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AN UNEXPECTED CODA FOR THE EARLY AMERICAN CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE: A LETTER FROM A ROMISH PRIEST BY Thomas W. Jodziewicz* The publication of Mary Rowlandson's The Soveraignty & Goodness of God in Boston in 1682 marked the beginning of a new and vital literary genre in colonial America, the Indian captivity narrative.1 The text, which appeared in fifteen editions before 1800, recounts in a clear and straightforward manner the eleven-week captivity of Rowlandson at the hands of Narragansett Indians during King Philip's War (I675-I676) before she was ransomed in the spring of 1676. As presented, her story established the main outlines of the captivity narrative as it would develop over the next two hundred years in far different American locales: capture, suffering, endurance, rescue and redemption. True to her own Puritan culture and beliefs, Rowlandson saw God's Providence at work in her circumstances, a righteous work *Mr. Jodziewicz is an associate professor of history in the University ofDallas, Irving, Texas. An abbreviated version oí this paper was read at the spring meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association on April 9, 1994, at the College of the Holy Cross. 'The principal title oí the original publication of Rowlandson's work was The Soveraignty & Goodness ofGod, Together, with theFaithfulness ofHisPromisesDisplayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration ofMrs. Mary Rowlandson Commended by Her, to All That Desire to Know the Lord's Doings to, and Dealings with Her. Especially to Her Dear Children and Relations. The work is readily available in an edited version in Alden T. Vaughan and Edward W. Clark (eds.), Puritans Among the Indians: Accounts of Captivity and Redemption, 1676—1724 (Cambridge, Massachusetts , 1981), pp. 29-75. The editors' introductory essay concerning the captivity narratives and an extensive bibliography are very useful. See also Phillips D. Carleton, "The Indian Captivity," American Literature, 15 (1943), 169-180; Roy Harvey Pearce, "The Significances of the Captivity Narrative," American Literature, 19 (1947), 1-20; and two works by Richard Van Der Beets: "The Indian Captivity Narrative as Ritual," American Literature, 43 (1972), 548-562, and the introductory essay in his edited Held Captive by Indians: Selected Narratives, 1642-1836 (Knoxville, 1973). Full bibliographical information of the narratives may be found in R. W. G. Vail, The Voice of the Old Frontier (New York, 1949). 568 BY THOMAS W. JODZIEWICZ569 primarily intended to chastise her, but also through her to teach a surrounding New England society the necessary lessons ofdependence and obedience, and the dire consequences of disobedience: "I have seen the extreme vanity of this world. One hour I have been in health and wealth, wanting nothing, but the next hour in sickness and wounds and death, having nothing but sorrow and affliction." Ultimately, however , God's mercy was far stronger than any human misery, any human troubles, a moral really experienced by the now doubly-redeemed Rowlandson: I can remember the time when I used to sleep quietly without workings in my thoughts whole nights together, but now it is other ways with me. When all are fast about me and no eye open but His who ever waketh, my thoughts are upon things past, upon the awful dispensation of the Lord towards us, upon His wonderful power and might in carrying of us through so many difficulties in returning us in safety and suffering none to hurt us.2 For the next several generations, the fundamental import of the captivity narrative remained true to its Puritanfoundation: the retelling of a human experience which included an invitation to a more profound conversion on the part of its readers, and an exhortation to a deeper appreciation of an edifying lesson that spoke not only about God's righteous wrath toward a once-Godly community now in religious declension, but a lesson that dealt ultimately with God's mercy. Over time, however, other contemporary elements available in several of the earliest narratives, but of apparently secondary importance, began to dominate the genre. What had seemed at one time to be at heart a deeply personalized Puritan jeremiad, or a call to individual and community repentance and spiritual renewal, had become by the mid-eighteenth century a significant...

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