The Puritan Captivity Narrative and the Politics of the American Revolution
Author(s): Greg Sieminski
Reviewed work(s):
Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Mar., 1990), pp. 35-56
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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The PuritanCaptivityNarrativeand the
Politics of the AmericanRevolution
CAPTAINGREG SIEMINSKI
United States Military Academy
A CURIOUS ANOMALY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPTIVITY NAR-
rative is the enormouspopularityof Puritanaccounts duringthe Revolutionary era. Two in particular,by Mary Rowlandson and John
Williams, were reprintedat least nine times between 1770 and 1776.
Their reappearanceis especially noteworthy because they had been
reprinted,all told, only threetimes following their initial publication.1
While these early accounts of captivity among the Indians are compelling -indeed, they were bestsellerswhen they firstappeared2 their
renewed popularityin the 1770s would seem to be regressive in light
of the genre's evolution away from Puritanconventions.
It is widely agreedthatthe captivitynarrativeunderwenta significant
change in the eighteenth century. Authors of the earliest narratives,
like Rowlandson and Williams, interpretedtheir captivity as a form
of divinetestingin which theirrejectionof Indianculturewas equivalent
to resisting a satanic temptationin the wilderness. However, in the
hundredyears following the publicationof the first captivity narrative
in 1682, as the genre spreadbeyond New England and as the claims
of Puritanismlost theirforce, the narrativesbecameincreasinglysecular
and eventually gave expression to a potent cultural myth. Richard
Slotkin argues that late eighteenth-centurycaptivities no longer representedGod's chastisementand testing of His people to ensure their
Captain Greg Sieminski is an Assistant Professor of English at the United States
MilitaryAcademy. He is working on a dissertationexamining how captivity accounts
writtenbetween 1770 and 1861 helpeddefine the nationalcultureand promotepolitical
revolution.
American Quarterly,Vol. 42, No. 1 (March 1990) C 1990 American Studies Association
35
36
AMERICANQUARTERLY
faithfulness, but the settler's initiationinto the secrets of Indian life.3
While the Puritan accounts regard-assimilationof Indian culture as
heretical, narrativesof a centurylater celebrate acculturationthrough
the captives' adoptioninto a tribe.4Among the late eighteenth-century
narratives,Slotkin identifies John Filson's "The Adventurersof Col.
Daniel Boone" (1784) as the earliest and most influentialexpression
of a new, partly-IndianizedAmericanculture.5Although Boone never
loses his white cultural superiorityduring his two captivities among
the Shawnee, he mastersskills which earnhim the respectof his captors
and allow him to triumphover the wilderness.6Boone thus emerges
fromhis experiencespart-Indian.His acculturationin "The Adventures
of Col. Daniel Boone," Slotkin argues, gave birth to a secular myth,
the legend of the frontiersmanas "archetypalAmericanand mediator
between civilization and the wilderness."7 The Puritannarratives
republishedand, more importantly,imitatedduringthe Revolutionary
era-were equally important,however, in definingthe Americancharacter by proclaiming the rejection of British culture. Far from a regression in the evolution of the genre, the resurgent interest in the
Puritannarrativesrepresentsa crucial development in the emergence
of a national culture.
Duringthe Revolutionaryera, the colonists began to see themselves
as captives of a tyrant ratherthan as subjects of a king. While this
image of collective captivityinformedthe pre-warpolitical imagination
in importantways -expressed, as we shall see, in the republicationof
the RowlandsonandWilliamsnarratives- it became an even more vital
metaphorfor the Revolution during the war itself, when numerous
Americansactuallyenduredcaptivity.Britisharmiesheld captive large
portions of the civilian populationthroughoccupation and many soldiers throughimprisonment.Ethan Allen, the first American to write
abouthis prisonerof warexperience,patternedhis Narrativeof Colonel
EthanAllen's Captivity(1779) afterthe accountsof Indiancaptivities.
In adaptingthe genre to serve political ends, Allen created, in effect,
a second cultural frontier, this one to the East instead of the West.
Crossing this frontier, Allen followed the pattern of earlier Puritan
narrativesin orderto stress his resistanceto the cultureof his captors.
In this way, he affirmed the newborn culture of America. Allen's
Narrativewas thus the negative complementto Boone's, for it defined
the nascent republic in terms of what it had rejectedratherthan what
it had become.
Allen's Narrativerepresentedthe culminationof a decade-longpro-
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
37
cess thatpoliticized the genre's early conventions. This process began
with the republicationof the Rowlandsonand Williams narratives,for
revolutionarypolitics had everythingto do with theirsuddenpopularity
in the 1770s. These two narrativeswere repeatedlyreprintedto shape
or express public opinion concerning specific political events of the
pre-warperiod-events which the colonists believed were leading to
their enslavement. Because Allen's adaptationof the Puritannarrative
altered and exploited its conventions in a mannersimilar to the ways
the colonists exploited them throughrepublication,it is necessary to
examine how contemporaryevents promptedrenewed interest in the
two accounts.
The firstto enjoy renewedpopularitywas A Narrativeof the Captivity
and Restaurationof Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.Describingthe terrorsof
her capture in an Indian raid on Lancaster, Massachusetts, and the
trials of her four-monthcaptivity, Rowlandson's Narrative had been
immediatelypopularwhen it firstappearedin 1682, going throughfour
editions that year.8But its appeal had waned over the next eight or so
decades, having been republishedonly once in 1720. Then, in 1770,
Rowlandson'sNarrativewas republishedthreetimes. Subsequentyears
saw only a slight decline in its popularity,for it was republishedonce
again in 1771, and twice more in 1773.9 With one exception, all the
editions which appearedduringthis periodwere publishedin Boston.'0
Neither the time nor the place was coincidental.
