Puritan captivity stories exploded in popularity as the eighteenth century progressed, fueling nationalist fervor that eventually stoked the fires of political revolution. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, written by Mary Rowlandson and published in 1682, is a first-person account of the author’s time spent captive among the Algonquian people. Rowlandson recounts the violent confrontation that led to her incarceration, her time spent among the Algonquian people, and her life after her release during the winter of 1675. A continuous instability centered on the trauma of Rowlandson’s experiences occurs during her eleven-week incarceration. Despite its veneer of biblical sentiment and God-fearing language, Rowlandson’s art centers on her emotions, even when doing so goes against Puritan principles of stoicism. Despite its origin in a patriarchal era where women were denied fundamental rights (such as the right to own property), this mode gives women a prominent place in the conversation. A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson enhanced an already fervent revolutionary sentiment, transforming a seemingly straightforward captivity narrative into a totem meant to represent the oppressive struggle between England and her most coveted colony. This article focuses on Rowlandson’s depiction of the setting, particularly the wigwam, and concludes with Rowlandson’s growing sense of belonging.
Mary Rowlandson – An Active Resistance
Mary Rowlandson, the wife of famed Puritan priest Joseph Rowlandson, was taken by Narraganset Indians in Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1676 and held hostage for eleven and a half weeks. In 1682, through the intercession of preachers Increase Mather and her husband, seven, she published a narrative of her imprisonment with the original title The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. As the title suggests, most of the book concentrates on Rowlandson’s dependence on God and her capacity to endure the injustices of this world thanks to God’s love and kindness alone. The narrative of Mary Rowlandson portrays the terror, and final salvation felt by many colonial New Englanders. It reaffirms two essential Puritan doctrines: God’s sovereignty and the need to endure iniquity to test a believer’s resolve and selection as one of God’s elects. The “heathen” Indians may strike and destabilize colonial society anytime. As a Puritan town founded on God’s promise, this presented a theological and physical dilemma. In addition to continual physical danger, the conflict between the indigenous people and the Puritan colonists eventually became primarily theological. Not surprisingly, Rowlandson’s rendition of King Philip’s War is infused with Christian rhetorical passion. As a Puritan, she consciously constructs the story within a Calvinist framework and characterizes her captors in terms of good vs. evil.
I sat much alone with a poor, wounded Child in my lap, who wailed day and night, with nothing to revive her body or cheer her spirits… Thus, for nine days, I sat on my knees with my infant in my lap until my flesh was raw once more. My child was so close to leaving this sorrowful world that they ordered me to carry it to another Wigwam. I went there with a heavy heart and sat down with a picture of death on my lap. My sweet baby, resembling a lamb, left this world roughly two hours into the night.
Rowlandson’s grief at Sarah’s death creates an emotional link with the wigwam, distinguishing it from a more emotionally disconnected or uninteresting setting. The novel’s turning point is the introduction of grief, a complex factor that forces Rowlandson to deal with various psychological and emotional challenges. The depth of her anguish and her ability to grieve become driving forces in her practice. Rowlandson’s attempts to carry on everyday life, let alone deal with his loss, leave him physically and emotionally unstable. As a last resort for dealing with her distress, she transforms the wigwam into a home for herself.
Neither death nor its link with household structures was unusual in the late seventeenth century; nonetheless, the violent way Sarah died was extraordinary. This is partially why Rowlandson uses nature imagery to underlie his mourning in this work. The disease was the leading cause of the significant population decline European colonists and Native Americans saw during this time. Since Puritan women were expected to stay at home and care for their families, they usually did so. It would not have been entirely foreign for a Puritan lady to associate death with the house, specifically the end of a baby or kid.
Forming an Attachment with the Wigwam
Preceding Rowlandson’s attachment to the wigwam, grief incites states of displacement, destabilization, disassociation, and disidentification (also referred to as depersonalization), all of which she associates with her relocation into the Wilderness and, in accordance, her loss of community. Attempting to regrind herself, Rowlandson forms a relationship with the wigwam. Aside from the morality entailed by sedentarism metaphysics, Rowlandson’s lack of community further propels her to develop her sense of belonging through physical attachment and affiliation with the wigwam. As referenced in the previous section, Rowlandson’s captivity not only removes her from the garrison and those residing within it but also transplant her to a position where she lacks the essential identity marker of a Puritan woman: her family. Rowlandson’s social network becomes barren after Sarah’s loss, casting them into a new role and social work. Tim Creswell defines this psychological, social, and geographical upheaval through his concept of anachronism. Essentially, he proposes that individuals mediate their feelings and consequently create their own identity through their formation and relationship with place. Creswell claims there are psychological effects of being “‘out-of-place” in an environment (166). Overlaying this theoretical framework on Rowlandson’s narrative illuminates the extent of her grief and the rationale behind her later misconceptions of the wigwam’s function in her text on account of her befuddled cognition. Since Rowlandson uses the wigwam to reclaim her identity, form a community, and process her grief, she does not have the tools or accessibility to comprehend Algonquian culture or actively engage within it.
