Excerpt from the Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration by Mary Rowlandson

Excerpt from the Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration by Mary Rowlandson

Excerpt from The Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration
of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

Reprinted in Eyewitness to America

Published in 1997

"I had often before this said, that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial, my mind changed";

New England Puritans were not allowed to read novels, plays, and many kinds of poetry. (The Puritans were a Protestant Christian group who observed strict moral and religious codes.) They disapproved of any kind of literature or entertainment that did not lead to spiritual improvement, so the only reading materials permitted by church leaders were the Bible (Christian holy book), sermons (ministers' lectures), and history books. Nevertheless Puritan clergymen (ministers) approved of captivity narratives (accounts written by colonists who had been captured by Native Americans) because they were true tales about suffering and triumph. The stories could also be read as sermons or as spiritual autobiographies (records of the individual soul's struggle with God and Satan, or the Devil). Many Puritan ministers even encouraged church members to write about intense personal suffering. One of the most famous spiritual autobiographies was written by John Winthrop (1588–1649), founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (see John Winthrop's Christian Experience).

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