In 1770, Boston was a captive city, having been occupied by British
troops since October 1768. The soldiers had been sent to restoreorder
in the face of civil unrestover the TownshendActs. Frictionbetween
Bostonians and the British increased daily, largely as a result of the
propagandistic"Journalof Transactionsin Boston," a sort of diary of
relations between the citizens and the soldiers printed in a Boston
newspaper, which "played up the insolence and brutality of the
troops."" By the beginning of 1770, tensions were runninghigh. The
"trappedand restless mood" of the city at this time was suggested by
a new image introducedto the Boston Gazette's masthead. Atop the
1 January1770 issue was a seated Minervawith a pike and liberty cap
in the act of releasing a bird from its cage.'2 The restlessness finally
erupted in violence on 5 March 1770. British troops, heckled and
perhapsphysically threatenedby a mob, opened fire, killing five and
wounding six. The encounterwas immediatelyand popularlyreferred
to as the Boston Massacre.
In calling this incident a "massacre," the colonists were calling up
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images of the kind they knew best: an Indianraid on a frontiersettlement. Such an event was a familiaroccurrencein the captivitynarrative,
where it markedthe beginning of a captivity experience. The bloody
raid leading to Rowlandson's captureis a classic instance:
Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in their
blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathens ready to
knock us on the head if we stirredout. Now we might hear mothers and
children crying out for themselves and one another, "Lord, what shall we
do? . .. It was a solemn sight to see so many Christianslying in theirblood,
some here and some there, . . . all of them strippednaked.'3
In an oration commemoratingthe second anniversaryof the Boston
Massacre,Dr JosephWarrendescribeda scene which one might almost
mistake for Rowlandson's description. He recalled for his listeners:
the horrorsof that dreadful night . . . when our streets were stained with
the blood of our own brethren-when our ears were woundedby the groans
of the dying, and our eyes were tormentedwith the sight of the mangled
bodies of the dead-when our alarmedimaginationspresentedto our view
our houses wraptin flames, our children subjectedto the barbarouscaprice
of the raging soldiery,-our beauteousvirgins exposed to all the insolence
of unbridledpassion,-our virtuouswives . .. falling sacrificeto worse than
brutalviolence.... 14
Three years later, in another address commemoratingthe Boston
Massacre,Warrenrecalledsimilar"images of terror"andasked:"Who
spread this ruin round us? . .. has the grim savage rushed again from
the far distant wilderness? or does some fiend fierce from the depths
of hell,
.
.
.
hurl . . . deadly arrows at our breast? no; . . . but, how
astonishing!it is the hand of Britainthat inflicts the wound.'5 Warren
invoked the image of the Indian as devil, a characterizationfamiliar
in Puritanwritings and especially evident in Rowlandson'sNarrative,
to suggest thatthe British, in firingon unarmedcitizens, sharedsomethingof the Indians'fiendishness.He suggestedelsewherein his address
thatthe British sharednot only the Indians'barbaroustactics, but their
intention of taking the survivors captive. Slavery is a word used repeatedly in both his orations.16The fear of slavery is also evident in
many letters printed in Boston newspapers following the Massacre.
One writer, expressing the views of his fellow townspeople in a letter
to the Boston Gazette, characterizedthe incident as an "attemptto
enslave America."'7 The view was typical. The colonists saw the
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
39
Boston Massacre as evidence that they were the captives of savages.
There is additionalevidence to suggest that the renewed interest in
Rowlandson's narrativewas sparkedby the Boston Massacre. Woodcutswhich adornthe editionspublishedduringthis periodoffer potential
clues to the way in which the publishersintendedthe narrativeto be
understood."8 The 1773 edition printedby Boyle, who was a Whig,'9
includes a woodcut made specifically for its title page and executed
by an artistof some skill (see Figure 1). The cut depicts four Indians
lined up shoulder-to-shoulder,three aiming muskets and the fourth
wielding a tomahawk at Rowlandson, who stands outside her home
with her own musket leveled at her attackers.
The cut is unfaithful to the Narrative in several telling ways. For
one, the Indians'methodof attackhas no basis in the text. Rowlandson
describes the Indians attackingher house in a mannertypical of their
tactics: "Some of the Indians got behind the hill [near the house],
othersinto the barn,andothersbehindanythingthatcould shelterthem;
from all which places they shot against the house so that the bullets
seemed to fly like hail.
.
.."20
The line formation from which the
figures fight in the woodcut is more characteristicof British regulars
than Indians. Indeed, the stance of the Indians bears an uncanny resemblance to the stance of the soldiers in Henry Pelham's engraving,
TheFruits of ArbitraryPowers, and Paul Revere's better-knowncopy,
TheBloody Massacre Perpetratedin King Street (see Figure 2), prints
of which were widely distributedand frequentlyrecopiedin the months
and years following the Boston Massacre.2'The four figuresin the cut
and the first four figures in the engravings(the remainingthree being
obscured by smoke) are representedon the same side of the scene,
stand at the same angle, and appearto be firing a volley from their
leveled muskets. One can even see in the woodcut's crude detail an
effort to reproducethe facial expressionsand coat-like garmentsof the
soldiers in the engravings.22
The woodcut's depiction of Rowlandson also has no basis in the
narrative.When she fled from her burninghouse, she carried in her
arms her young daughter, not a musket. Nowhere did Rowlandson
suggest thatshe actively participatedin the defense of the house, much
less that she wielded a firearm.Representingher as militantly defiant
of her captorsis not only inaccurate,but contraryto a centralspiritual
lesson of her Narrative. Repeatedly, she affirmed that, because the
Indians are God's instrumentsfor the chastisement of His wayward
40
AMERICANQUARTERLY
A
N
R
R
A
T
o F T
I-
I
V
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E
CAPFIWITY, SUFFERINGS AND REMOVES
o F
iNrs.
Mary
Roandjbn,
ho was taken P ifner by the INDI)ANS with Levemalothers
and treated in At motl barbarouand cruel Mannerby thofe
* ile Savages: With manyotkerrema ble Eventsduringher
W
TRtAVELS.
*
, for her prvate fe, and now madc
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rittenby her own R 4
public at the wJ-eii
of Lime Finds, ad fiorft E?e
neft of the A-fief
Prhued at-i
PH12
W-"F 4
-
PURITANCAPTIVrTYNARRATIVE
41
Figke 1. Leni Tridepage of Mary Rowandson's Narraive. Courtesy, American
Antiquarian Society.
