Mary Rowlandson

1637 (age 74)

For twenty years following her marriage in 1656, Rowlandson led the hard, uneventful life of a frontier housewife; but on February 10, 1675/76, during King Philip's War, the Indians attacked Lancaster, burnt the village, and carried away captive Mrs. Rowlandson and her three surviving children, of whom the youngest died from exposure shortly after. For eleven weeks, while the Indians wandered about in north central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire in an effort to avoid the colonial forces, she remained a captive. She suffered, as the Indians did, from lack of food, but the prospective ransom and her skill in making shirts and knitting stockings apparently won her comparatively good treatment. On May 2, 1676, after considerable diplomatic bargaining in which the blusterings of the government probably counted for less than the influence of John Hoar (Shurtleff, post, and H. S. Nourse, The Hoar Family in America, 1899), she was returned to her friends for a payment of twenty pounds; soon afterward her two children were released. In 1677 the family moved to Wethersfield, Connecticut, where her husband had been called as minister. After his death in 1678, the town voted his widow an "allowance of £30 per year so long as she remains a widow among us" (Stiles and Adams, post, p. 328). The town records fail to show how long the allowance was paid or the date of Mrs. Rowlandson's death. The Soveraignty & Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was first published in Cambridge in 1682. Designed by the author "to be to her a memorandum of Gods dealings with her" and "to declare the Works of the Lord, " this was one of the most widely-read pieces of seventeenth-century prose. A London edition under a slightly different title appeared within a few months; apparently two second editions came out the same year in Cambridge, and some thirty editions and reprints have been issued since then. No first edition is known. Historians have praised the Narrative for its picture of Indian life (J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, vol. III, 1864, p. 183) and for "its pure, idiomatic and sinewy English" (M. C. Tyler, A History of American Literature, vol. II, 1878, p. 139); it illustrates as well the contempt felt by the colonists for the Indians and admirably fulfills its author's intentions, for Mary Rowlandson in even the darkest hours of her captivity was able to strangle the doubts of God's mercy that assailed her, to assert repeatedly her utter and submissive confidence in God, and finally to believe "as David did, It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (Narrative, p. 73).

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book

The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: with Related Documents (Bedford Series in History and Culture)

( Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, ...)

A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.: By Mrs. Mary Rowlandson; and Introduction by Atidem Aroha (Full Original Text).

(Mary Rowlandson, a Minister’s wife in New England as it s...)

The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives (Dover Books on Americana)

( The wife of a minister in a small frontier town west of...)

Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675-1699

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

The Collected Works of MARY ROWLANDSON: The Complete Works PergamonMedia (Highlights of World Literature)

(This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or a...)

Mary White Rowlandson Edit Profile

author

Background

Mary White Rowlandson was born about 1637, in Somerset, England, the daughter of John White, wealthiest of the original proprietors of Lancaster, Massachusset.

Career

For twenty years following her marriage in 1656, Rowlandson led the hard, uneventful life of a frontier housewife; but on February 10, 1675/76, during King Philip's War, the Indians attacked Lancaster, burnt the village, and carried away captive Mrs. Rowlandson and her three surviving children, of whom the youngest died from exposure shortly after. For eleven weeks, while the Indians wandered about in north central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire in an effort to avoid the colonial forces, she remained a captive.

She suffered, as the Indians did, from lack of food, but the prospective ransom and her skill in making shirts and knitting stockings apparently won her comparatively good treatment. On May 2, 1676, after considerable diplomatic bargaining in which the blusterings of the government probably counted for less than the influence of John Hoar (Shurtleff, post, and H. S. Nourse, The Hoar Family in America, 1899), she was returned to her friends for a payment of twenty pounds; soon afterward her two children were released.

In 1677 the family moved to Wethersfield, Connecticut, where her husband had been called as minister. After his death in 1678, the town voted his widow an "allowance of £30 per year so long as she remains a widow among us" (Stiles and Adams, post, p. 328). The town records fail to show how long the allowance was paid or the date of Mrs. Rowlandson's death.

The Soveraignty & Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was first published in Cambridge in 1682. Designed by the author "to be to her a memorandum of Gods dealings with her" and "to declare the Works of the Lord, " this was one of the most widely-read pieces of seventeenth-century prose. A London edition under a slightly different title appeared within a few months; apparently two second editions came out the same year in Cambridge, and some thirty editions and reprints have been issued since then. No first edition is known.

Historians have praised the Narrative for its picture of Indian life (J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, vol. III, 1864, p. 183) and for "its pure, idiomatic and sinewy English" (M. C. Tyler, A History of American Literature, vol. II, 1878, p. 139); it illustrates as well the contempt felt by the colonists for the Indians and admirably fulfills its author's intentions, for Mary Rowlandson in even the darkest hours of her captivity was able to strangle the doubts of God's mercy that assailed her, to assert repeatedly her utter and submissive confidence in God, and finally to believe "as David did, It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (Narrative, p. 73).

Achievements

Mary White was remembered for her ordeal, "The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson" that was published in 1682. This text is considered a seminal American work in the literary genre of captivity narratives. It went through four printings in 1682 and garnered readership both in the New England colonies and in England, leading it to be considered by some the first American "bestseller".