Sweeney, Kevin. “Taken by Indians.”

Kevin Sweeney’s “Taken by Indians” recounts the partial tale of Mary Rowlandson’s experience with a group of Algonquin. A fairly biased approach, as the piece was written about Rowlandson’s first hand experience of her captivity, Sweeney’s work is brief but encapsulates the prime point of Rowlandson’s experience – mainly by highlighting her capture, her journey and her release. Perhaps most importantly, an the part of her story most highlighted by Sweeney, was the death of her daughter and Rowlandson’s keenness on the intricacies which went in to surviving her capture. Sweeney explains Rowlandson as “particularly valuable…and…received special treatment” especially because she was the wife of a preacher and, actually, her survival relied highly on “the actions and restraint of her captors” as well as “her own ability to adapt and negotiate”.¹¹ On that same note, Rowlandson keenly observed the ways of her captors and altered her ways in order to not make her captors weary of her survival – in example, she “studied the women’s moods and learned, if not to show the respect, to avoid displaying any disrespect”.¹² Sweeney’s piece lets the reader recollect on the ideas displayed through the first part of this class – the idea of American history and the stories that are told. Describing Rowlandson’s story as “part adventure story, part spiritual biography” Sweeney also highlights the extreme fortune that Rowlandson has in her capture.