Mary Rowlandson

The author of "The Restoration of Mary Rowlandson," Rowlandson is a mother of three children and the wife of a minister living in the village of Lancaster in the Massachusetts Colony in the 17th Century. While her husband is away in Boston in February, 1676, Lancaster is attacked by a group of hostile Native Americans who kill several of the residents and take Rowlandson captive. She travels with the Indians for eleven weeks before she is finally ransomed and returned to her husband.

Rowlandson's children are also captured and two of them are separated from her while the youngest dies from a wound received during the attack. Rowlandson herself is wounded, but survives. She is adept at sewing and knitting and trades her skills for money, food and other considerations from her captors. Rowlandson is deeply religious and frames her entire ordeal in terms of the will of...