In recent years, colonial New England captivity narratives have been a popular topic in both history and literary studies. Indeed, before reading this book, one might wonder whether there was much left to learn about this topic. William Henry Foster looks at colonial captivity narratives from an entirely different perspective, however, and in the process overturns much conventional thinking. He points out that, in contrast to the archetype of the young female captive, men and boys made up over 80 percent of the captives taken to Canada from 1675 to 1763. This fact is punctuated by Foster’s discovery that in many cases French Catholic women were the masters of these captive English Puritan men. This fascinating relationship is the focus of a book that provides insights into gender, religion, and authority on the early American frontier.