19. Hannah Duston’s story is one of hundreds of captivity narratives from America’s past
The genre known as the captivity narrative, in which a person or persons is taken prisoner and held by those considered to be uncivilized, is a well-known and well-established aspect of literature and history. They were published early in the history of North America, and many evolved into myths, including John Smith’s capture by the Powhatan Confederacy and subsequent rescue by the Indian princess Pocahontas. Many have at least a partial basis in reality, though they are embellished in recounting to form a moral judgment, creating a fable for the reader. Hannah Duston’s story is one such tale. By her own accounting, for example, the Indians whom she killed as they slept were not the same as those who had carried her from her home. In her legend, they are one and the same.
Nor were the children who fell to her axe perpetrators of the crime against her, hence they were excised from the story in later retellings. Her own story, recorded by Sewall and Mather (and with far less prejudicial bias by the former) is a far cry from the legend which has descended from her actions, whatever they had been that early spring night in 1697. She and the version of her story deemed most suitable for use have been modified and edited by racists, Indian activists, criminologists, feminists, and revisionists, making Hannah and her legend a symbol of whatever cause they either support or oppose.