Mary Rowlandson’s Use of Men and God in Her Captivity Narrative

Mary Rowlandson, the wife of a Puritan minister, was captured by Native Americans in the late 17th century, During King Philip’s War. This was a time of unrest for the native tribes in New England as well as the colonists. Rowlandson herself was captured by the Narragansett tribe when they raided Lancaster. She was then taken on several “removes,” as she titles them, which follow her movements with the tribe (253). Upon reintegration to Puritan society, Rowlandson framed her capture as a test by God in order to diffuse the threats posed by having been living a native lifestyle. She did this through starting her own handwritten narrative with an introduction by a famous Puritan minister and college president, Increase Mather. By introducing her narrative with the words of a respected man, she could slip her words into society without as much clamor as she may have without the use of his so-called permission. 

Mather starts his introduction by saying, “This Narrative was Penned by this Gentlewoman her self, to be to her a Memorandum of God’s dealing with her… A pious scope…” (249), which frames the writing as pure, a testament to the will of God, and how she is showing her submittance to God and his will. Mather, in the same paragraph, excuses the fact that she is a female author by saying, “though this Gentlewoman’s modesty would not thrust it into the Press, yet her gratitude unto God, made her not hardly perswadable…” (249). His statement shows that Rowlandson did not intend to publish her accounts of her own accord, and therefore should not be frowned upon in the community for being a published woman. As the paratext surrounding the narrative and introduction shows, “Puritan culture, which repressed women’s public speaking and writing,” was not a likely place for her to be able to publish (248). However, if she writes that she was persuaded into it by a man of God, then who was she to deny God’s word? Her use of Increase Mather excusing her to the public was an incredibly important step for Rowlandson. It controlled her story, it gave her the guidance needed to publish, and it protected her “modesty” as a woman (249). She was able to regain the trust of her Puritan community and control the narrative set for her capture by using it as a test of her trust in God and showing that she was able to come back to society not by being guileful and going against the will of God, but by bending to it, being cooperative, and therefore passing his tests. Her actions were pleasing to God, otherwise she would not have come back into society, and Mather would not have endorsed her public testament and vows to God. He ends his introduction by saying, “No serious spirit then (especially knowing any thing of this Gentlewoman’s Piety) can imagine but that the vows of God are upon her. Excuse her then if she come thus into publick to pay those vows. Come and hear what she hath to say…” (250). Mather is ending his introduction with an invitation not unlike one that might be heard preceding a sermon. The invitation to hear her words is all the public needs to disregard the nontraditional authorship, especially when a person as prominent as Increase Mather is marking her words the vows of God.

God plays a large role in Rowlandson’s narrative as well, and she continually makes reference to the scripture and to her fellow Puritans and Christians. In her third remove, in an Indian village on the Ware river, she makes note of the Sabbath. She writes, 

The next day was the Sabbath: I then remembered how careless I had been of Gods holy time, how many Sabbaths I had lost and mispent, and how evily I had walked in Gods sight; which lay so close unto my spirit, that it was easie for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life, and cast me out of his presence forever. Yet the Lord still shewed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as he wounded me with one hand, so he healed me with the other. (254-255)

Rowlandson here is acknowledging that she was not as pious as she could have been, and therefore is accepting God’s judgment and will upon herself. This is important to note because it shows that she is willing and ready to submit herself to be judged and punished or saved. She describes her relationship with God as being punishing and simultaneously healing. She shows here that through her punishment, through her trials, she is becoming better and she is accepting God and being healed from her sins. She receives a Bible in her third remove, and is able to give herself comfort from it. She reads Deuteronomy, Chapter 28 first, which, according to the footnote, is a, “Recital of blessings for obedience to God and curses for disobedience” (257). In her final remove, she references God very frequently, and praises him for her deliverance. She first quotes Hebrews, Chapter 12, verse 6, “For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth” (270). She then proceeds to thank God for showing her the vanity of her previous ways, that her material things, the life she had before her captivity, was a “vexation of spirit” and says in the words of David, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted” (270). By ending her narrative with such praise of God and the level of piety that she has, it is impossible for the surrounding community to think of her in any way except a woman of God. She has suffered through these tribulations, and yet she is alive on the other end thanking God for making her suffer.

Mary Rowlandson, a woman of Puritan upbringing, is able to publish her narrative without consternation, because she is able to use the words of the Bible itself, as the words of a prominent Puritan man to show her piety and submittance to God. She, having been captured by the Narragansett tribe, seen her child killed, been separated from everyone she knew, has come out from the trial by fire and is more pious than before. Because she is able to convince the public that she is only publishing her narrative to show the power of God, she doesn’t face the same backlash and upset that she would have if she had not used both men and God in her narrative to frame it in a religious context.