The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America

by John Putnam Demos

In 1704 an Indian war party descended on a Massachusetts village, abducting a Puritan minister and his children. The minister was released, but his daughter chose to stay with her captors. Her extraordinary story is one of race, religion, and the conflict between two cultures.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Biography, Native American, Native American History, 18th Century

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a historical novel, it is a fantastic book and a wonderful read. Unfortunately, it wasn’t billed as such, and as an historical text, there are some significant issues here. Most critically, Demos in places confuses the Mohawks involvement with what were actually Abenaki, and he also seems to have ignored the historiography that was emerging in the Native American field at that time (especially the New Indian History), that should have greatly impacted his interpretation (Richard White’s The Middle Ground, for example). Very minor, though annoying, Demos perpetuates the myth of the "borning room" (see pg.7) when no such designated space in homes ever existed (it’s one of those lovely tour guide myths, along with the idea that the shutters were installed specifically to repel Indian attacks, that just never seems to die.) Add in the frequent and opaque blending of history with conjecture, it is a text that can be problematic in the hands of an uncritical reader. It is a text that I would never feel comfortable citing for factual content in my own work, for fear of spreading misinformation. This is a work that a historian could only get away with publishing at the end of a well-established and respectable career - it never would (or should) have earned him tenure.

To be fair, Demos certainly picked a challenge when he engaged this project, the sources concerning Eunice are scant. At its best, it is an amazing example of how a Historian can think extraordinarily creatively to tell a compelling story when few sources are available. If this book were to be used at all in the classroom, it could be an excellent resource to assign to upper level history students to show the potential benefits and hazards that can come from the careful caressing of sources.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most compelling and readable works of history I encountered all year. And I read a lot of history. This is a scholarly work, but it was written with kind of a fiction tone, and Demos uses a lot of speculation to get inside people's heads and really ponder their experiences. This does what all great works of history are supposed to do, it analyzes a time that seems somewhat incomprehensible to people today. Imagine, if you will (especially those of you who live in small New England towns, or have lived in one at some point) living in an era during which at any time men might emerge from the forest around your town and kill and/or kidnap you and your entire family. A time when you could go to your fields to pick corn and end up being force marched to Montreal and ransomed back to Massachusetts. This happened all the time! For decades! And people just had to live with it. This book is about the experiences of John Williams, a minister in Deerfield, Mass, who was abducted with his family. His 7 year old daughter was adopted into an Indian tribe (as a great many New England children were) and refused to return home.
I recommend this to anyone really, anyone who wants a little break from outright fiction for a moment. I know I'm a history nerd but I don't see how a reader could not get at least a little caught up in this.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things The Unredeemed Captive cemented for me is that my interest is in the phenomenon of Indian captivity, not the captivity narratives themselves. As conditions of their production, these narratives are written by Puritans who have rejected the alien culture (it's clear in The Unredeemed Captive just how alien the culture of the Kahnawake Indians(1) was to the early eighteenth century Puritans they captured, and that, at least, I suspect generalizes across the experiences of Puritans taken captive by other tribes) they have been exposed to and as such, they are invested in demonizing Indians and extolling the virtues of Puritans and Puritan culture. Captivity narratives, in other words, are all about reinscribing the boundaries between cultures and reinscribing the hierarchical and moral judgments the Puritans made about cultures other than their own, and I find this project deeply, deeply unsympathetic. (Yes, this is my own twenty-first century hierarchical and moral judgment about a culture other than my own. But honestly. The Puritans just infuriate me and nowhere more so than in their conviction of their own rightness. Puritanism is a strange mixture of self-righteousness and self-condemnation, and both of these characteristics make it particularly blind to the possibility of other cultures having anything valuable to offer.)

This book is also, I think, an experiment, born out of John Demos's desire to rehabilitate narrative history. As he says in the first line of the book, "Most of all, I wanted to tell a story." By which he does not mean he wants to write a novel. He wants to tell a story--in this case, the story of Eunice Williams, later named Marguerite, A'ongote, and Gannenstenhawi, who was captured by the Kahnawake Indians at the age of seven and who chose to remain with them all her life, despite the quite extraordinary efforts of her family, birth culture, and even the government of Massachusetts to "redeem" her. (The title of the book is a play on The Captive Redeemed, her father John Williams' account of his own captivity.)

In fact, the story Demos tells is the story of the failure to "redeem" her, as his principal primary sources are the writings of her father and of her brother Stephen. He does his best to reconstruct the other side, but as a historian rather than a novelist, he is constrained by the circumstances of evidentiary survival. Not surprisingly, the two Puritan men (both ministers and therefore of high status in their society) both wrote more and had more of their writing preserved than either Puritan women or Indians of either sex. Only one document ascribed to Eunice(2) remains, a letter to her brother, and since she could neither read, write, nor speak English as an adult, it is an intensely mediated document--and the fact that it is banal and personally unrevealing is really not surprising. Eunice Williams remains an absence at the center of the narrative.

