The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Essay

In Mary Rowlandson’s captive narrative, Rowlandson mostly portrays a negative view of the natives throughout her captivity during three months. In fact, most Puritan colonists never considered Native Americans as equal. They often underestimated the native’s cultures as uncivilized and savaged while Indians adapted to the settlers’ customs. The Mary Rowlandson’s narrative shows this wide gap between Native Americans and English in late seventeen century. Compared to native society, English settlers had boundaries in social, cultural, and religious aspects. Rowlandson’s narrative clearly depicts her efforts to maintain those boundaries, yet Native American treated her with equality and respect. Although she learned skills to survive among the Indians, in her heart she remained faithfully English. However, at the end of her narrative, she somewhat admitted that her Puritan boundaries were trivial and filled with vanity: “I have seen the extrem vanity of this World” (Rowlandson, 111). Mary Rowlandson’s narrative depicts that the colonist’s society in the New World was so bounded in many ways, but through her reaction to her captors it also suggests the possibilities of cooperation and cultural assimilation instead of the violent action between Native Americans and English settlers.

While Mary Rowlandson defines the Indian as “Barbarous Creatures”, they treats her with equality and respect. In her description of dreadful event in Lancaster, her devastation and fear is clearly expressed: “It is a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here, some there, like a company of Sheep torn by Wolves” (Rowlandson, 70). However these bloody barbarians treated her in unexpected way. They carry her wounded child and her on horseback when she takes her wounded child in her arms and continues on foot. When her child dies, they give a burial and let her to take some time at the grave. She still shows devastation and distrust of Indians at this moment, but...