2 h 16 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What holds a person together when war takes away the safety of home?
Taken from burning Lancaster, Massachusetts, during King Philip's War, Mary Rowlandson faces hunger, fear and grief as a captive of Native American fighters. For about eleven weeks, she moves from camp to camp through the New England winter and early spring. Her first-person account brings you close to the daily strain of survival, where food, weather and work demand constant attention.
Rowlandson is a Puritan minister's wife, and faith shapes how she tells her story. She reads her ordeal as a lesson from God, drawing on Bible verses to explain events. Yet she also watches the people around her closely. Held by Quinnapin and serving his wife Weetamoo, leader of the Pocasset people, she records work, trade and uneasy human contact.
What you’ll discover
- Survival in close detail Follow the search for food and endurance through cold, fear and deep personal grief.
- Twenty moves through wilderness Each section marks another camp move, giving the journey its restless rhythm.
- Faith under strain Explore how Rowlandson uses scripture to find meaning within an ordeal she cannot control.
- Life inside the camps Notice the work, trade and encounters that complicate her account of captivity.
- A voice of its time Meet a sharp observer whose religious language and harsh views of Native peoples demand careful reading.
Is it for you?
This book suits readers of American history, Puritan faith, survival stories and early women's writing. It is also good for anyone curious about King Philip's War. You may find it harder if you dislike religious language, or the period's harsh views of Native peoples.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A frontier war reaches Lancaster
- Capture, wounds and the loss of a child
- Twenty removes through the cold wilderness
- Work, trade and uneasy human contact
- Providence as the key to every event
- A book that shaped American writing
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Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
by Mary White Rowlandson· 1682
A Puritan woman recounts her captivity during a colonial war.
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Language: English
“On the tenth of February 1675, came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster”
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A frontier war reaches Lancaster
The story begins inside a larger conflict. King Philip's War ran through New England in 1675 and 1676. It was fought between colonial settlers and several Native nations, led in part by Metacom, the Wampanoag leader whom the English called King Philip. Land, trade and growing English power had strained old agreements for years, and by 1675 the strain turned to open fighting.
Lancaster was a small town on the western edge of Massachusetts settlement, a place of scattered farms and a few fortified houses. Mary Rowlandson lived there with her husband Joseph, the town's minister, and their three children. She was a settler of some standing, a woman used to a household, a garden and the church. Nothing in her earlier life prepared her for what came.
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The author
Mary White Rowlandson
1635–1711 · Colonial American captivity memoirist
American woman captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War.
“On the tenth of February 1675, came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster”
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Questions about Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
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What is Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson about?
It tells how a Puritan minister's wife was seized in an attack on Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1676 and lived for weeks among Native captors during King Philip's War, finding meaning in her faith.
Is Mary Rowlandson's captivity story true?
Yes. It is a memoir of real events in 1676, written by Rowlandson herself and first printed in 1682. Historians check it against other records, though it reflects her own views and her English, Puritan viewpoint.
What are the removes in Rowlandson's narrative?
Removes are her word for the moves of the camp. She divides the story into twenty of them, each marking a new stage of the group's travel through the New England countryside.
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