Alexandra Giroux

The Indian Captivity Narrative operates as a resonance in the national popular culture. This spiritual, moral and social guidance was important to the first settlers but also for all the Americans, through history. Yet, captivity tales continue to be told in great numbers in films and novels, as testify the enormous corpus of Anglo-American narratives, and are related from autobiographic texts to space westerns. With an ethnocentric neglect of the Indians, this discourse was adapted across the Medias. This essay will wonder if the prominence of the Captivity Myth in modern America is evidence of a failure to account adequately for history. First, it will be argued that this myth was important regarding to its link toward religion and propaganda. Then, this essay will measure the impact of this text and show whether in Modern America, this narrative can bring coherence or not to history.

First of all, it can be argued that the prominence of the captivity myth in Modern America is evidence of a failure to account adequately for history. A myth is a traditional story, often made up in part of historical events that express the world-view of a people. “Myth is constituted by the loss of the historical quality of things” as Barthes said (Slotkin 1998, p.24). The Indian Captivity Narrative refers to the story of American early settlers captured by “uncivilized” Indians. Indians can be seen as a synecdoche for all the “others” as suggests Prast (2002, p.23). The Indian Captivity narrative includes three steps: the capture, the trial and the redemption. During this period, non Indian captives were used as slaves, to ransom, to be sold or to replace Indians by adoption. This part of history was related by several people. Two protagonists are particularly famous: Mary Rowlandson, in The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, recounts her three month of captivity among anti-English Indians. The other one is John Smith, captured in 1607 in Virginia and saved by Pocahontas. Clarck and Vaughan (1981) explain that the modern reader can see this myth as a rite or passage or as an initiation, which is important to understand, as this essay will show.

This Narrative is deeply linked with religion and more specifically to Protestantism. Writers openly refer to the protestant jeremiad – the misfortune of an era as a just penalty for a happier future and to the apocalypse, adopting an ecclesiastic view of the world. America is considered as a special land chosen by god and people moved there to be saved. The early settlers thought that they were “living in the promised world where they had to establish the New Zion” (Vanderbeets 1973, p.XXI). Mary Rowlandson interprets her pain and suffering through a biblical frame. But there is a contradiction: wilderness is the devil but America is the place chosen by God. The religious leaders had appropriate this narrative in order to defend themselves, to justify their act through providence tales. But in the long term, American people might tend to lose their religious commitment. The narrative is thus here to keep the people shaped.

This narrative has been used by propagandists for several reasons. Most of the texts known were written by the early settlers, not by the native Americans. Since it was produced by puritan new world community, the narratives emerge as distorted, forgotten that early settlers brought lots of diseases with them which killed lots of native Americans. Mary Rowlandson is represented with a gun but she was too frightened to move. Culture has to be taken in consideration and real incidents are portrayed through the framework of previous narratives. This narrative was and is still used to demonise forces which can be obstacles to progress. For instance, during the Cold War, Communist people were perceived as “the others”. In America, the nation has to be linked because of the diversity of the people. Since there is no ethic national identity, this narrative acts to shape the national character and fight the fear of the loss of national dynamism. Capitalist expansion seems to be the American mission, following a manifest destiny. The Indian Captivity Narrative can be used to motivate people to engage in war. The soldiers can die for Vietnam if their ancestors have fought the Indians and died. Nowadays, this is still present in the collective imagery as the fictionalisation of Jessica Lynch’s story attests.

But the prominence of this myth might not be seen as a failure to account for history. In the modern tales like the Vietnam War, the myth that there are still America soldiers captured persists. Sayre (2000) explains that hostages in Lebanon often become celebrities because of the focus of the Medias. There are as well high media attention and diplomatic efforts when it comes about Iraq or Serbia. America deals with kidnapped people, the army rescues hostages and it may be considered that the state has become God’s figure. “Namias argues that ‘the popularity of the captive story came from a fascination with both the other and the self’, as it enabled readers to confront various aspects of cultural relativity in family and social relations, gender constructions, and ethnicity” (Ebersole 1995, p.268). Some video games can be seen the reflection of this myth. Fallout refers to a post apocalypse world and clearly refers to the Indian Captivity Narrative with its aesthetics displaying for instance an “Indian Head test card”. Zelda and Mario are other examples where a princess held captive has to be rescued.

