by Jill Lepore
Here, in recounting the defining moment of her captivity, Mary Row-landsons phrases swell with ambiguity. As she described it, she had been “captivated,” overwhelmed not by charm, as we would take the word to mean today, but by force, as seventeenth-century usage implied. “The Indians laid hold of us, pulling me one way, and the Children another, and said, Come go along with us; I told them they would kill me: they answered, If I were willing to go along with them, they would not hurt me.” To be taken captive is to be taken by force, against one’s will, but Rowlandson, curiously, admitted she was “willing to go along with them.” True, she was wounded and terrified, and had clearly been threatened; still, captives were not supposed to be “willing.” Like Mary’s sister, not a few colonists, after all, had allowed themselves be killed rather than be taken captive. They did so, no doubt, out of fear about what lay ahead—the deprivations and difficulties of captivity—but also out of a fear that they might never return. The Indians’ main purpose of taking captives was to adopt new members into their communities; many captives, especially children, became thoroughly Indianized, living out their lives with their new Algonquian families and losing even the ability to speak English. Some later resisted rescue and refused to return to live with their English families.15While prominent captives, like Rowlandson, might be traded for ransom money or swapped in an exchange of prisoners, most who survived the initial hardships were expected to abandon English ways and to become, eventually, wholly Indian.16 The choice between death and captivity must have felt to some colonists like a choice between salvation and damnation. That Rowlandson described this experience with phrases that swell with ambiguity should not surprise us.
No doubt the vividness of Rowlandson’s prose helped convince readers that, in her position, they could have done no better than to act as she had. Rowlandson employed all the strategies of description available to contemporary chroniclers of the war—numbers, stark images, and biblical references. And she invoked all the most powerful signs of chaos—spilled blood, diabolical Indians, naked Englishmen. Her words must have had a powerful effect on those who read them. And yet Rowlandson still feared that her readers, in the comfort of their orderly, peaceful homes, could never fully understand what it felt like to stand outside that burning house in Lancaster. “When we are in prosperity, oh the little that we think of such dreadfull sights, and to see our dear friends and relations lie bleeding out their heart-blood upon the ground.”17
Like Rowlandson, many colonists had probably pledged to die rather than be taken captive by Indians, but, if tested, few would have been able to keep such a pledge, awestruck, as she was, by “their glittering weapons” and by the prospect of a violent death. Still, adult, able-bodied, and especially male colonists who offered little resistance to capture may have been judged harshly (and at least one was executed), their easy capitulation seen as a sign not only of weakness but also, possibly, of a willingness to embrace the Indian way of life or, at the very least, of a willingness to abandon English ways. Returning captives were no doubt welcomed back into English society, but some were also probably feared and, to a certain extent, mistrusted. A few colonists may have even believed that having lived among the Indians left a former captive contaminated by the influences of Indian society and Indian culture. The colonists’ greatest cultural anxiety, after all, was the fear that they were becoming Indianized. “How many that although they are Christians in name,” Increase Mather asked, “are no better then Heathens in heart?”18 Being taken from one’s home was terrifying enough, but being taken to live among the Indians was just the kind of blurring of boundaries that colonists feared most.
