James Smith And Mary Rowlandson Analysis

After reading the accounts of James Smith and Mary Rowlandson, one can easily determine that James Smith got the better end of the deal when it came to being captured by the Native Americans. From the very beginning, both of their situations were completely different and only with some slight similarities. On one hand, Rowlandson talked about the tragedies she had to endure while being a captive with the Wampanoag’s in 1676. She went through the horror of being shot, and watching everyone she knew either get killed or captured. While on the other hand, Smith talked about how he was integrated into the Canasatauga’s, and how they treated him as an equal, once he was “adopted” into their tribe. When both Rowlandson and Smith were captured by the Native Americans, their gender played a part in how both of them ended up being treated during their time with the Native Americans. Since both stories are different in such drastic ways, one way they are similar would be the fact that, both Mary and James were captured against their will and released in the very end. Firstly, Mary Rowlandson was …show more content…
It showed in the way the Natives would treat them, and what the two could and couldn’t do. In the end their statements were similar, but in only in very few ways. Their gender only came into play when the Native Americans captured them and gave them the “jobs” they needed to complete in order to continue on their journeys. Also with what Mary and James were able to do around their captors. Since Mary Rowlandson was taken to a more hostile camp, she was treated more harshly, in contrast to James Smith, who was taken by a more peaceful tribe in which he was adopted into later on. But their stories were similar because they were both eventually freed, so they could go back to their families. In the end, it matter more if they were a man or a woman, and if they could do the work expected of