How One Woman Saved Her Reputation after Being Held Captive during King Philip’s War

[spanishspy]

Even when captive people are self-serving and often bigoted.

[stevep]

May 17, 2018 2:36:27 GMT spanishspy said:

Even when captive people are self-serving and often bigoted.

  All too true unfortunately.

[raunchel]

May 17, 2018 2:36:27 GMT spanishspy said:

Even when captive people are self-serving and often bigoted.

I don't think that there is ny reason to judge her. Just look at what she's been through. To expect her to pay attention to the nicer side of her captors and the murderers of her daughter and sister honestly seems more than a bit much.

[stevep]

May 18, 2018 6:19:32 GMT raunchel said:

May 17, 2018 2:36:27 GMT spanishspy said:

Even when captive people are self-serving and often bigoted.

I don't think that there is ny reason to judge her. Just look at what she's been through. To expect her to pay attention to the nicer side of her captors and the murderers of her daughter and sister honestly seems more than a bit much.

  I don't know about that.  It was the colonists who started the war, including massacring one Indian village.  Her sister died in the initial attack on her village but while her daughter died in captivity there is no evidence it was as a result of mistreatment or abuse.  In fact the article mentions the compassion shown to her on Sarah's death.  Similarly there were other aspects of kindness displayed such as the Indian giving her a horse to ride when she was struggling and the other one who gave her a bible.  In comparison it suggests that she did everything she could to deny the Indians any humanity and viewed them with hatred and contempt.  [Which may have been partly as a result of her captivity but could equally have been her preceding viewpoint and/or her attempt to protect her own reputation.]  I'm not saying she was evil but if the article is accurate she does display a basic lack of empathy which doesn't appear to be the case with at least some of her captors.  This may have been less than accurate if she was seeking to protect her own reputation in the Puritan community after her release it still seems to have been used as a source of propaganda for anti-Indian feeling for quite a time to come.

  We would need to know more to get a balanced outcome and she had no reason to love the Indians but it does appear she, for whatever reasons, gave a distinctly bias view of her captivity.