In describing her captivity, Mary Rowlandson made clear that even while she lived among the Indians she had always remained, at heart, thoroughly English. Even as she embraced the indignities she suffered and reveled in her humility before God (she cited Psalms 38:5-6: “My wounds stink and are corrupt, I am bowed down greatly”19), she recoiled from her heathen surroundings, stressing her revulsion at nearly all things Indian—Indian food (“filthy trash”), Indian houses, Indian dances—at the same time as she proclaimed her fondness (and her homesickness) for all things English. When she came upon signs of English habitation, for instance, Rowlandson was powerfully moved: “As we went along, I saw a place where English cattle had been: that was comfort to me, such as it was: quickly after that we came to an English path, which so took with me, that I thought I could have freely lain down and died.”20 This feeling was so strong that at times during her captivity Rowlandson almost forgot where she was:
I cannot but remember how many times sitting in their wigwams, and musing on things past, I should suddenly leap up and run out, as if I had been at home, forgetting where I was, and what my condition was: but when I was without, and saw nothing but wilderness, and woods, and a company of barbarous heathens, my mind quickly returned to me.21
And Rowlandson made sure to tell her readers that she had been spared the kind of heathen contamination they would have feared most: “Not one of them ever offered me the least abuse or unchastity to me, in word or action.” (There is very little evidence that Algonquians ever sexually abused their captives.)22
For being spared rape, and for all other blessings, Mary Rowlandson gave abundant thanks to God: “O the wonderful power of God that I have seen, and the experience that I have had!”23 She expressed her gratitude both in writing her narrative and in allowing it to be printed. According to the published narrative’s preface (presumed to have been written by Increase Mather), Rowlandson initially resisted publication, but her reticence was soon overcome.24
Some friends having obtained a sight of [the manuscript], could not but be so much affected with the many passages of working providence discovered therein, as to judge it worthy of publick view, and altogether unmeet that such works of God should be hid from present and future generations: and therefore though this gentlewomans modesty would not thrust it into the press, yet her gratitude unto God made her not hardly persuadable to let it pass, that God might have his due glory, and others benefit by it as well as herself. I hope by this time none will cast any reflection upon this gentlewoman, on the score of this publication of her affliction and deliverance.25
In a transaction that mimicked the scene at Lancaster on February 10, Rowlandson was again forced through a doorway, out into public view. Not her body this time, but her manuscript, was “captivated,” and put into God’s service.26 In both cases Rowlandson was “persuadable” only because she sought to follow God’s will. In exonerating Mary Rowlandson for allowing her manuscript to be published, the writer of the preface similarly exonerated her for allowing herself to be captured by Indians. He wrote,
I may say, that as none knows what it is to fight and pursue such an enemy as this, but they that have fought and pursued them: so none can imagine what it is to be captivated, and enslaved to such atheisticall proud, wild, cruel, barbarous, bruitish (in one word) diabolical creatures as these, the worst of the heathen; nor what difficulties, hardships, hazards, sorrows, anxieties and perplexities do unavoidably wait upon such a condition, but those that have tried it.27
If “none can imagine what it is to be captivated … but those that have tried it,” Rowlandson could not be judged for her actions. Nor could her testimony be ignored, or she be condemned for offering it. Far from thinking ill of Rowlandson, either for her involvement with the Indians or for her immodesty in writing about it, readers were encouraged to consider her a “worthy and precious Gentlewoman” deserving of “both commendation and imitation.” “No serious spirit then (especially knowing any thing of this Gentlewomans 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.”28
II
JOSHUA TIFT CAME into public, too, though not to pay the vows of God. And, far from being excused, he was executed—hanged and quartered—for treason. Under interrogation, Tift, a farmer, claimed to have been taken
captive by Narragansetts. Questioned by Roger Williams on January 14, 1676, Tift testified that his captivity had begun soon after he hired an Indian man to keep his cattle while he traveled to Rhode Island. On the day he was to depart, in mid-December 1675, a party of Narragansetts came to Tift’s house and “told him he must die.” Unlike Rowlandson, Tift made no pretense of having once preferred death to captivity; instead, he admitted that he had simply “begd for his Life and promised he would be servant to the Sachim while he lived. He Saith the Sachim then Caried him along with him having given him his Life as his Slave.” Tift was then taken to the Great Swamp, along with five of his cattle, who were then killed before his eyes.29
If all that Joshua Tift had done was to choose captivity over death, and to serve an Indian sachem to spare his own life, he was guilty of no more than Mary Rowlandson.30 Indeed, many of the two captives’ experiences were similar. The killing of Tift’s cattle, and especially the mocking that answered his pleas to spare them (“what will Cattell now doe you good”?), mimicked the taunting Rowlandson was subjected to when she asked if she could sleep in a deserted English house on the first night of her captivity (“What will you love English men still?”). Both captives were forced to leave English ways behind, especially things such as cows and houses, potent symbols of English agriculture and notions of property ownership, things that would do them little good during their new life among the Indians. (Since one purpose of taking captives was to eventually adopt them into the tribe, captives were typically subjected to rituals of initiation during which they were encouraged to abandon their native culture.) But while Rowlandson was eventually redeemed from captivity and welcomed back warmly into English society, Tift was interrogated and executed. How did they come to such different ends?
