In the 1600s tensions between Native Americans and European settlers known as Puritans rose. As the Puritans pushed out the natives the Native Americans and they resented by kidnapping Puritan women and children. On the other hand, European traders kidnapped natives for profit. Rowlandson’s narrative and Squanto’s narratives are great examples of the tension between Native Americans and Puritans. Rowlandson’s narrative achieves its purpose by giving an account of her captivity and still representing her beliefs while presenting the Native Americans as savages. Rowlandson’s narrative is better presented. At first, she resented and hated her captors. She believed that her captors were demons and were going to kill and eat her. As her account progressed she began to eat the food that the native Americans gave her and she began to accept her fate. She became thankful to her captors for not killing her and treating her with hospitality and kindness. She did not try to run away but kept her faith in God and prayed that she would be saved and reunited with her children. Rowlandson uses visual imagery and is able to convey a sense of anger, despair, and eventually a bit of thankfulness towards her captors. Squanto’s narrative was not as well perceived. He was at first scared and angry when he was taken. He did not know if he would see his …show more content…
Her account was full of emotion, wonder, and a firsthand account of her treatment as a prisoner by the Native Americans. Squanto’s narrative showed the negative impacts of European settlement while Rowlandson’s narrative showed the European side of settling in a new area and exposing the audience to an experience that they can’t experience but are able to relate by sharing the same ethnic background and social class. In the modern age we read and analyze captivity narratives in order to learn about the history of America and what it was to live in that particular time