Breastfeeding and Captivity in Colonial New England

While captivity narratives from colonial New England have received considerable scholarly attention, new perspectives from food studies and the history of the body demonstrate that these narratives remain rich sources for interpretation. English women’s accounts of captivity in New England often fixated on the protection and sustenance of children. Native raiding parties, particularly the Haudenosaunee, often captured women and small children with hopes that they could be adopted into Indian communities. The journeys required to reach these settlements were tremendously physically demanding, especially for women who had recently given birth or carried infants or toddlers with them. Food shortage and the rigor of travel, as well as the psychological anxiety of captivity, caused many women’s milk to fail, or exacerbated other breastfeeding difficulties. The task of feeding children became a space for intercultural solidarity between men and women, French and English, Abenaki and Huron, but it was also a source of anxiety about food, the body, and identity.