Figure 2. Above: Paul Revere, The BkoodyMassacre Perpetated in King Stet.
Courtesy, Anerican
Antiquarian
Society.
42
AMERICANQUARTERLY
people, patient enduranceis obedience to God. But submission was
far from the minds of most Bostonians in the aftermathof the Boston
Massacre. Thus, ratherthan accuratelyreflecting the content of Rowlandson'sNarrative, the woodcutrepresenteda secular23and a political
version of her story. In the scene, the Indians have been refiguredas
a tyrannic authority and Rowlandson as a courageous defender of
liberty. Indeed, Rowlandson seems to representa frontier version of
the Goddessof Liberty,a figureintimatelyassociatedwith the American
cause in both visual and literaryart beginning in the 1760s.24
In addition to Rowlandson's narrative,one other Puritancaptivity
narrativeenjoyed popularity in the years preceding the Revolution.
John Williams's The RedeemedCaptive, Returningto Zion was originally published in 1707. Three years before, Williams, minister of
the Congregationalchurchin Deerfield, Massachusetts,had been carried to Canadaby his Indiancaptors along with a large numberof his
flock. In his narrative,Williams focused less on the hardshipsof his
captivity than on the cunning efforts of French priests to convert him
and his parishioners. His account was thus anti-Frenchand, more
especially, anti-Catholic.The narrative,which had last appeared,not
coincidentally,duringthe Frenchand IndianWar,25was reprintedthree
times duringthe 1770s, appearingin 1773, 1774, and 1776.26
As with Rowlandson's account, contemporarypolitical events explain the renewedpopularityof Williams's narrative.Its representation
of a helpless New EnglandProtestantbeing oppressedby French culturaland religious tyrannyperfectlyexpressedthe colonists' fears over
Britain's conciliatory policy toward the inhabitants of the newlyacquiredProvince of Quebec. The British had adoptedtheir policy of
conciliation in the mid-1760s as the only means for controlling Quebec's large populationof FrenchCatholics. As partof that policy, the
British had allowed the appointmentof a Catholic Bishop to the See
of Quebec in 1766, a position which had been vacant since the end of
the French and Indian War. New Englanderswere greatly disturbed
by the Bishop's appointment.It "was takenfor grantedin all quarters"
thatthe appointment"portendedthe eventualestablishmentof 'popery'
and tyrannyin the other colonies."27 Samuel Adams wrote a series of
anonymouslettersto the Boston Gazettein 1768 to play up these fears.28
His propagandacampaign was so successful that by the early 1770s
anti-Catholicsentimentwas high. Then, in August, 1773, wordreached
America that a bill for the government of Quebec was pending in
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
43
Parliamentwhich, if passed, would allow the French Canadiansthe
freedomto practicetheirreligion as they had underthe Frenchregime.
"At once . . . defenders of orthodox Protestantism broke into print"
in New England newspapers to denounce the legislation,29for the
Quebec Act, as it was called, seemed to justify the colonists' worst
fears. Not only did it appearto be "a cleverly conceived method of
foisting 'popery' on the colonists," it also seemed to be "a scheme to
conciliate the Canadiansand use them on occasion in subjugatingthe
olderBritishcolonies. "30 Because the Frenchhad long been responsible
for encouragingIndian attackson New England settlements, this subjugation was likely to take the form of Indian raids and captivities.31
But if the French Canadians and their Indian allies were to be the
agents of this subjugation,they were not its cause. Consequently,the
colonists focused their ire on the British, whom they saw as masterminding a plot to rob them of their religious and political liberties.
Their letters on the Quebec Act, just as the published letters on the
Boston Massacre, repeatedlyuse the words "slavery" and "enslavement. "32
The close temporalrelationshipbetween the colonists' concernsover
British policy in Quebec and the renewed popularity of Williams's
narrativesuggests a connection. The appearanceof the 1773 and 1774
editions correspondedto a time of heightenedanti-Catholictension and
concern over the Quebec bill. In addition, the sudden cessation of
interestin the narrativeafter 1776 (it was not republishedagain until
1793)33correspondedto a generaldampeningof anti-Catholicsentiment
following the Declaration of Independence;once the colonists had
proclaimed their political independence, they shrewdly realized that
the viability of their new nation dependedon the supportof powerful
allies-the most likely being the Catholicnationsof Franceand Spain.
For a devout Puritanlike Williams, such a reversal would have been
unthinkable,but for the more secular and practicallyminded revolutionaries, the switch was politically expedient.
Thus, in the years just preceding the Revolution, the Rowlandson
and Williams narrativeswere popularizedbecause they expressed the
colonists' growing sense of themselves as a people held captive.
Whetherthe politicizationof these narrativeswas partof the colonists'
widespreadand sophisticatedpropagandaeffort or merely a reflection
of it is impossible to say. What can be asserted is that these Puritan
captivity narrativeswere well-suited to support the revolutionaries'
44
AMERICANQUARTERLY
cause. For one, they were closely associated with the "FoundingFathers," whose authoritythe colonists wanted to invoke as a means to
root their nationalorigin in Americansoil. For another,because Rowlandson's narrativehad given birth to a new and distinctly American
genre,34its use associatedthe revolutionarycause not only with a native
literary form, but one which had emerged from a unique American
experience.
Moreover,the narrativesframedthat experiencein a way which had
implications suited to the revolutionaries'political agenda. The captivity experiencebegan andendedin freedom. If the end point endorsed
the colonists' desire for independence, the startingpoint fit the colonists' understandingof theirpast. Correctlyor not, they thoughtof the
colonies as self-governinguntil the imposition of British colonial rule
restrainedtheir political liberties. Thus, the frame of the captivity
narrative-beginning and ending in freedom-endorsed the colonists'
desire to regain liberties which were theirs by right, by historical
precedent, and by patrimony.
