Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison

Corn is an important part of both settler and Indigenous life in the novel. Only a few paragraphs into the first chapter, Molly reflects: “Corn! All their life was bound up with corn” (31). Molly’s time with the Senecas is marked by the planting and growing of corn, and festivals celebrate the harvest.

After arriving in Seneca Town, Molly feels disoriented in a foreign culture, but corn is familiar to her and remains a constant. She sees corn hanging in Red Bird’s lodge and is reminded of home; she is excited by the women grinding corn into flour, hoping they will cook it into the corn-pone she is familiar with.

While reliance on corn is something that Seneca and English culture have in common, even in the cultivation and use of corn Molly discovers that there are cultural differences. Molly is disappointed when the corn in Seneca Town is not made into corn-pone but instead boiled into cakes. When she is expected to help plant corn, Molly is confused by the method the Seneca women use, wondering: “How could anybody plant corn with a stick?” (166). Molly initially rejects these cultural differences but later accepts them.

Repeatedly, corn is described as a source of comfort and refuge. Molly hides in the corn field to secretly speak English to her corn-husk doll, which she imagines to be a white woman. When Gray Wolf chases her, Molly runs “into the corn-field, the friendly corn-field” where she is concealed by the leaves (445). When Molly hides by the creek that night, she remembers the night she was forced to spend on the platform in the corn field and longs for the corn: “The night [by the creek] was worse than the night on the pole platform. Then the rustling, whispering corn had spoken to her in comfort” (448).

Clothing is a motif throughout the novel, illustrating Molly’s changing identity. When Molly is first brought to Seneca Town, the loss of her homespun clothing triggers deep grief. As she watches her clothing float away, she feels that she has lost her identity and the last ties to her family. Repeatedly, Molly longs for a white woman—a mother figure—in familiar homespun English clothing. Later, Molly becomes accustomed to deerskin and even longs for a broadcloth outfit. She learns how to decorate clothing with porcupine quills and is drawn to the meaning in Indigenous designs.

At the end of the novel, Molly’s transformation into a member of the Seneca community is evident when she tries on a new broadcloth outfit. The outfit, made and gifted to her by Shining Star, demonstrates the strong relationships she has developed. While Molly was once ashamed to look like a Seneca girl, at this point in the novel she admires her new outfit: “Molly looked down at her new finery with becoming modesty. How beautiful the clothes were! How lovely the bead designs! How kind of Shining Star to do all the work!” (402-03). At the sight of Molly dressed in broadcloth, the village children declare, “Corn Tassel is a Seneca woman now!” (402). Molly’s clothing is symbolic of her inner transformation.  

In Chapter 9, Molly goes into the woods with Earth Woman and a group of village children. While they are there, Molly encounters bear cubs hiding in a hollow tree. The Seneca children are excited and want to take the cubs home with them to be made into pets. Molly is horrified by this idea, and the comparison between herself and the bear cubs quickly becomes clear when she asks: “You would take the bear cub away from its mother […] and make it a captive?” (265).

The mother bear appears, and the children scatter in fear. Trapped behind the tree, Molly watches the mother bear and two cubs run away into the forest. The children are disappointed that their “pets” have disappeared, but Molly reflects to herself: “The cubs have no ropes about their necks […] They are still free. I’m glad they are not captives” (270).

The bear cubs symbolize not just Molly, but the other English captive in the book, Josiah Johnson. When Josiah escapes, Molly’s initial reaction is sadness and even anger that she has been left behind. Soon, however, her yearning to follow Josiah fades and she becomes happy for him. Shagbark and Earth Woman, despite their own grief, also hope that Josiah remains free and is not recaptured and punished. Listening to Shagbark and Earth Woman, Molly sees the image of the bear cub again:

At that moment, Molly saw a bear cub, big, fat and roly-poly, go lumbering through the forest—a bear cub with no rope about its neck. She saw, too, a young deer—a buck with antlers like a growing tree upon its head—go crashing through the bushes. A bear cub, a deer, running with the fleetness of perfect freedom, and with them somehow, in her mind, she saw Josiah running free (394).

Molly empathizes with the bear cubs, seeing her own captivity in contrast to their freedom; later, the image of the bear cubs merges with the image of Josiah—Running Deer—escaping captivity.