The Indian Captivity Narrative is still really present in the Memory of the people as it has been argued. Whereas the History refers to rational facts, Memory is the way people envisage and consider what has happened. The approach of past events is still built through the Medias, especially in America, even if other cultures have as well their captivity tales. Nowadays, series like X-Files still reflect the Indian Captivity Narrative. As Kellner argues (in Knight, 2002 p. 229), we “put on display our deepest fears and fantasies” in this kind of TV show. He points out the alien abduction phenomenon and explains that the new frontier is the human body, which is subject to extraterrestrial experiments. But if the alien is the other, he can be anyone. Utley (1984, p.34) argues that the label “Indian” was applied culturally diverse people. As Durkheim explains with the concept of “mechanical solidarity”, cohesion is necessary for a society and people need to share common beliefs and values. The Indian Captivity Narrative plays thus this role. Moreover, it helps to give coherence to History. People see the way things has happened as natural and do not tend to question the atrocities that Americans has committed because of the figure of the evil Indian. This myth is important because it helps to understand that America defines itself in relation to the others and that their power is achieved in a conception against their neighbours as suggests Mennell (2007, p.183). In a Manichean conception of the world, the Vietnam war was seen as being a “good war” because the American were the “goods” (Devine, 1999, p.XIX).

Sometimes, American can have another self awareness of this sensitive issue. Walker (in Rollins and O’Connor, 1998, p.183) analyzes The Last of the Mohicans (Griffith, 1920) and explains that this film depicts, far from the myth, the historical truth and the American real violence toward the Indians. In Fort Apache (Ford, 1948), Indians are not depicted as savages.  Another Indian version of History us shown in Broken Arrow (Daves, 1950) even if the “good Indian” is Jeff Chandler, a white actor. America is aware of its mistakes but not totally ready to assume all its culpability because myth and clichés are deep rooted. In The Searchers (Ford, 1956), the heroes try to find the niece to kill her because she had a relation with an Indian. The American racism is depicted. It is called a revisionist western. Little big man (Penn, 1970) is an anti-western. This is the story of Jack Crabb, kidnapped by Indians. In this film, the Indian wife of the heroes is killed by an American soldier. The actress who plays this part is not Indian but Asiatic, which is a clear reference to the atrocities done during the Vietnam War. Dancer with wolves (Costner, 1990), like A Man Called Horse (Silverstein, 1970), portrays the Indian world as superior to the white world. Indians are depicted as good but there is still the hollywoodian cliché between good Indians (Sioux) and bad Indians (Pawnees). Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) is a post-modern version of the captivity myth which considers the possibility that the captive does not want to be rescued and which shows the American man as a anti-heroes (Mortimer, 2000, p.111). It can be noticed as well that the image of the good Indian was quite popular among hippie people. This narrative is sometimes also pastiched by singers like Rasputina with humoristic songs like “My captivity by savages”.

To conclude, the Indian Narrative Captivity, which can be seen as an evanescent tropism, is a myth and is the reflection of one side of the account, used for religious or propagandist purpose. These narratives are a necessity to the construction and the perpetuation of the white nationalism. They are still really present in the modern tales, in the memory of the people even if some counterexample can be found in the popular culture. The Indian Captivity Narrative is a reflection of a society and cannot be seen as being the reality; it helps to bring coherence to facts and to shape the mind of the people. A strong anti-Indian sentiment and by extension anti-other sentiment was constructed by texts relating horrors that early settlers had to endure. By identification to the people of this narrative, people adhere to the doctrine of conquest and in general to the American way of thinking. Now the influence of America can be seen over the Western frontier: with the globalisation, the influence of America is growing day after day. For instance, Nicolas Sarkozy is described as someone very inspired by the America conception of politics.

Bibliographie:

•    Ebersole, G. 1995. Captured by Texts: Puritans to Post-Modern Images of Indian Captivity. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

•    Clark, WC and Vaughan AT. 1981. Puritans among the Indians: accounts of Captivity and Redemption. 1676-1724. Cambridge: The Belkap press of Harvard University Press.

•    Devine, J. 1999. Vietnam at 24 frames a second. Austin: University of Texas Press.

•    Knight, P. 2002. Conspiracy Nation: the Politics of Paranoia in Post-war America. New York: New York University.

•    Mennell, S. 2007. The American Civilizing Process. Cambridge: Polity Press.

•    Mortimer, B. 2000. Hollywood’s Frontier Captives: Cultural Anxiety and the Captivity Plot in American Film. New York: Garland Publishing.

•    Prast, A.J. 2002. Invisible natives: Myth and Identity in the American Western. London: Cornell University Press.

•    Rollins, P.C. and O’Connor, J.E. (eds). 1998. Hollywood’s Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.

•    Sayre, G. 2000. American Captivity Narratives. Boston: New Riverside Editions.

•    Slotkin, R. 1998. The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialisation 1800-1890. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.

•    Utley, R.M. 1984. The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846 – 1890. Mexico: University of New Mexico Press.

•    Vanderbeets, R. 1973. Held Captive by Indians. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press.