Captivity had been around since the beginning of time. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano wrote their experiences with captivity, with different messages in mind. They dealt with fear and terror while being subjected to the evils of captivity. Although they did deal with fear, they learned from their experiences. Both Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano suffered from the horrors of kidnapping; Mary Rowlandson was captured by Native Americans in 1864, while Olaudah Equiano was captured by African slave traders and later sold to white slave traders. Through life before, during, and after captivity, Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano can be compared and contrasted. Mary Rowlandson was a young mother of three living on the frontier under the constant threat of a Native American attack. “In February 1676, she [Mary] and her three children were carried away by a Wampanoag raiding party that wanted to trade hostages for money” (Rowlandson 35). The colony Mary lived in was surrounded by Native Americans. The attackers burned down houses and opened fire on the settlers, wounding and killing several of them, and taking a number of the survivors as captives. The Native Americans begin to lead their captives, including Rowlandson and her three children, from the settlement into the surrounding wilderness. Olaudah Equiano was a member of the Ibo people, born in a part of West Africa that is now Nigeria. Olaudah was the youngest of the sons and became his mother’s favorite. His mother educated him and his father trained him since his youngest years to become a great warrior. “ I was trained up from the earliest years in the art of war, my daily exercise was shooting and throwing javelins, […]” (Equiano 53). Olaudah lived like this till he turned the age of eleven, which was when his happiness was put to an end. He and his siblings would keep watch for kidnappers who