For the devout Puritanwriter-and especially for MaryRowlandson,
who was the wife of a minister, and for John Williams, who was
himself one - captivity was an intense religious experience beginning
in affliction, leadinginto a periodof testing, and ending in redemption.
In the first stage, God, displeased with the Puritan's waywardness,
subjectedhim to sufferings and humiliationin the hands of his Indian
captors to quicken his faith. The appropriateresponse to this divine
chastisementwas repentanceand patient endurance. Colonists of the
pre-warperiod found the Puritan's doctrine of affliction useful-not
as a means of highlightingtheirown waywardness,but Britain's. Like
Jeffersonin the Declarationof Independence,they scoreda propaganda
victory by portrayingthemselves as the long-suffering subjects of an
unjust king. The Boyle woodcut of a militantly defiant Rowlandson
contradictsthis portrayal,of course, but herein lies the virtue of the
captivity as a metaphorfor revolution;the story of affliction becomes
a rallying cry for defiance. If the Boyle cut subverts a key lesson in
Rowlandson's narrative,it does so only in the service of a higherlawthe inalienableright of liberty.
The second stage of the captivity experience, testing, also suited the
revolutionaryagenda. Rowlandson's stay among the Indians meant
living not only with the people of the devil, but with an alien culture.
In Williams's case, the pressuresto convertand acculturatewere even
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
45
greaterbecauseof the proselytizingFrenchCatholics. Since redemption
depended upon resisting these pressures, they emphatically rejected
the religious beliefs and customs of their captorsas a way of affirming
their own. To the colonists, this affirmationamountedto an endorsement of the cultureof their forefathers.If that culturewas not exactly
American, neither was it exactly British. In the context of late eighteenth-centuryBoston, then, keeping faith throughtrialhad a patriotic,
as well as a religious meaning.
The colonists also found the final stage of the captivity experience
a suitable expression of their growing sense of national identity and
purpose. God grantedthe Puritancaptives their freedom because they
hadrepentedandhad successfully enduredtesting. Thus, they emerged
from their captivity redeemed. Their deliverance did not assure salvation, of course, but did prefigure it. More importantly, since the
captive's deliverancerepresentedthe society's at large, it validatedthe
community's status as God's Chosen People and foretold its destined
liberation. For PuritanNew England, this meant liberation from the
scourgeof Indianraidsandcaptivities;for colonial America, this meant
liberationfrom British tyranny.
By the time the Revolutionbecame a reality, the concept of a people
destined to be redeemed from a collective captivity experience had
become thoroughlylinkedin the Americanimaginationwith the concept
of political rebellion. Justhow thoroughlyis suggestedby the proposal
of a captivityscene as the motif for the GreatSeal of the United States.
Its design, submittedas a proposalto Congressby Jefferson, Franklin,
and Adams in July 1776, portraysthe Israelites safely across the Red
Sea, while theirformerEgyptiancaptorsareoverwhelmedby collapsing
walls of water (see Figure 3). As interestingas the scene itself is the
mottowhich encirclesit: "Rebellionto Tyrantsis Obedienceto God!"36
The design was laterrejected, but only because it was "too busy," not
because it was inappropriate.Churchmenhad greatersuccess in popularizing the association between the Exodus and the revolutionary
cause, as evidencedby manysermonsof the period.37Such associations
became even more fixed in the public mind as the war progressed, for
what had once been a means for expressing (or, perhaps, reflecting)
pre-warpropagandabecame a fact of life for Americans who found
themselves in British-occupiedterritoryand, more especially, for the
thousandsof Americans who became prisonersof war.
One of the firstand most prominentof these was EthanAllen, whose
46
QUARTERLY
AMERICAN
Philip M. The Amica
3. From I-asn,
Fig
Graphic Soety, 1975). Couresy, Anmicn Num
Eag (Bost:
oat Socety.
New York
rash assault on Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 had resulted in a stunning
victory. On 25 September of the same year, he led an equally rash
assault on Montreal in which he and about thirty of his men were
captured.He spent nearlythreeyears in the handsof the British, finally
gaining his liberty in a prisonerexchange on 6 May 1778. Within a
year of his release, Allen recountedhis captivity in what was the first
Americanprisonerof war narrativeever published.3-His Narrative of
Col. Ethan Allen's Captivitywas immediatelypopular,going through
Frank
at least eight editions in the two years following its appearance.39
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
47
LutherMott estimatesthatit achieved sales approaching20,000 copies
in the first year alone.40Allen attained this extraordinarypopularity
not merelybecause his accusationsof BritishinhumanitytowardAmerican prisonersmade good propaganda,but also because he exploited
what those who republishedthe Rowlandson and Williams narratives
had: the potential of the Puritancaptivity narrativefor expressing the
rejection of political and culturalties to Britain. Essentially, Allen's
Narrative functions as a politicized version of Puritancaptivity narratives;41 he might well have adapted Williams's title for his own
account, calling it The RedeemedCaptive, Returningto America.
Although Allen worked within the conventions of the Puritancaptivity narrative,Indiansappearin his Narrative only at the momentof
his capture.Theirportrayalshows how Allen adaptedthese conventions
for his own purposes. After Allen surrendershimself and his sword to
a British officer from the Montrealgarrison, an Indian, invested with
all the characteristicsRowlandson ascribes to such "hell-hounds,"42
rushes upon him with musket at the ready:
he seemed to advance with more than mortal speed; . . . his hellish visage
was beyond all description;snake's eyes appearinnocent in comparisonto
his; . . . malice, death, murder,and the wrath of devils and damned spirits
are the emblems of his counte-nance. . ..
One would expect that only divine interventioncould save Allen from
a bloody end, but what follows instead is a comic scene in which he
"twitches" the British officer between himself and the Indian as a
means of defense (212). When another"imp of hell" joins the first in
the attack,Allen makes "theofficerfly aroundwith incrediblevelocity"
in an effort to maintainthe effectiveness of his human shield (222).
