The Puritans felt that these native people enjoyed bloodshed and torture. They were petrified by the ravenous way these "savages" lived. Even the most courageous of men felt no comfort from the brutality of these savages. Just hearing of the bestial ways of these people made a deep fear surge throughout the strongest mans body and made him weak with fear (Bradford 169). Fear of these native people was not the only thing seen to the Puritans, they also were disgusted by the value of life that these people lived.
Mary Rowlandson was able to give a first hand account of the uncivilized living arrangements of the Indians and the inhumane treatment of Puritan captives by being a part of the Indians" daily lives. She, along with three of her young children, was captured in an Indian raid. She was separated from all the ones that she loved and forced to remain a slave to the Indians for eleven weeks. In these eleven weeks she was able to get a closer look at the lifestyles of these people that the Puritans so deeply despised. These immoral people plundered Lancaster, the town where she lived, burning houses, killing people, and showing no mercy. She tells us in her story, "A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson," how the Indians so savagely murdered a family in their own home. She told of how one man pleaded for his life after being wounded by a rifle, only to be knocked about his head, stripped naked, and then gutted as he lay dying (R!.
owlandson 298). This kind of merciless action was common among these Native Americans according to the Puritans. Once Mary was taken away from Lancaster to travel with the Indians she learned much more about their lifestyle. She saw "the roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night" and thought of the place she was kept as a "lively resemblance of hell" (Rowlandson 300). She watched as a woman was stripped of her clothing and placed in the center of the Indians.