There are several things I wish Demos had done more explicitly. One is to address the issue of the historical record, what it means that we have one letter from Eunice and four thousand pages of typescript of her brother Stephen's diary. Another is to talk at greater length and with great explicitness about the differences between Puritan and Kahnawake culture. (He points out, for instance, that while male captives would generally go to any lengths to return to New England, female captives were overwhelmingly likely to stay and become Kahnawake, and to stay despite the fervent appeals of their (male) kinfolk. And he addresses the surface issues of why that might be so. But he doesn't dig into it the way I wish he would have.) And the third is to stop and explicitly deconstruct the idea of "captivity." Because it's quite clear from what he writes that "captivity" is the wrong word. Eunice/Gannenstehawi refused to leave. She is adopted by the Kahnawake, converts to Catholicism, marries a Kahnawake man, lives and dies in Kahnawake, despite visits to Massachusetts and entreaties, blandishments, and actual bribes to remain. The fact that her (male) relatives and the rest of her birth culture persisted in framing and describing the experience as "captivity" is in itself a matter that cries out for careful exegesis.

In other words, I suppose, while I appreciate Demos' desire and efforts to tell a story, I would have liked those efforts to be balanced by equal efforts to unpack and unpick the terms of the story he wants to tell.

---
(1)Kahnawake was a settlement of converted Catholic Indians near to Montréal. They were mostly Iroquois, and their culture reflected a hybridization of Iroquois tradition and French influence.

(2)It's difficult to know how to refer to her. Demos calls her "Eunice" throughout, as her family did. Presumably, as an adult, she used either Marguerite (her French Catholic baptismal name) or Gannenstehawi (the name bestowed upon her as an adult Kahnawake), but which? Or both? And this letter to her brother is in fact signed, "Eunice Williams."

Her husband seems also to have had a shifting plethora of names; Demos refers to him as Arosen, (one of) his name(s) as an adult Kahnawake, rather than François Xavier, his French names. He was Indian by birth--but he wasn't native to Kahnawake any more than Eunice/Marguerite/Gannenstehawi was, and presumably Arosen was bestowed upon him as an adult just as Gannenstehawi was bestowed on her. That is, it would clearly be wrong to refer to him as François, but is it right to refer to her as Eunice?

It's a thorny issue, and I don't actually have a better answer than the one which Demos chose.

[Josie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a history major, clearly. I only made it 50 pages into this book and couldn't imagine slogging my way through the rest. I love the "story" here, but Demos was clearly more focused on primary sources and fact...after fact...after fact... Minute details distracted from what could have been a fascinating telling of this incident. I don't need four pages of historical text (in ye olde americaine englysh no less) of what possessions each townsperson lost in the massacre, followed by a single paragraph about a 500km trek by the prisoners in the middle of winter. This book reminds me of several older history books I've tried to pick up over the years. Fascinating events, dulled by too much fact, not enough description. But again, for someone trained to enjoy that sort of thing, this might be a great book.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Demos sets the story of white captives in context. The taking of John Williams and his family, among others during a raid on Deerfield, Mass. by Indians allied to the French is the beginning of the 'story.' Eunice Williams, his daughter, was not returned to New England when others in the group were traded back for Frenchmen held captive in New England or ransomed. Eunice was adopted by an Indian family when she was 'captured.' Later she married an Indian and became completely acculturated to the Indian way of life and converted to Catholicism. She chose not to be 'redeemed.'
Using Eunice and the Williams family situation as a spring board, Dr. Demos discusses the Indian way of life and that of the New Englanders. The impact of the various wars between the French and the British in North America on the situation is touched upon.
What I learned is that Eunice Williams did visit her relatives in Massachusetts after her father died. Unfortunately, the women of the family did not visit her in her home situation. Perhaps they would have seen the differences in culture and the rights of women which could have created more discord in the Protestant patriarchy of New England.

