After reading about Benjamin Franklin’s encounters with Native Americans, I found there to be a lot of things that he had in common with the puritan writers that I’ve previously read about. One commonality that exist between Franklin and the rest of the authors such as William Bradford, Mary Rowlandson and Anne Bradstreet have within their writing is that they convey well that they are much different from the Natives. All of these writers thought that the Natives conduct their lifestyles the opposite to what they were every used to. In Franklins Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America he made it clear that the Natives had no sense in real leadership. As he had never seen a political dispute so calm, Franklin noted “it is one of the
…show more content…
All writers at some point called the Natives out of their names. Franklin calls them savages (Franklin 393) as soon as he began his sentence. Mrs. Rowlandson called them “Barbarous Creatures” when she spoke about them after her encounters with them in her expert The First Remove. Mrs. Rowlandson’s experiences although were very different from those of Benjamin Franklin’s. Mrs. Rowlandson was taken as a slave by a tribe of Natives that were offended by the actions that took place on Plymouth Rock. In her Preface, Mrs. Rowlandson recalls when the Natives came upon her home and terrorized her family. She stated “Their first coming was about Sun-rising, hearing the noise of some Guns, we looked out; several Houses were burning…Another their was who running along was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life, promising them Money (as they told me) but they would not hearken to him but knockt him in head, and stript him naked, and split open his Bowels” (Rowlandson 251). Here Mrs. Rowlandson states how their devious acts started and would not end after taking her and her sickly wounded child on long travels to different towns. It’s the story of a reverse slavery. The English, who were usually the stronger ones, were now the slaves. While the Natives were the slave
All writers at some point called the Natives out of their names. Franklin calls them savages (Franklin 393) as soon as he began his sentence. Mrs. Rowlandson called them “Barbarous Creatures” when she spoke about them after her encounters with them in her expert The First Remove. Mrs. Rowlandson’s experiences although were very different from those of Benjamin Franklin’s. Mrs. Rowlandson was taken as a slave by a tribe of Natives that were offended by the actions that took place on Plymouth Rock. In her Preface, Mrs. Rowlandson recalls when the Natives came upon her home and terrorized her family. She stated “Their first coming was about Sun-rising, hearing the noise of some Guns, we looked out; several Houses were burning…Another their was who running along was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life, promising them Money (as they told me) but they would not hearken to him but knockt him in head, and stript him naked, and split open his Bowels” (Rowlandson 251). Here Mrs. Rowlandson states how their devious acts started and would not end after taking her and her sickly wounded child on long travels to different towns. It’s the story of a reverse slavery. The English, who were usually the stronger ones, were now the slaves. While the Natives were the slave