The degenerationof this scene from spiritualdramato slapstickmakes
it clear that he does not intend the Puritans'conventional portraitof
the Indianto be takenseriously.44Allen's quarrelis not with the Indians;
he had himself tried to solicit the supportof tribes along the Canadian
borderfor his raid on Montreal. His primarypurpose in invoking the
Indian-as-hellhoundconvention is to show who the real Indians are,
to achieve the same British-for-Indiansubstitutionachieved by the
colonists following the Boston Massacre.
He does this by setting up an ironic contrast between his relief at
being rescued from the Indians and his subsequenttreatmentby the
British. Following his rescue, Allen takes deliberatenote of his relief:
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AMERICANQUARTERLY
"escaping from so awful a death, made even imprisonmenthappy;the
more so as my conquerorson the field treatedme with great civility
and politeness" (222). But he discovers immediately afterwardthat,
although his conquerorson the field treat him with great civility and
politeness, General Prescott, commander of the Montreal garrison,
does not. Prescottcomes close to strikinghis prisonerduringtheir first
interview and then decides to execute several of Allen's Canadian
followers as traitorsand to transportAllen himself to England to be
hung for treason(222-23). Thus, Allen quickly learnsthathe has been
delivered from the hands of uncivilized savages into the hands of
civilized ones. The Indians, having served to highlight this ironic
realization, make no other appearancein the Narrative.
Allen adapts and exploits other Puritanconventions throughouthis
Narrative. Like the Puritans,he sees his captivity as representativeof
the community'scollective experience. Whenhe was takento England,
his execution depended upon whether he was considered a "rebel,"
subject to punishmentfor treason, or a prisoner of war, with a right
to humanetreatment.Politics had a greatdeal to do with this question,
since the British feared that if they granted their captives status as
prisonersof war their action "mightbe construedas a tacit recognition
of American independence ...... "4
Because Allen was the first Amer-
ican to face the possibility of trial for treason, the outcome of his case
would establish a precedent.Thus, when he learns that he is not to be
executed, but to be sent back to America as a prisoner of war, he
understandsthe decision's implications: "my being sent to England,
for the purposeof being executed, and [the fear of Americanretaliation
on British captives] restrainingthem, was rathera foil on their laws
and authori-ty . . ." (230). Allen implies that this decision was a first
step toward securing not only his independence, but the nation's as
well.
Since the nation's independencewill be realized on the battlefield,
Allen strengthensthe representativenessof his captivity by cultivating
the illusion of a reflexive relationshipbetween the military situation
and his own. When American forces are humiliatedearly in the war,
Allen endures humiliation at the hands of his captors. Even after his
returnto America, he suffers close confinementand rough treatment
for nearly a year aboard English vessels off Cape Fear, New York,
and Halifax. As the revolutionaries'situationimproves, Allen's does
also. He obtains parole in New York in October, 1776, and for most
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
49
of the rest of his eleven months in captivity has free run of the city.
From 1777-78, the impressive stringof Americanvictories, including
Princeton, Trenton, and Saratoga, parallel Allen's progress toward
freedom. Allen goes so far as to alter the historicalrecord to develop
the parallel. Both the Battle of Saratogaand France's entry in the war
on the side of the Americans(promptedby the Saratogavictory) were
events that occurredmonths after Allen was released, but in the Narrative he depicts them as occurringbefore his exchange. He evidently
makes this alterationbecause he wants his release to correspondwith
what he believes will be the militaryturningpoint of the war.
Like the Puritans, Allen shares the lesson of his own captivity in
orderto bring aboutthe reformationof his readers.The centralinsight
gained duringhis captivity, of course, is the inhumaneway in which
the British treat their captives. Allen recasts this insight into the religious frameworkof the Puritancaptivity narrativeso that the inhumanityof the Britishserves as incontrovertibleevidence of theiralliance
with the devil. Within this framework,recognition of the true nature
of the British has spiritualconsequences. Allen's Narrative therefore
reads like a lay sermon as he works to bring his countrymento this
recognition.He is not alone in his efforts. Heavenitself, Allen suggests,
arrangesthe events of the war in orderto expose the enemy's character
and win converts to the American cause:
[I]t was . ..
a day of trouble....
Our little army was retreating in New-
Jersey, and our young men [were being] murderedby hundredsin NewYork[prisons].The armyof BritainandHeshlandprevailedfor a little season,
as though it was ordered by Heaven to shew . . . what the British would
have done if they could . . . and to excite every honest man to stand forth
in the defense of liberty, and to establish the independencyof the United
States of America forever. (258)
Allen's Narrativeis thus a call for a renewal of the people's faith and
the salvationof the nation, where faith means patriotismand salvation
means independence.
There will be some who do not heed the call, and for Allen, as for
the Puritans,the consequences are eternal. Among the unrepentantare
the Tories, whose "hellish delight and triumph"at the sight of their
countrymendying in New Yorkprisonsclasses them with the inhuman
British (253). Allen, adaptingthe words of St. Paul,46condemns their
loyalty to the British as idolatrous and their conduct toward their
countrymenas damnable:
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Burgoyne was to them a demi-god. To him they paid adoration;in him the
tories placed their confidence, "and forgot the Lord their God," and served
Howe, Burgoyne, and Knyphausen, "and became vile in their own imagination, and their foolish hearts were darkened,"professing to be great politicians, andrelyingon foreignandmercilessinvaders,andwith them seeking
the ruin, bloodshed and destructionof their country. . . Therefore, God
gave them over to strong delusion, to believe a lie, that they might be
damned. (263)
The British, of course, are more hardheartedthanthe Tories and, thus,
are unquestionablybound for the infernalregions. Among them, General Howe, who was commanderof New York duringAllen's imprisonment there, and who Allen thereforeassumes had knowledge of the
plight of the Americanprisoners,has a welcoming partyawaitinghim:
"legions of infernaldevils, with all their tremendoushorrors,are impatiently ready to receive Howe . . . into the most exquisite agonies
of the hottest region of hell fire" (269).
