Captivity Past And Present

Captivity, Past and Present is a compilation of historical, literary, and sociological analyses of tales of human bondage from the early modern era to more recent times. Beginning with a study of 16th-century Spanish captivity sagas that emanated from America, the essays go on to examine the 17th-century Puritan narrative of Mary Rowlandson, the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano, and concludes with a study of incarcerated African-American mothers in the United States. Also included is an original captivity narrative that relates the 19th-century ordeal of Manuel Ramirez Martinez, who was captured by Comanche Indians in Texas. The studies originated in a conference hosted by the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association in 2010. Contributors are Franklin Hillson, Jacquelynn Kleist, Jacob Massine, Dahia Messara, Julia Metzger-Traber, Alfonso Uribe and Joel Uribe.

This translation originally copyrighted in 2010.

Long a topic of historical interest, wartime captivity has over the past decade taken on new urgency as an object of study. Transnational by its very nature, captivity’s historical significance extends far beyond the front lines, ultimately inextricable from the histories of mobilization, nationalism, colonialism, law, and a host of other related subjects. This wide-ranging volume brings together an international selection of scholars to trace the contours of this evolving research agenda, offering fascinating new perspectives on historical moments that range from the early days of the Great War to the arrival of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Ira Berlin traces the history of African-American slavery in the United States from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its fiery demise nearly three hundred years later. Most Americans, black and white, have a singular vision of slavery, one fixed in the mid-nineteenth century when most American slaves grew cotton, resided in the deep South, and subscribed to Christianity. Here, however, Berlin offers a dynamic vision, a major reinterpretation in which slaves and their owners continually renegotiated the terms of captivity. Slavery was thus made and remade by successive generations of Africans and African Americans who lived through settlement and adaptation, plantation life, economic transformations, revolution, forced migration, war, and ultimately, emancipation. Berlin's understanding of the processes that continually transformed the lives of slaves makes Generations of Captivity essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of antebellum America. Connecting the Charter Generation to the development of Atlantic society in the seventeenth century, the Plantation Generation to the reconstruction of colonial society in the eighteenth century, the Revolutionary Generation to the Age of Revolutions, and the Migration Generation to American expansionism in the nineteenth century, Berlin integrates the history of slavery into the larger story of American life. He demonstrates how enslaved black people, by adapting to changing circumstances, prepared for the moment when they could seize liberty and declare themselves the Freedom Generation. This epic story, told by a master historian, provides a rich understanding of the experience of African-American slaves, an experience that continues to mobilize American thought and passions today.

Mary Rowlandson, a Minister's wife in New England as it says underwent a cruel and inhumane treatment from the Indians that took her captive. This is a story of sorrow and pain, of faith and truth, of tears and reflections, and of grief and hopes. The Indians poured their wrath and anger against this helpless small community.As she tells us in her narrative, in the midst of it all, miraculously, one of these salvages struck her as a lost star or beam of light by offering her a Bible he had from the Medfield fight, where they committed sacking and looting. He took it from his basket and gave it to Mary and she interpreted it as a gift from her merciful God in the middle of this valley of darkness.

The Captivity Narrative offers a collection of scholarly treatises that assess the phenomenon of captivity and the nuanced methods captives have used to express their psychological duress and the manner in which they coped with bondage and its aftermath. The essays reflect a multidisciplinary interest in the subject by offering historical, literary, and philosophical analyses. Topics include 17th-century captivity in Spanish Texas and Puritan New England, 19th-century slavery, Indian captivity in works of fiction, and the poetry, literature, and narratives of prisoners in the United States and England from the 19th to 21st century. The studies originated in a conference hosted in San Antonio, Texas (2011) by the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association. Contributors include Anne Babson, Jennifer Oakes Curtis, Lanta Davis, Steven Gambrel, Anne Matthews, Alan Smith and Elisabeth Ziemba.

The French Revolution invented the notion of the citizen, but it also invented the noncitizen—the person whose rights were nonexistent. The South American outpost of Guiana became a depository for these outcasts of the new French citizenry, and an experimental space for the exercise of new kinds of power and violence against marginal groups.

The first part of the book is a straightforward account of the author's personal experiences. The second part is a detailed treatise on the customs of the Tupinambá, their polity, trade, religion, manufactures and warlike undertakings.