CAPTIVATING A NATION: WOMEN'S INDIAN CAPTIVITY AND AMERICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY, 1787-1830

Abstract

Stories of Indian captivity had long interested Anglo-American readers. Throughout the early republic, the genre of women's Indian captivity narratives took on another significance. "Captivating a Nation" places the scholarship of Indian captivity in conversation with American nationalism and reveals the ways in which Indian captivity narratives became the surface upon which American imagined their nation. "Captivating a Nation" is an examination of women's Indian captivity narratives published between 1787 and 1830. These narratives provided more than a continuous repository of settlers as victims in an untamed wilderness. They were narratives of nationhood in complex and contradictory ways. Indian captivity narratives were a popular genre among readers of the early American republic. Yet, less than half of those concerning male captives were published in multiple editions, while every narrative concerning a female captive was republished. Unlike the captivity narratives of men, those concerning women were re-published and re-consumed because settler women taken captive to Americans of the early republic symbolized the tenuousness and vulnerability of the young nation. That is, they simultaneously gave voice to fears related to national stability as well as contained those fears with the redemption of the woman and her return to white society.