Some differences are obvious and critical. Mary Rowlandson told her story to give thanks to God and to spiritually and psychologically redeem herself. Tift told his story to save his neck. And Tift’s admission that, at the fateful moment, he “begd for his Life,” contrasts markedly with Rowlandson’s emphasis on how her resolve was broken by the persuasive power of “their glittering weapons.” Tift’s credibility was always in doubt, compromised partly by the conditions under which he told his story, partly by his much more ambiguous involvement with the Indians he claimed had captured him, and partly by his sex. Tift was never released from captivity as Rowlandson was, by ransom money or by an exchange of prisoners, nor did he escape; instead, English soldiers found him living among the Narragansetts on January 14, 1676, and they had reason to believe that Tift had actually fought on the side of the Narragansetts during the Great Swamp fight a month earlier. Finally, Tift, as an able-bodied man, had little excuse for not violently resisting capture, while Rowlandson, an injured woman carrying an injured infant, had abundant reason to submit.
The first crack in Tift’s story was its noticeable absence of any mention of torture: he did not report being beaten or injured during an attack or having been tied up or staked down once captured; the worst he endured was seeing his cows killed. The complete absence of any reference to torture (either endured or witnessed) is, in fact, a rather unusual characteristic of Tift’s account, distinguishing it from other male captives’ reports. Thomas Warner, for instance, told of how his captors “kill’d one of the Prisoners presently after they had taken him, cutting a Hole below his Breast out of which they pull’d his Gutts, and then cutt off his Head,” upon which they threatened Warner with the same fate. Warner himself was not entirely spared, for soon the Indians “burnt his Nayles, and put his Feet to scald them against the Fire, and drove a Stake through one of his Feet to pin him to the Ground.”31 Another freed captive, a fourteen-year-old English boy, said he was bound to a tree “two Nights and two Days” and threatened with torture before he managed to escape.32 (As a woman, and especially as the wife of a well-known and powerful Puritan minister, Rowlandson was likely to have been spared torture or the threat of it.)33
Yet, while Tift’s failure to mention torture made his story unusual, it did not necessarily make it unbelievable. It was only when he told what happened next that Tift lost any credibility he might have established in telling earlier parts of his story. Tift claimed that after being captivated he had been taken to the Narragansett fort and, when the English attacked on December 19, 1675, he had had no choice but to remain among the Indians. When his English interrogators accused Tift of fighting on the side of the Narragansetts, Tift insisted he had not even had a gun: “Being askt whether he was in the Fort in the fight, he Saith yes and waited on his master the Sachim there untill he was wounded … but he saith Himselfe had no Arms at all.”34Nathaniel Saltonstall reported that Tift had “pretended that he was taken Prisoner by the Indians, and by them compelled to bear Arms in their Service,” but that this was “proved to be false.” The evidence for such a conclusion, however, is limited. Like most events of the war, several accounts of the story of Joshua Tift contradict one another. Captain James Oliver suggested that Tift had lived with the Indians for years and had “married an Indian woman, a Wampanoag.” Tift, Oliver said, was “a sad wretch” who “never heard a sermon but once these 14 years” and whose father, on going to rescue Tift, had been killed by Indians.35 Meanwhile, Increase Mather claimed Tift had “apostatized to the Heathen”; Saltonstall said Tift was an English soldier who had recently deserted the colonial army because of a disagreement with his commanding officer; and an Englishwoman who had been captive among the Narragansetts was said to have claimed that Tift was “their encourager and conductor.”36 And, while Tift was “said to wound Capt. Sealy” in the fight, and Oliver claimed Tift had “shot 20 times at us in the swamp,” Saltonstall maintained that Tift never had the chance to get off a shot but that when he was captured by the English his musket was “found deep charged, and laden with Slugs.”37
