Indian Captivity Narratives and the Origins of American Frontier Gothic

Abstract

Combining adventure tales with religious, propagandistic, and didactic sentiments, Indian captivity narratives were among the most popular literary works of early America. With scenes of intense violence, of women in peril, of the grotesque, and, in some cases, of unexplained phenomena, Indian captivity narratives contributed significantly to the origins of American Gothic literature. This article investigates how key Indian captivity narratives, such as those of Juan Ortiz, Mary Rowlandson, Hannah Dustan, and Mary Jemison—along with the pivotal “Panther Captivity” narrative—reveal American Gothic tropes that were, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, increasingly incorporated into the fiction of Charles Brocken Brown, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and other early American writers who strove to create a distinctively American literary culture.

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