Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country

Scholars have long been interested in the treatment and redemption of colonists taken as captives by Native Americans and integrated into their communities. Yet, the extant literature is disproportionately focused on the New England region. The same attention has not been paid to Allegheny country, where “the rich military history of this contested region has paid scant attention to captives” (4). Ian K. Steele's Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country corrects this gap by refocusing the study of captivity on Allegheny country and “putting captives at the center of a study of the cultural and military war for Allegheny country” (4).Steele's investigation of captivity is more than simply an attempt to track those taken by Indians. Instead, it uses the evolution in the taking of captives from 1745–65 to explore the cultural, social, and political implications of captivity within the context of imperial conflicts between the British and French. Steele's work offers insight into the role of captivity in shaping Indian and colonial cultural values as both sides struggled to understand the changing nature of the cultural borderlands of the Ohio Valley. In charting the shifts to captivity during peacetime and war, Steele illuminates how captives were seized, the grueling process of re-education and integration into Indian communities, and the challenges freed captives faced in returning to colonial society. In doing so, he makes a compelling case for the impact of captivity in forging a unique American identity deeply invested in narratives of personal freedom.Divided into five sections, Steele's book addresses three major aspects of captivity: the taking of captives, assimilation into Indian communities, and the consequences for redeemed captives. Parts 1 and 2 address evolving tactics for taking captives from peacetime raids to clashes during the Seven Years' War and the Anglo-Indian War of 1763–65. While both colonists and Indians took captives, the taking of prisoners by colonists was a practical decision. For Indians, seizing colonists was a symbolic act and part of their cultural framework. Successful raids were seen as rites of passage for young men. Indians often found themselves drawn into imperial rivalries, such as when the Canadian government directed Indian raids on Pennsylvania traders “that disrupted their rivals' trade and diplomacy” (34). The taking of traders often contradicted the cultural emphasis Indians placed on raids as martial acts, though no such problem occurred when clashing with Virginian and Canadian soldiers in the Ohio Valley. These conflicts became increasingly violent and established a “culture of captivity” on the eve of widespread war (71).While peacetime captivity was aimed at taking rival Indians, traders, or colonial soldiers, wartime raids transition from a cultural rite to “a contest to preserve and strengthen settlements of one's own culture, and to thwart rivals” (73). Unlike British or French captives, taken as prisoners and quickly exchanged, Indians took captives with the intent to assimilate them into Indian communities. The re-education of captives, explored in part 3, was a grueling process for captives and a “display of cultural confidence” in the eyes of Indians (185). Before integration could begin captives had to survive the retreat into Indian Territory. This was a “baptism into a different life for captives” (187). Indians killed those too young, too old, or too sickly to make the perilous journey. Survivors were forced through re-education programs. Immersion saw European languages forbidden, death as a punishment for escape, and a forced separation of European captives. Steele's nuanced discussion of White Indians stands out as one of the more noteworthy moments in the book, as he skillfully illustrates the cultural flexibility experienced by those embracing Indian culture.Steele's most powerful conclusions are found in parts 4 and 5, which engage with life after captivity and the cultural impact of captivity narratives. Although many did return to colonial society, “captives were all marked for life” and faced myriad struggles reintegrating into societies that viewed them with great skepticism (354). Redeeming captives were part of the ongoing negotiations taking place on the cultural frontiers of Allegheny country. While escape was one dangerous option for captives, most were redeemed through the efforts of others. Gift exchange, diplomatic negotiations, and raids on Indian communities were the most common ways colonial groups sought to free their friends and family.Those freed by the efforts of others were viewed with suspicion upon their return home Many redeemed captives felt they could “never truly go home again,” returning home as cultural hybrids straddling both white and Indian societies thanks to their bilingualism, newfound survival skills, and supposed divided loyalties (351). The ease with which one rejoined society was shaped by age, gender, and the time spent in captivity. Young children, for example, rarely maintained “independent memory of their life before captivity,” such as their birth names or native language (356). Girls returning as young women rarely adjusted to their native societies, while captive young men had more options for finding a way of life upon their return.The hostility and skepticism facing redeemed captives represented an emerging culture in Pennsylvania. Returning colonists found it difficult to gain reacceptance in “white society.” This increasingly racial conception of colonial society was reified through captivity narratives. Here, Steele makes an effort to move away from a literary analysis of captivity narratives by viewing them “in their more immediate context, the remaking of Pennsylvania” (384). Captivity narratives posed a threat to white Pennsylvania, as their cross-cultural nature challenged many of the Christian, white, and male assumptions of society. But they also helped Pennsylvanians, and Americans, forge a new identity. One of the book's most important contributions can be found in Steele's discussion of how, as these narratives became more widespread, the imperial perspective so prevalent during the 1750s and 1760s gave way to “an imagined American community” and an American identity rooted in notions of personal freedoms and the fight for individual autonomy (384).Setting All the Captives Free is an important corrective to the overemphasis on captivity in the New England region and extensively researched. Steele relies on colonial newspapers, printed tracts, letters, and archival collections. Most impressive is Steele's use of technology, drawing heavily from genealogical websites and using the SPSS database to chart the 2,788 captives taken during this twenty-year period. Steele turns attention to the tactics used to take captives, what it meant to be taken into captivity, and the struggles to return to a society skeptical of one's motives and sincerity. All of this is framed within the context of growing frontier violence, imperial rivalries, and the gradual decline of Quaker Pennsylvania. While a more thorough discussion of the emergence of a “white society” and the racial implications of captivity in Pennsylvania could be warranted, it does not detract from the contributions made by this book. Thanks to his engaging writing style, Steele's book can be used in a wide range of graduate courses or upper-level undergraduate classes. Ultimately, this is an essential book for scholars interested in the cultural and military history of Allegheny country.

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