As a means for authenticatingtheir faith, the Puritansemphasized
their resistanceto the beliefs of their captors. Allen does likewise, but
only afterhe has establishedthatAmericanculturediffers from British
culture. He highlights the difference when he arrives in England. He
steps ashore clad in the same garmentsin which he was capturedthe habilimentsof the frontiersman,complete with "fawn-skinjacket"
(229). The curiosity of the crowds which gatherto catch sight of him
as he disembarksat Falmouth(229) and as he exercises himself on the
paradeat PembrokeCastle (233) is arousedby the strangenessof his
frontier garb: "I am apprehensive my . . . dress contributed not a little
to the . . . excitement of curiosity: to see . . . such a rebel as they
were pleased to call me . .. was neverbefore seen in England"(234).47
Representinghimself as culturallydifferentfrom his captorsenables
Allen to amplifythe heroismof his resistingacculturation.The moment
of temptationcomes when an emissary of GeneralHowe's offers him
the rankof colonel and a large tractof land in New Englandif he will
lead a regimentof Tories in Burgoyne's plannedNew York campaign
(261). Allen refuses the offer, telling the emissarythathe "viewed the
offer of land to be similarto that which the devil offered Jesus Christ,
'To give him all the kingdoms of the world, if he would fall down
and worship him; when . .. the damned soul had not one foot of land
upon earth [to offer]' " (262). Like the Puritans,Allen suggests that
resisting culturalconversion is equivalentto resisting the wiles of the
devil.
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
51
But to make a furtherjibe at the British, Allen does somethingvery
un-Puritan.He claims to be won over to the French culture instead.
Because of France's willingness to supportthe Americancause, Allen
says,
My affections are Frenchified.I glory in Louis the sixteenth, the generous
andpowerfulally of these states;am fond of a connectionwith so enterprising,
learned, polite, courteousand commerciala nation.. . I begin to learn the
French tongue, and recommendit to my countrymen.. . (276)
Allen obviously relished the irony of claiming allegiance to the nation
that had been Britain's traditionalenemy and that was likely to play
a key role in severing it from its colonies forever.
Allen emerges from his captivity, like his Puritan counterpart,a
redeemed man. He has observed the characterof his captors and recognized it to be savage. He has undergonea trial of faith and remained
true. Just as he has been redeemed, so has the nation. The victory at
Saratogahas brought foreign military assistance and political recognition, seemingly assuring the nation's independence. When Allen
returnsto his home in Bennington, Vermont, he notes that he "was
thought to be dead" (278), suggesting that his captivity has resulted
in a rebirth. The analog to his personal regenerationis clear enough:
througha collective captivity experience, the colonies have died, and
"the rising States of America" have been born (278).
What exactly this personaland nationalregenerationhas given birth
to is not certainfrom the Narrative, for Allen is unableto find a single
voice with which to speak as the representative American. John
McWilliams has pointed out that Allen seems to want "to create a
consistent heroic characterfor himself," but that he is unable to do
so.48 Instead, he plays the roles of a variety of national types: the
frontiersman,the Yankee, the gentleman. McWilliams suggests that
Allen plays these roles because he had "lost a firm sense of self."49
But Allen's difficultyis representativein the sense that the new nation
is just as unsureof its identity as Allen. PerhapsAllen's role playing,
which is deliberate,is itself a nationalcharacteristic,for it is not unlike
that of other contemporaryliteraryfigures, such as BenjaminFranklin
in his Autobiography(1771-1781) and Teague O'Regan in Modern
Chivalry (1792-1815). In a pluralisticsociety, perhapsthe most representativeAmerican is the one -withthe greatest pluralityof selves.
However it may be, the virtue of his captivity is that it allows Allen
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to define his culturalidentity in negative, ratherthan positive terms.
He identifies his Americannessby means of contrastswith a variety
of British audiencesand types: he plays the frontiersman-roaring out
stringsof expletives, wielding his fists like wooden mallets, and chewing nails-to awe his revilersinto silence; he plays the Yankeeto outdo
the banter of British wits with native humor and the policy of royal
officials with homespunshrewdness;he plays the educatedgentleman
discussing moral philosophy and behaving with civility and honor
to astonish his refined auditorsinto grantinghim their respect. Thus,
Allen's Americanness emerges, however indistinctly and Cerberuslike, from a triangulationof these contrasts.
Clearly, the 1770s mark a significantperiod in the evolution of the
captivity genre. From the republicationof Rowlandson's and Williams's accounts early in the decade to the publication of Allen's in
1779, the captivity narrativesboth expressed and shaped American
revolutionarysentiment. They did so, first, by transformingthe captivity experience into a potent metaphorfor the Revolution. In appropriating the Puritannarrativesthemselves or adopting their conventions-even as most contemporarynarratives, like Boone's, were
rejecting them in favor of secular ones-the colonists harnessedthe
powerfulreligious andhistoricalpatternsassociatedwith the settlement
of New Englandandwith the birthof the Israelitenation. These patterns
lent not only authorityto the revolutionarycause, but also an air of
inevitability, as Allen's confident declarationabout the "rising States
of America" suggests (278). To a nation whose independencestill lay
two years in the futureat Yorktown, such assuranceswere comforting
and, undoubtedly,the fundamentalsource of the Narrative's appeal.
Perhaps the post-war interest in such captivity accounts as Royall
Tyler's novel The Algerine Captive (Walpole, N.H., 1797) and John
Foss's Journal of the Captivityand Sufferingsof John Foss, Several
Yearsa Prisoner in Algiers (Newburyport,Mass., 1798)50 can also be
explained, in part, as America's attempt to reassure itself about its
independence;in the face of its impotence before Barbarypirates, the
young nation needed to believe it would eventually assert its sovereignty.
No less significantis the way the captivity narrativearticulatedrevolutionary sentiment by asserting America's cultural distinctiveness.
