Rowlandson's Captivity

After reading a portion of The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives, one would start to wonder how the wife of a minister in a small town west of Boston could survive not only a marauding Indian attack on her village, but also a captivity by the Narragansett Indians. Mary Rowlandson's arduous journey as a servant to her captors tests her survival in many different ways. Rowlandson does survive when many others perish. However, her survival cannot only be based on luck. It is very much based on her will to survive, in terms of her faith and her love towards her family. There are other factors, however her religion and her love for her family are arguably the most effective in her survival. Other factors could include things such as her intelligence, her physical strength, and her realization that her Indian captors were human beings. This definitely gave her hope that the Indians might not be all "heathens", as she often called them.

In the late winter of 1676 a minister's wife was taken captive by a marauding Indian tribe. Mary Rowlandson was taken captive for some three months, where she faced many hardships and suffered. Mary Rowlandson's survival could be contributed to many different factors, as she faced many physical and mental hardships. One of the most important things that contributed to her survival during these three months was her religion. Being the wife of a minister, one could only imagine that Mary Rowlandson and

her family were extremely religious. She would turn to God for everything, explaining how everything that happened to her was a test from God. Her philosophy was that everything happened for a reason. At first glance, one would come to a conclusion that

Mary Rowlandson would lose her faith along the way. I believed that Rowlandson would have been broken, and her faith would slip away. It is very difficult to continue believing in you God when all these terrible things are happened. Amazingly, Mary Rowlandson believed that all the problems and sufferings she received were sent as a test of her faith in God. You might even be able to say that all the torture and cruel treatment put on her by the Narragansett Indians made her stronger. After Rowlandson's village is burned and pillaged, she has almost no possessions. As though God himself sent it as a gift, a member of the Indian tribe she was captive to gave her a Bible. That generosity was a huge landmark in keeping Rowlandson alive. One could argue that by giving Rowlandson a Bible, she was able to continue to reassure herself that God was with her always, protecting her.

Faith was one thing that Rowlandson used to survive. She used her religion as something to fight towards. All of the hardships