SOURCÉ: Introduction to Narratives of North American Indian Captivity: A Selective Bibliography, by Alden T. Vaughan, Garland Publishing, 1983, pp. xi-lviii.

In the excerpt that follows, Washburn traces the development of the captivity narrative from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, and links this development to the shifting national identity.

The most prominent aspect of Indian-white relations as expressed in American literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries was the captivity experience. Yet the occupation of Indian land by whites with its by-product of conflict is surely the most important aspect of Indian-white interaction. Louise K. Barnett attributes the disproportionate attention given to the captivity experience to the need to rationalize and justify the English presence in the New World.¹ It was easier to express outrage at the cruelty of the Indian in capturing white women and children than to defend the policy of separating the Indian from...