While most contemporarynarrativeslike Boone's stressedthe captives'
assimilation of anotherculture, the republishedPuritanaccounts and
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
53
Allen's Narrativeemphasizedtheirresistanceto it. Because these latter
narrativesliterally or figurativelyrepresentedthis culture as British,
they declared, in effect, the new nation's culturalindependence.That
they did so in a genre so uniquely American served to amplify their
message. Allen's Narrative defined Americanness in negative (and
thus vague) terms, to be sure, but this definitionwas not less significant
for doing so. For Americans poised between two cultures, the myth
of separationwas as crucial as the myth of acculturation.Indeed,
renunciationof British culturewas a prerequisiteto the creationof an
uniquely American one. Again, though, one senses insecurity in the
nation's need to assert itself in this way. Richard Slotkin has noted
thatthe Puritans'fear of acculturationwas bornof a perverseattraction
to the wildernessand Indianculture51;similarinsecuritiesseem to arise
from the colonists' paradoxicaladmirationof the culturethey so much
wanted to renounce. Allen's apparentpleasurein being accepted as an
equal among British officers on the eve of his exchange may reflect
this attraction,unconsciouslyrevealed once the pressureto acculturate
seemedpast. His satisfactionin makingthe "transitionfromthe provost
criminals to the company of gentlemen" suggests that he preferreda
role more closely associatedwith Europethan the Yankeeor frontiersman roles associatedwith America(277). Insecuritiesarisingfrom this
kind of attractioncontinued to haunt young America as it sought to
measureits culture against that of its parentcountry.
Thus, the Revolutionaryera revival of the Puritancaptivitynarratives
and their adaptationby people like Allen representsan importantand
heretoforeunrecognizedcomplementto the frontiernarrativesin which
men like Boone "out-Indianedthe Indians" as they laid claim to the
wilderness. If the latterwas born from a confidence in what the nation
hoped it would become, the formeroriginatedfrom an insecurityabout
what the nation hoped it could resist.
NOTES
1. Bibliographicinformationon captivity narrativesis available in R. W. G. Vail's
TheVoiceof the OldFrontier(Philadelphia,1949). (Wherespecificeditionsarereferred
to in the notes, Vail's entry numberswill appearin brackets.) In the years between
initial publicationand 1769, Rowlandson's narrativewas reprintedonly once (1720)
[331], while Williams was reprintedtwice (1720 and 1758) [332 and 525].
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2. RichardSlotkin, RegenerationThroughViolence:TheMythologyof the American
Frontier, 1600-1860 (Middletown, 1973), 95-96.
3. Slotkin, 20-24, 267.
4. Slotkin, 247.
5. "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boone" was published as a chapter in the
appendix of Filson's The Discovery, Settlementand Present State of Kentuckeand
achieved such popularity that it was often reprinted separately and in anthologies
(Slotkin, 278).
6. Slotkin, 286-89.
7. Slotkin, 23.
8. Of these editions [211-14], the last appearedin London.
9. These editions, groupedaccordingto the year in which they appeared,are: 1770
[604-06], 1771 [609], 1773 [620-21].
10. The 1773 edition [621] was printedin New London.
11. PhilipDavidson, Propagandaand the AmericanRevolution:1763-1783 (Chapel
Hill, 1941), 150.
12. KennethSilverman,A CulturalHistory of the AmericanRevolution(New York,
1976), 145.
13. MaryRowlandson, TheSovereignty& Goodnessof God .. .; Being a Narrative
of the Captivityand Restaurationof Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Reprintedin Alden T.
Vaughanand EdwardW. Clark, eds., PuritansAmong the Indians: Accountsof Captivity and Redemption:1676-1724 (Cambridge,Mass., 1981), 34-35.
14. JosephWarren,5 March1772 orationdeliveredin Boston. Reprintedin Hezekiah
Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolutionin America (New York, 1876), 22.
15. Joseph Warren,5 March 1775 orationdelivered in Boston. Reprintedin Niles,
27.
16. See Niles, 20ff and note 35.
17. WoodbridgeBrown, Town Clerk of Abington, Letter to the Boston Gazette, 2
April 1770.
18. While woodcuts appearin five of the six editions published between 1770 and
1773, only Boyle's can be taken as a meaningful representationof the publisher's
intention. In the case of the other four, the costs of commissioning a skilled artist
apparentlycaused the publisherseitherto use cuts made for previouslypublishedworks
(as in [604 and 605]), or to employ an unskilled artist to do the cutting (as in [609
and 621]).
19. Boyle's edition is [620]. His Whig sympathiesare evident from his journal;see
"Boyle's Journalof Occurrencesin Boston, 1759-1778," TheNew EnglandHistorical
and Genealogical Register, 84-85 (1930-31): 142-71, 248-72, 357-82.
20. Vaughan, 33.
21. AlthoughPelham firstexecuted the engraving, Revere was able to make a copy
and get it to press by 26 March 1770, a week earlier than Pelham, and only three
weeks after the Massacre. Clarence S. Brigham, in Paul Revere's Engravings (New
York, 1969), calculates that from the two engravings, some 775 impressions were
made within a month of the Massacre. In a city of about 17,000 (Silverman, 291),
that means that about 3 percent of the populationactually possessed a print and that
many more saw it. Pelham's and Revere's depiction of the Massacre became even
more fixed in the popular imaginationin the months and years which followed, for
between 1770 and 1772, the engraving (or copies of it) appearedin numerousother
prints, in broadsides,and in almanacs(Brigham,57-64). By the time Boyle's woodcut
for Rowlandson's Narrative appeared in 1773, the depiction of the Massacre had
achieved almost iconographicstatus. It is thereforelikely that Bostonians recognized
PURITANCAPTIVITYNARRATIVE
55
the similarity between the stance of the Indians in the cut and the soldiers in the
Massacrescene.
22. The similarity between Revere's engraving and the woodcut may even result
from common artistry.Revere executed two cuts for Boyle's edition of A Vision of
Hell, which appeared the same year as his edition of the Rowlandson Narrative
(Brigham, 203). Boyle advertises both in his 1774 edition of Williams's narrative
[641] and takes special care to highlight the illustrations-suggesting, perhaps, that
the printerconnectedthe two otherwisedissimilarworks because of the cuts. Although
Revere's daybook has no entry for the Rowlandsoncut, as it has for the Vision cut,
Brighamobserves that "Revere undoubtedlymade . . . cuts, which for one reason or
another were not entered in his charge accounts . . ." (198). At the very least, one
can say that the Rowlandsoncut is in the mannerof Revere's primitive style.
