Mary White Rowlandson

Mary White Rowlandson (c. 1637–1711) was an English-born New England colonist, the wife of the minister of Lancaster, Massachusetts. In February 1676, during King Philip's War, the town was attacked by Narragansett and Nipmuc warriors, and she was taken captive with three of her children; the youngest died in her arms within days. After eleven weeks of being moved through the winter woods she was ransomed for twenty pounds. Her account of the ordeal, published in 1682, went through four editions in its first year and founded the American genre of the captivity narrative. She remarried after her husband's death and lived to about seventy-three.