The Struggle:
Mary Rowlandson’s Story of Survival
“All was gone, my husband gone..., my children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home, and all our comforts within door and without, all was gone except my life and I knew not but the next moment might go too.”(Edmund, 19) These were the words of Mary Rowlandson, a woman taken into captivity after Native Americans raided her colony, tortured and murdered the people of the land, and took Mary and a few others and turned them into slaves. Mary’s life was spared because she possessed the skill of sewing, and often sewed and knitted the Indians clothing. During her captivity she analyzed the way the Native Americans socialized and lived their everyday lives. The two worlds were polar opposites, and the way Native American women were treated was much different to the beliefs of Puritan ideology. Indian women even led army groups as large as 300 people; they were considered very strong. The women considered Mary to be weak, and treated her as such. In the Puritan world woman’s power was non-existent, and believes the women were around to serve the man, and their opinions and thoughts were not valued.
“It was a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here and some there, like a company of sheep torn by wolves. All of them striped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our hearts out.”(Rowlandson, 9-10) While many of her townspeople were tortured and slaughtered, Mary was one of the few who survived and taken into captivity. Forced to be a slave to the Indians, she spent most of her time sewing clothing for them, also collecting various foods. Since she was considered to be skilled and resourceful, she was not treated as the other slaves were. Mary describes most of the people in captivity were tortured, hit in the