23. The secularizationof Rowlandson'sNarrative is also evident in the alteration
of her original title in the editions published between 1770 and 1773. Her original
title was The Sovereignty& Goodness of God, Together,with the Faithfulnessof His
Promises Displayed: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs.
MaryRowlandson.The title of the editionspublishedin the 1770s is simplyA Narrative
of the Captivity,Sufferingsand Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.
24. E. McClung Fleming, "Symbols of the United States: From Indian Queen to
Uncle Sam," Frontiers of American Culture, ed. Ray B. Browne et al. (Lafayette,
1968), 12; Silverman, 86.
25. This edition was printedin 1758 [525].
26. These editions are, respectively, [625], [641], and [653].
27. CharlesMetzger, The QuebecAct, a PrimaryCause of the AmericanRevolution
(New York, 1936), 27n.
28. Metzger, 22-24.
29. Metzger, 39.
30. Metzger, 41.
31. One New York freeholderfeared that the Quebec Act would make it possible
for Britain "to turn the Canadians and Indians loose on the frontier settlements"
(Metzger, 48).
32. For a sampling of this rhetoric, see Metzger, 40-41.
33. This edition was [957].
34. By the middle of the eighteenthcentury, the captivitywas popularlyrecognized
as a literaryform (Slotkin, 97).
35. Paul A. Varg, "The Advent of Nationalism, 1758-1776," AmericanQuarterly
16 (Summer 1964): 169-81.
36. Silverman, 323.
37. Michael Walzer, in Exodus and Revolution (New York, 1985), cites four examples (see ch. 1, note 17), but otherscould be addedto his list, such as JonasClark's
"TheFateof Blood-thirstyOppressors,andGod's TenderCareof his distressedPeople"
(Boston, 1777).
38. Anothercaptivity narrative,entitled A Narrative of the Captureand Treatment
of John Dodge, by the English at Detroit [660], was published in 1779, but, since
Allen's accountfirstappearedin the spring(CharlesA. Jellison, EthanAllen: Frontier
Rebel [Syracuse, 1969], 219) and Dodge's appeared late in the year (Vail, 307),
Allen's work pre-datesDodge's by half a year.
39. A bibliographyof Allen's Narrative appearsin John Pell, Ethan Allen (New
York, 1929), 276-77. Pell's list shows that it remainedpopularwell after the Revolution. At least nineteeneditions appearedbetween 1779 and 1854. Understandably,
it was most popularin Allen's native Vermont.
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40. FrankLutherMott, in GoldenMultitudes:TheStoryof Bestsellers in the United
States (New York, 1947), estimates that althoughAllen's Narrative did not reach the
20,000 sales requiredfor overall best sellers of the 1770-1779 period (304), it was
the best-selling publicationfor the year 1779 (316).
41. At least three critics have noted the debt Allen's Narrative owes to the Indian
captivitygenre:Slotkin 251-52; JohnMcWilliams, "The Faces of EthanAllen: 17601860," New England Quarterly 49 (June 1976): 267; Robert J. Denn, "Captivity
Narrativesof the AmericanRevolution,"Journalof AmericanCulture2 (Winter1980):
576-77. Beyond notingthe debt, however, none of these criticsexcept the firstexamine
how Allen adapts and exploits the early Puritancaptivity conventions. Slotkin's examinationis itself cursory.Contemporarypublishersalso associatedAllen's Narrative
with the Indian captivities. The 1780 edition of Elizabeth Hanson's narrative[667],
originally published in 1724 as God's Mercy SurmountingMan's Cruelty, includes
an advertisementfor Allen's Narrative. The publisher,E. Russell, obviously thought
that Allen's prisoner of war narrativewould appeal to the same readers purchasing
Hanson's traditionalaccount.
42. Vaughan, 35.
43. EthanAllen, A Narrativeof Colonel EthanAllen's Captivity... (Philadelphia,
1779). Reprintedin Henry W. DePuy, Ethan Allen and the Green-MountainHeroes
of '76 (New York, 1854), 221-22. All furtherquotationsare made from this edition
and cited in parentheses.
44. Slotkin quotes Allen's descriptionof his encounterwith the attackingIndian,
but fails to include the slapstickscene which follows (251). This leads him incorrectly
to concludethatAllen's use of the typicalcaptivitynarrativeIndianis a seriousreflection
of his own attitudes:"[T]he Indian remains an enemy, but he now shares that role
with [the Europeanenemy]" (252). The text, in fact, offers no basis for the claim
that Allen is an Indian-hater.To the contrary, as a buckskinnedfrontiersmanfrom
Vermont,Allen sharesa remarkableresemblanceto the part-Indianfrontiersmanfrom
Kentucky, Daniel Boone.
45. Larry G. Bowman, Captive Americans:Prisoners During the AmericanRevolution (Athens, Ohio, 1976), 6.
46. Romans 1:21-25.
47. Melville would later borrow from Allen's record of this encounterfor several
chapters of his own version of a captivity narrativeentitled Israel Potter (1855).
Interestingly,Melville's purpose in the novel is precisely to define American culture
in termsof its heroes. In Allen's posturingas a half-Indianizedfrontiersman,Melville
finds a more attractivemodel for the Americancharacterthanthe alternativeshe posits,
BenjaminFranklinand John Paul Jones.
48. McWilliams, 270.
49. McWilliams, 270.
50. Foss's narrativewas popularenough to requirea second, expandededition the
sameyear it firstappeared.Captivityamong Barbarypiratesremaineda popularliterary
topic for twenty years, serving as the subject of poems and dramasas well as novels
and narratives.
51. Slotkin, 54-56, 98-102, 123-25.