Mary White Rowlandson (1637–1711)
I have been in the midst of these roaring lions and savage bears. (Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson)
B
orn in Somerset, England, to John White and Joan West, Mary White and her nine siblings immigrated to the Bay Colony in 1639. Although they fi rst lived in Salem, in 1653 the Whites were among the earliest Puritans to settle in Lancaster, Massachusetts, which was then a frontier town (around 35 miles west of Boston). The land comprising Lancaster had been purchased 10 years prior from the Nashaways by a “Boston trader” (Blevins Faery 25). Mary must have enjoyed a relatively privileged childhood since her father was Lancaster’s wealthiest original landowner (Burnham 14). Scholars attribute her uncommon degree of literacy, which afforded her the necessary skills to pen her own remarkable narrative of captivity and deliverance, to her class status and its access to education. Around 1656, Mary White married Joseph Rowlandson, a prominent Puritan minister of Lancaster. Joseph had been the only graduate in his class at Harvard in 1652; he began his ministry in Lancaster two years later, in 1654 (Blevins Faery 26). Their fi rst child, a daughter named Mary, was born in 1658, but died at the age of three. The Rowlandsons had three other children: Joseph (1662), another Mary (1665), and Sarah (1669). Because of its remoteness, Lancaster was a likely target for attacks. In June 1675 King Philip’s War broke out. The cause was the sudden death of Metacom’s older brother, who Metacom suspected was poisoned by English settlers, and a number of
other grievances, chief among them the continual encroachment of English settlers into Wampanoag territory. Further, the death of a “praying Indian” (Christianized Indian) named John Sassamon sparked retaliatory actions on both sides: The English executed three Wampanoag, and Metacom attacked the village of Swansea. As sachem of the Wampanoag, Metacom rallied members of his own tribe, as well as soliciting the aid of the Nipmuc and Narragansett to form an alliance against the English. Because his sister-in-law, Weetamoo, was squaw sachem of the Narragansett, it was easy to unify these two tribes against a common enemy. Rumors of a potential attack on Lancaster spurred Joseph Rowlandson to travel to Boston to seek additional support. During his absence, Mary Rowlandson and the couple’s three children were taken captive. On February 10, 1676, the town of Lancaster was attacked. Their garrison house, which was meant to be a fortress against the “vast and howling wilderness,” housed Rowlandson’s immediate family, plus two of Mary’s sisters and their families. Of the 37 people living in the Rowlandson home, 24 were taken captive. Rowlandson and her youngest, Sarah, were separated from her elder children, Joseph and Mary. Although Sarah died of wounds she received while in captivity, Rowlandson was rescued on May 2, 1676. A few weeks later, son and daughter were reunited with their family. Historians conjecture
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