Frustratingly, it is impossible to determine with any certainty which of these claims is true. Yet, whether he had deserted the army, apostatized from Christianity, or married a Wampanoag woman, all versions of the story, except Tift’s own, suggest that he joined the Narragansetts willingly. Perhaps there was good reason to disbelieve Tift’s story—maybe he never was “captivated”; maybe he had fought against the English. On the other hand, Tift may have been telling the truth, at least in part. If Tift were really holding a loaded gun when he was captured, for instance, it seems unlikely that he would have later testified that he “had no Arms at all.” He might, of course, have been lying wildly during his interrogation, with no regard for the inconsistencies in his story, and certainly, if he had willingly fought alongside the Narragansetts during the Great Swamp fight, he had every reason to lie about it. But if Tift was telling the truth, and he actually was an unarmed captive, then he was simply, and fatefully, in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yet, even if Tift told the truth, he was still guilty, in a sense, for failing to fight against the Narragansetts when the English attacked. Tift may not have had a gun, but his “master,” after all, was shooting at English soldiers, and apparently Tift did nothing to stop him.
Mary Rowlandson was “willing to go along with them,” but even if his version of the story were true, Joshua Tift had done more than that: he had been willing to stand aside and watch as his captors shot at English soldiers. Tift’s relinquishment of his liberty was far more complete than Rowlandson’s. And since Tift was a man and Rowlandson a woman, Tift’s submission, his surrendering of his will, his willingness to go along with the Indians, were all the more culpable. As an English woman, Mary Rowlandson was not supposed to have very much will of her own to give away; submission was her gender’s mandate.38 And submission was also the posture required of her as a Christian. “In my travels,” Rowlandson recalled, “an Indian came to me and told me, if I were willing, he and his squaw would run away, and go home along with me: I told him No: I was not willing to run away, but desired to wait God’s time, that I might go home quietly, and without fear.”39 If Mary Rowlandson’s captiv
ity was willful, it followed God’s will, not her own. Mary Rowlandson’s piety, and her femininity, meant that the “vows of God” were upon her and that her will was not her own. For Puritans in New England, captivity among the Indians was easily put to spiritual ends, but it is no coincidence that the first and most popular captivity narrative was written by a woman. The tension between resistance and surrender was best managed by gendered explanations. Mary Rowlandson had already surrendered her will to her husband, and to God, and to surrender to Indians in God’s name was consistent with what her culture expected of her, or at least more consistent for her than such behavior was for a man. Even as a captive, Joshua Tift was still expected to possess a will of his own.40
Joshua Tift did not call himself a captive; he called himself a “servant” or a “slave” to the sachem who captured him. This was not unusual. In the early months of captivity, before being formally adopted, captives often underwent a difficult period of initiation, somewhat akin to enslavement. Mary Rowlandson, for instance, belonged to an Indian couple (a Narragansett leader named Quinnapin and a “squaw sachem,” Weetamoo, from Pocasset), whom she called her “master” and “mistress,” terms a servant would have used. Indian captives would have been better able to predict what fate awaited them, but Europeans had little idea of what to expect, or what their true status was in this new community, and came to understand it in whatever terms seemed appropriate to them.41 The people who suffered forms of bondage during King Philip’s War were called by many names: captives, servants, slaves. Even today these terms can be confusing, but to us, some fundamental differences dictate their usage. A captive is someone who has been kidnapped and held by force, usually temporarily. A servant is someone required (often by force) to work for another in exchange for housing, food, and occasionally wages. A slave is a permanent, unpaid servant, whose children inherit that status.