Unredeemed Captive
...ive, she picked up many different characteristics of both Iroquois and French Catholicism. While being separated from her former culture, she lost key traits of their beliefs. While a brutal way of dealing with captives, letting them assimilate to their cultures as equals shows a lack of superiority and a willingness to create a functional society without need to enforce strict conduct. While women in the Puritan culture were treated as inferior and had to adhere to a strict social standard, women in the Iroquois culture had more freedoms and the right to vote which men were on their council. Eunice, when giving the chance to return to her own culture, had refused. By this time, she had already forgotten her first language, had converted to Catholicism and chosen to start an Iroquois family. Shown through Eunice’s action, her belief was that the natives’ culture was “civilized”. Culture differences between “savage” and “civilized” from the western point of view balanced off the idea of wealth in nonessential items during the eighteenth century. The colonists seemed civilized, they possessed their own individual homes, clothes, a vast amount of laws, currency and a strict religion (whatever their religion was, it differs from place to place). If the western values are juxtaposed to the natives’ culture, comparing value of community, food, and practicalities, the two appear not to be congruent. Thus, using the eighteenth century mind set, if they do not fit into our culture they must be “savages”. But, “savage” presents an image of someone without culture, someone without a resident, and someone barbaric who relies only on animal instinct. While being “civilized” suggests a culture that has developed to the state of consistent living, giving time to create more than the necessities. In western cultures that time has been spent refining many types of their cultures Within the English Puritans colonies, there were strict rules of conduct, a large emphasis on religion, and families living there. Within the Iroquois tribes, there...