from the point of view of the explorer or ethnographer. Authors tried to depict the actual appearance and behaviour that were so distinct from the European lifestyle. Nevertheless, it was the diligence and determination to overcome all the struggles resulting from the confrontation of two different civilizations which constituted some of the fundamental pillars of the new emerging American society.
The portrayal of the Indian was a contentious undertaking that shifted with the observer's situation. The portrayal provided by resident American settlers more often viewed Indians as brutal illiterate savages who were used to live according to predatory natural instincts and needs. Moreover, the white settlers saw the Native Americans as unable to adjust to the conditions of the white society and considered the Indians to be a threat. The European view, which was patterned on the idea of the noble savage, frequently opposed that of the American settlers. From the European perspective Columbus made a great discovery; but from a Native American perspective, he began an invasion.[2]“The children of nature”, as the indigenous people were often ambiguously designated, were portrayed by settlers as incapable of understanding the settlers' actions and, therefore, of assimilating. Moreover, the Native Americans were very often regarded as the blocking force to the further western settlement.[3]
One of the important source materials for the analysis of the 17^th and 18^th century construction of the conflict between the white and indigenous civilization is to be found in the captivity narratives. The captivity narratives were accounts of the capture of whites, among whom the majority were women, by savages, enslavement and estrangement from the family and all aspects of their own civilization.[4] Most captives were English or Anglo-American Protestants, usually from frontier regions. Richard Slotkin declares that the captivity narrative was also an “archetype of the American experience” as it “provided a way of addressing the fear and guilt that accompanied the emerging American pattern of profound mobility.”[5] In other words, to define the American identity Slotkin uses the typology of fear of punishment by God for personal mistakes and lapses, and subsequent guilt for being sinful and not fulfilling the ideals of religious belief, embedded in the protestant nature and belief which shaped the lives of those who cultivated and settled the emerging state and mirrors God´s providence.
As part of their territorial and cultural struggles with the white settlers, Indians were devastated settlements, scalped and killed colonists, and burned their crops. Those who survived the attacks were often taken hostage. Even though there exist male captivity narratives, the captivity narratives allegedly written by women were much more plentiful and successful. The story of a captured woman was for the reading public much more attractive than a story written by a man. What is also important is the fact that women captives were central figures in many of the captivity narratives written by men, especially during the eighteenth century when the captivity narratives shift from the actual account of the experience to the blending of the real with the fictive's being published for profit. The nature and importance of the reading public will be dealt with in further detail in one part of the thesis, as it is important to define to whom the captivity narratives actually appealed.
Another interesting feature that I would like to explore in my diploma thesis is the fact that in the early captivity narratives, captivity suffering and final redemption were all part of God’s plan, and the publication of these events was a Christian duty.[6]Some critics even regard the captivity tale as a story of spiritual progress or as mirroring the story of Exodus, with which the critics were familiar and which served as a common typology at that time. The captives went through separation and abduction, transformation which symbolized adoption and immersion into the Indian society, and the final step was mirrored in the release, escape or redemption and return to the family. Nevertheless, some captives (most of whom had been taken at a very early age) chose to live among the Indians and some of them assimilated to the extent that they forgot the mother tongue and adopted the Indian culture.[7]Those who merged into the Native American society thus supported Rousseau´s idea of the noble savage who was not tempted by wealth and whose acts were adjusted to the needs of nature.
One of the first, and probably the most famous, captivity narrative was written by Mary Rowlandson. Rowlandson, who was the wife of a leading Puritan preacher in the Lancaster colony in Massachusetts, published in 1677 her Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson, in which she depicts her own captivity of two years previously. Rowlandson depicts her own ability to endure and adapt as well as her shifting attitude toward her captors. Moreover, Rowlandson’s account can be also analysed as one of the first travel books written by a woman published inNorth America. Rowlandson depicts her shift from the assumed superiority of Puritanism to the less certain subjectivity and more complex view of events affecting the two combating cultures. Moreover, her narrative is supplemented with various biblical allusions and analogies.
The major aim of this master´s thesis will be the exploration of the portrayal of Indians in captivity narratives, the analysis of the conflict between civilization and savagery, and the common presuppositions and prejudices that white settlers possessed and spread about the indigenous people. The essential source material will be the account of Mary Rowlandson in which I would like to define the shifting attitudes toward the Indian captors and the position of the captives among the members of the Indian tribe. I would also like to focus on the different points of view of men and women in captivity narratives which are considered as one of the indicators for the study of the development of American society and of the study of the history of Native Americans.
[1]Edwin Fussell, Frontier: American literature and the American West (Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965) p.7
[2]Milnes, O’Connor eds., p.81
[3]John McWilliams, The Last of the Mohicans: Civil Savagery and Savage Civility (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995) p.52-3
[4]Lawrence Peskin, “Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public” John Hopkins UP, 2009 Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10389803&p00=peskin> p.1
[5]Hine, Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000) p.65, 67
[6]David T. Haberly, “Women and Indians: The Last of the Mohicans and the Captivity Tradition” American Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 4 (Autumn, 1976) Available at: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712539> p.433
[7]Richard Vanderbeets, The Indian Captivity Narrative as Ritual. American Literature Vol. 43, No. 4 (Jan, 1972) Available at:
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924653> p.558

References

Rowlandson, Mary. Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. 3.11.2009 , 7.11.2011 Available at: <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/851/851-h/851-h.htm>
Davis, Cynthia. Women writers in the United States: A Timeline od Literary, Cultural, and Social History. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford UP, 1996. Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10087190&p00=cynthia%20davis>
Starkey, Armstrong. European and Native American Warfare 1675-1815. London: Routledge, 1998. Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10054943&p00=starkey
Shuffleton, Frank. Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford UP, 1993. Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10142120&p00=shuffleton>
Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire and the Word 1600-1850. Westminster, MD, USA: Knopf Publishing Group, 2004. Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10048898&p00=colley>
Bickham, Troy. Savages within the Empire:Representations of American Indians in 18th century Britain. Oxford, GBR: Oxford UP, 2006. Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10177942&p00=bickham>
Peskin, Lawrence A. Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public 1785-1816. Baltimore, MD, USA: John Hopkins UP, 2009. Available at: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cuni/docDetail.action?docID=10389803&p00=peskin>
Namias, June. White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier. UNC Press Books, 1993. Available at: <http://books.google.cz/books?id=mFiriwKQKYIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=june+namias&hl=cs&sa=X&ei=ybxET7D-MpSChQejnJDvAQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=june%20namias&f=false>
Levernier, James, Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn. The Indian Captivity Narrative 1550-1900. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.
Faragher, Hine. The American West: A New Interpretive History New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.
O’Connor, Milnes eds. The Oxford History of the American West. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
McWilliams, John. The Last of the Mohicans: Civil Savagery and Savage Civility. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.
Pearce, Roy Harvey. The Significance of the Captivity Narrative.
American Literature, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Mar., 1947) Available at:
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2920438>
Vanderbeets, Richard. The Indian Captivity Narrative as Ritual. American Literature Vol. 43, No. 4 (Jan, 1972) Available at:
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924653>
Potter, Tiffany. Writing Indigenous Feminity: Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative of Captivity. Eighteenth-century Studies Vol. 36, No.2 (Winter, 2003) Available at:
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053358>
Haberly, David T. Women and Indians: The Last of the Mohicans and the Captivity Tradition. American Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 4 (Autumn, 1976) Available at: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712539>