Marsh, Elizabeth, 1735-1785

Elizabeth Marsh (1735–1785) was an Englishwoman who was held captive in Morocco for a brief period after the ship she was traveling from Gibraltar to England to unite with her fiancé was intercepted by a Moroccan corsair and overtaken by its crew. Marsh revealed the experiences of her captivity through her captive narrative,The Female Captive: A Narrative of Fact Which Happened in Barbary in the Year 1756, Written by Herself, published more than a decade after her return from captivity. The Female Captive documents Marsh's misfortunes after she and her shipmates were captured by Moroccan sailors, becoming the first captive barbary narrative written in English by a woman author. In the published version, Marsh also added quite a few details that helped reframe her narrative in a more novelistic form and that heightened the sense of danger she felt as well as created dramatic tension around the question of whether or not she would escape. Marsh's narrative is an important contributor to the larger genre of European women's captivity narratives, which frequently featured female resistance to captivity and sexual violence.