The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright

In this meticulously researched biography, Little (Abraham in Arms), associate professor of history at Colorado State University, traces the life’s journey of Esther Wheelwright (1696–1780), a New England–born nun who ended up as the mother superior of a French-Canadian Ursuline convent. Wheelwright was captured by Wabanaki Indians at age seven, spending five years immersed in their culture. Little follows Wheelwright’s life among the French-Canadian Ursulines, whose order she joined at age 12 and where she rose to prominence and influence, “the only foreign-born superior in the order’s nearly 400-year history.” Little thoroughly reconstructs the everyday aspects of the era, addressing food, clothing, education, and religion to demonstrate that the English, Wabanaki, and French shared many similarities despite their differences. The book is as much about Wheelwright’s environment and multiple cultures as about the woman herself: a “story of whole communities of women, and how they lived and worked, and suffered and thrived in Early America.” It is also “about families that are formed by choice as well as blood,” and the things that “bind the generations of North American women, one to another across the centuries and down to the present, and beyond.” Though detail-rich and slow going, academically constructed and complicated, Little’s work offers deep insight into the era. (Oct.)