Mary Rowlandson is famous for her captivity narrative that tells of her trial when she was forcefully taken by Indians.  The reader gets a first hand account of her experiences as a captive.  Rowlandson portrays the Indians as savages and provides detailed accounts of how they treat her.  The most overbearing aspect of her story is the trust she puts in faith.  It seems that at every point in the narrative she is praying for her situation to get better and trusts that God will do the right thing for her.  It's interesting to note that throughout the novel her relationship with the natives is constantly portrayed as one of struggle.  Rowlandson does her job in showing the savage nature of the Indians and by then end the reader is convinced that these people are truly the heathens everyone thinks they are.  Her narrative was read by many and even though she was a woman, her use of providence justifies her writings.  Her carefully crafted narrative is one of many that provides a first hand experience of the way natives and settlers got along.

    In this review over Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative, Pamela Lougheed discusses the view of providence that Rowlandson applies to her narrative.  The main point that Lougheed tries to make is how Rowlandson uses providence to justify her capture, but also to blame her captors.  Throughout Rowlandson's novel, the reader constantly knows about how religion applies to her conflict.  Lougheed makes the argument that "When the Indians are kind to her, she attributes her good fortune to divine Providence; when they are cruel, she blames her captors."  This soon becomes the main theme of the whole narrative.  There are times when Rowlandson relies strictly on faith to get here through her episodes.  The interesting thing is that when things are going well she forgets about the faith and only concentrates on how terrible her situation is with the natives.  To her, the natives were heathens that took her away from her home and family.  Throughout this review Lougheed constantly plays around with this idea.  The point of view here is that Rowlandson feels hostilitiy towards the natives even with her strong faith.  It's this view point that helps to create the image of natives as savages and furthers the over all hatred towards them.

    As Rowlandson portrays the natives as hostile and unforgiving Cabeza de Vaca provides a totally different view.  While Cabeza de Vaca still writes his own form of the captivity narrative, he gives different insight to the whole experience by tying his own struggles in with the struggles of the natives.  In his story he is first captured by these natives but soon becomes like one of them.  He depends on them survival as they depend on him.  There is a still a strong theme of providence within the story but not overbearing like that in Rowlandson's account.  Cabeza de Vaca differs from Rowlandson in the way he ends his narrative.  Rowlandson still shows hatred towards the Indians but Cabeza de Vaca actually feels pity towards them and wants to change their situation.  He understands what the settlers have brought upon these people and hopes to change the effects soon.  He actually tried to get help after his narrative but it was a wasted effort.  Cabeza de Vaca offers yet another a different viewpoint in that he actually tries to help the natives, instead of believing he is better than them like so many other settlers.