Because of the wigwam’s importance to Rowlandson’s re-identification and place-building process after Sarah’s death, the latter event serves as a trigger for the former. By placing herself inside this framework, she offers a third location, distinct from “the Town” and “the Wilderness” described in her story. The wigwam represents a synthesis of Puritan ideas about community and Indigenous architectural styles, but it leaves out Algonquian ways of life and the wigwam’s purpose within Indigenous communities. By establishing this bond, Rowlandson also gives herself an occasional position of control over the Indigenous women around her. While she occasionally gives in to the Wampanoag culture’s expectations that she acts as a subordinate, she also pushes back against these expectations through her insistent behavior and rude speech. Even though she is a captive and occasionally acknowledges this fact, she nonetheless views herself as a dominant figure within the wigwam. She gives herself authority well above her little social standing and economic worth by imagining herself as the architect of this structure (the wigwam) (e.g., trade and the production of material goods).
Ascendancy and Residency as a Matriarchal Figure
Rowlandson’s attachment to the wigwam provides her with the means to deal with the trauma-induced grief and undergo the transformative process of self-discovery. After the death of her daughter, Sarah, Rowlandson is left to rebuild her identity in the absence of her husband, other children, and the “House” that served as a symbol of her membership in the Puritan community. Rowlandson gains confidence because of his newfound intimacy with the wigwam. By establishing a connection to the building, Rowlandson effectively shows ownership over it. She recasts herself as a strong matriarch as a result. Rowlandson can create an identity for herself free from the constraints of Puritan ideologies thanks to the wigwam’s location in a liminal space between the Town and the Wilderness, which was not typical for women in colonial settlements. Rowlandson is in a position and an environment that uphold cultural norms and expectations, despite the independence afforded by this liminal status.
Throughout her enslavement, she experiences more violent acts, mirroring the development of her own feelings of self and safety. Multiple members of Rowlandson’s Mistress’s household tell her to find another place to stay for a few nights because “they had company (they said) come in more than their own,” marking the first of several instances of hostility towards Rowlandson (28). Rowlandson stays in the wigwam and pleads with her captors, explaining why she should be allowed to stay. Defiantly, she recalls her history of stubbornness and declares that. Rowlandson’s intense feelings of belonging and authority in the wigwam lead to her experiencing violent outbursts both within and outside the wigwam and other Indigenous homes and buildings. Akin to how she initially refused to leave the wigwam in the preceding quote, Rowlandson initially refuses to accept the maid’s request, even when Weetamoo insists that she forsakes part of her apron (e.g., the sword and the stick). It’s crucial to realize that Rowlandson’s view of the matriarch is wholly Puritan and hence disconnected from the Algonquian or Wampanoag perspective on the matriarch. Rowlandson bases her sense of self on motherhood, family, and religion, as seen in the preceding sections. These identifying features of the Puritan era provide Rowlandson (as a woman) a measure of societal authority. Some restrictions were placed on women’s political and social participation in Puritan societies in the late 17th century. Logan argues that Puritan ideology imposed a rigid gender role on females. She claims, “Not only were women discouraged from speaking or writing but this kind of forwardness was also related with their persons and their sexuality” (260). To rephrase, Puritans placed a premium on the virtue and subservience of women.
Conclusion
The portrayal of Weetamoo, the squaw-sachem of the Wampanoags, in Mary Rowlandson’s account of her imprisonment sheds light on American colonial conceptions of race and gender. Although Weetamoo was a well-known opponent during King Philip’s War, Rowlandson still denies her remarkable stature and influence in her society. On the other hand, Rowlandson tries to portray Weetamoo as nothing more than a failure of the Eurocentric femininity articulated by Increase Mather in his Preface to the text, femininity that Rowlandson strives to claim for herself through her portrayal of motherhood, asexuality, and gender-appropriate production and exchange.
Work Cited
Thomas, Steven F. “A REPURPOSED NARRATIVE: MARY ROWLANDSON’S NARRATIVE AND PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SENTIMENT.” (2019).
Weltch, Brooke M. The Hybridization of Home: Establishing Place Between the Garrison and the Wilderness in Mary Rowlandson’s (1682) Captivity Narrative. Diss. University of South Florida, 2022.
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