The Captors' Narrative: Catholic Women and Their Puritan Men on the Early North American Frontier, 1653--1760

Download or read book The Captors' Narrative: Catholic Women and Their Puritan Men on the Early North American Frontier, 1653--1760 written by William Henry Foster (III.) and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is a reconception of the relationship of gender to captivity, conversion, and resistance during five periods of intercultural colonial warfare between New France and New England. I argue that contrary to enduring archetypes of gender and power, the frontier "captors" must be seen actually and metaphorically as French Canadian women--while the majority of their captives were New England men. By acting as agents of religious conversion and utilizers of captive labor, Catholic Canadian women advanced the interests of their families, religious communities, and colony while simultaneously transforming their identities. In response, male captives from New England crafted their written accounts to omit or denigrate the presence and authority of Canadian women, introducing an element of re-masculinization to the Puritan captivity narrative as a genre.