As one of the earliest literary forms of colonial America, the Indian captivity narrative is important not only in the
history of American letters but also as an indispensable source concerning the colonization of the "frontier," the peoples who dwelt on either side of it, and the often limited understanding they had of one another. A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison is one of the best of this literary genre.
own adventures and misfortunes but also of the lives, customs, and attitudes of the Indians with whom she identified. When Seaver (about whom very little is known) interviewed Jemison in 1823, she was eighty years old. She did not read or write English, but she spoke it fluently. The book, published in 1824 and reprinted more than thirty times both in the United States and abroad, lives on; for readers continue to wonder at the strength and complexity of this remarkable woman’s life.