Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

In February 1676, a raiding party of Wampanoag and Narragansett warriors descended on Lancaster, Massachusetts, destroying the settlement and capturing the wife of a Puritan minister. Mary Rowlandson spent eleven weeks in captivity, moved between several Native villages during one of colonial America's bloodiest conflicts. Her narrative, first published in 1682, became the era's shock bestseller and inaugurated a distinctly American literary genre. Written by a woman whose voice would otherwise be lost to history, the account details the physical and spiritual trials of captivity: the grueling winter marches, the death of her youngest child, the complex humanity of her captors, and her unshakeable conviction that she was enduring Satan's trials. The text endures not as simple adventure but as a troubling artifact revealing the violence of colonial settlement, the depths of Puritan religious worldview, and the complicated origins of American literature itself.