Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
From 1993 to 1996, the first book-length monographs devoted to the Indian captivity narrative systematically began to define and explore the form's complexities, partly by expanding the very limited number of texts previously analyzed and anthologized. But paralleling the production of these book-length overviews, several studies recognized the need to elucidate individual captivities and texts by using the cultural dynamics of revelation, in particular, John Demos's book on Eunice Williams, taken in the attack on Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1704, and Susan Walsh's article on Mary Jemison, taken near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1758. Both analyses concern the difficulties but also the possibilities of contextualizing and thereby individualizing two hitherto shadowy captives who permanently crossed from Anglo to Native American culture.