The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a personal account, written by Mary Rowlandson in 1682, of what life in captivity was like. Her narrative of her captivity by Indians became popular in both American and English literature. Mary Rowlandson basically lost everything by an Indian attack on her town Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1675; where she is then held prisoner. .
Mary Rowlandson has a very different view about the Indians, I suppose, because she has an extremely diverse attitude while writing about them. Rowlandson, at first, thought of the Indians as barbarians, and I expect she still thought that way after her return to her husband, but she became a part of them, without wanting to be willing to, but having to, mainly to stay alive. I feel she knows she is part of the Indians way of living, but she cannot bring herself to say they are not barbarians, although she realizes she is becoming just like them with the eating of their foods and learning their language.
"It was upon a Sabbath-day-morning, that they prepared for their travel. This morning I asked my master whether he would sell me to my husband. He answered me "Nux," which did much rejoice my spirit." (Pg 322) .
Rowlandson directly states that she thinks the Indians were not humans, for she calls them " those barbarous creatures- (Pg 311), and So, she read to them Bible verses - I do not know exactly why, except for wanting to convert them. She read two different passages that definitely hinted toward the narrower path, Job 1:15 and Psalm 38:5-6, but she never thought they would actually convert to Christianity. Rowlandson, herself, wondered about herself because of the ways she connected with the Indians.
They ate what the Indians were supposed to eat. The meat that sticks out the most in my mind is the horse liver, but they quoted the Bible and were given knitted sweaters that Mary Rowlandson made them.
