To further portray Christians as victims, Rowlandson embellished her encounters. “The Indians were as thick as trees,” she said. Rowlandson described the natives as wild and untamed. Natives frightened her.Rowlandson also used connotation to portray Christians as victims. Rowlandson loaded the piece with descriptions of natives as “ravenous beasts” and “barbarous creatures.” This denoted a lack of civility in natives, yet Rowlandson inadvertently noted that Natives possessed some qualities of civilization.
The Indians were skilled at healing, she observed. Rather than attribute this success to Indian intelligence and identification of particular plants, Rowlandson praised the Lord for his compassion, not the Indians, whose knowledge of indigenous plants saved her life. “I took oaken leaves and laid to my side, and with the blessing of God, it cured me also.” (Rowlandson, act II) Rowlandson attributes this success to the Lord, rather than Indians.
She wrote her narrative as a tale of good against evil, with the Indians characterized as “heathen” antagonists. She condemned many of their activities as “pagan activities.” (Rowlandson, act II) Rowlandson even condemned the convening of large masses of Indians as a terrifying experience, much how JRR Tolkien would have described an amassing of Orks near Mount Doom: “If one looked before one there was nothing but Indians, and behind one, nothing but Indians, and so on either hand, I myself in the midst, and no Christian soul near me, and yet how hath the Lord preserved me in safety?” (Rowlandson, part III)