[Mscout · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Demos is an historian of another age. He was trained during a time when historians were struggling to be recognized as more than mere stenographers of past events. As a result, narrative history was shoved aside in favor of a more (if not almost purely) analytical approach that stressed interpretation of the stories rather than the telling of them. This was unfortunate as he “had been drawn to history by the stories.” As the subtitle to this work suggests, however, he has come back to that love of story and expressed it through The Unredeemed Captive: A Story from Early America.
Demos’ work tells the story of the Williams family. Theirs is a story that was central to the history of colonial America. Settled in Deerfield on the Massachusetts frontier, John Williams (d. 1729), respected Puritan pastor and community leader, and his family struggled to build a life on the edge of the vast American wilderness. They faced hardships both environmental and physical. The greatest of these occurred 28 February 1704, when the French directed a raid against the community of Deerfield. The raiding party included French troops as well as a great number of Indian allies. Two of Williams’ children were killed outright; four others were captured along with him and his wife. His wife, Eunice, was killed along the way, but the others all survived the arduous trek to Canada. Over the course of almost three years all were ‘redeemed’ or returned to Massachusetts, except for the youngest daughter, also named Eunice. She chose to stay and make her life with the Mohawk family that had adopted her.
This book is ostensibly the story of the raid and capture, the redemption of John Williams and four of his children, and subsequent attempts to redeem Eunice. While focusing primarily on this one family, Demos managed also to tell the larger story of the early colonies. He used a wealth of primary sources, including letters, journals, public notices and legal records. In staying true to his narrative form, he weaves those into the story at times as if they were dialogue. This makes the story come alive in a way that reads much like decent fiction.
Demos does not shy away from the analytical, however. He goes beyond what is merely recorded in the sources to interpret the larger picture of colonial Massachusetts. One of the most salient examples is the third chapter, his study of Williams’ writings during and immediately after his captivity. Demos goes beyond the text in front of him and interprets them through a contextual filter. In so doing, he gives a much more intimate portrayal of Williams, while at the same time widening the scope to show Williams as a product of his time and place.
The second half of the book is taken up with Eunice’s life in Canada. After being adopted by a Catholic Mohawk family, she chose in turn to adopt their ways, language and religion. Eunice was baptized a Catholic (and rechristened Marguerite), much to the horror of her Puritan family that saw Catholicism as grievous sin. She married a Mohawk man and raised a family with him. John Williams never gave up his hope of redeeming her to her old family. Eunice never gave up her new family. In telling this part of the story, Demos relied on, admittedly scant, tribal records and personal papers. Yet he managed to recreate a realistic portrait of her community and family.
Demos managed to achieve his goals of telling a story and doing so from a point of view not wholly European. Through the life of John Williams, he was able to describe a larger colonial story. Through Eunice, he told the story through the eyes of those facing colonization. Through the French officials in Montreal and Quebec, Demos was able to add the additional voice of those North of the border. Unredeemed Captive is at once a story highly personal and yet hugely representative of early America.

[Terri London Mabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most reviews say this book is either super interesting, or way too detailed. It's both. Demos takes a story that could be covered a long magazine article and stretches it out into a book. But if you're interested in studying either New England or Kahnawake in the 17 and 18th centuries, then Demos' too-much-detail is great.

He quotes extensively from the sources, and then repeats in his own words what was just said, and then imagines and extrapolates on the material. The repeating and extrapolating was sometimes too much, but having all those original sources brought into one book was fantastic. I was interested in learning about Kahnawake, and he has several chapters just describing the culture and daily life of the settlement. SO interesting.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Demos' The Unredeemed Captive paints a vivid portrait of life on the hinterlands of early America. The work is at different times a social history of New England, an ethnohistorical study of indigenous life between the emerging French and British North American empires, and a study about how religion affected the actions and understandings of those closest to this cultural divide. Despite a captivating story and compelling prose, Demos' book focuses more so on the redeemed captives, John and Samuel Williams, than the unredeemed captive Eunice. Overall, Demos presents a picture of a cross-cultural world characterized by forms of violence that both divide and bridge the cultural gap.

[Jan Mc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely detailed research went into this book, but that doesn't always make for easy reading. Every possible aspect of the abduction of the 1704 Deerfield raid and abductions was covered, including the English, French, and Native American involvement and the long-term results... REALLY long-term. The actual action of the raid—what is known of it—doesn't take much space. Each piece of original source material is shown and analyzed. There doesn't seem to be enough for the author to come to some of the conclusions he does, but I'm not the historian.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This well-written history narrative provides excellent insight into how an historian's mind works. It is a history book that tells a gripping story that reads like a detective novel.

The Unredeemed Captive tells the story of Eunice Williams and her family. On the night of February 29, 1704, French-allied Native Americans raided the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts. The raid came early in Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), the second out of four wars waged between France and England for domination of North America. The raiders kidnapped Eunice Williams and many of her family members during the attack. In fact, the Native Americans went to Deerfield with orders from New France's governor to take Williams' father, Reverend John Williams, because he would fetch a high value in any prisoner exchange between New France and New England. Although the Governor of Massachusetts Bay arranged for the redemption of all of the Williams family members, the Native Americans had adopted 4-year-old Eunice and refused to part with her. As a result, Eunice became an adopted member of the Kahnawake Mohawk people. She grew up as both a Mohawk and as a French-speaking Catholic, a fate almost worse than death for her Puritan family.

John Demos spends much of the work sorting out the knowns and unknowns of Eunice's life as a Kahnawake. The sparse documentary evidence of Eunice's life causes Demos to discuss theories or speculations about what Eunice's life as a Mohawk must have been like. He bases his theories and speculations on first-hand accounts of what the village looked like, how the Kahnawake lived and worked, and the Mohawks' process of captive adoption. Demos admits that much of this evidence comes from accounts biased with European prejudices.

In sharing his thought process throughout The Unredeemed Captive, Demos shows how the mind of an historian works. Throughout the book Demos demonstrates how historians weigh evidence. He gives a lot of weight to evidence that specifically documents Eunice and notes how and why some supporting evidence such as letters between family members or the captive narratives of others do not offer reliable evidence.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and on the whole it is well researched. However, I find fault in Demos' incomplete research of the history of Albany, New York. Admittedly, I wrote my dissertation on the history of Albany. With that said, I have consulted many sources on the history of the city and I have yet to encounter the one that states that Albany's State Street was Staats Street as Demos claims. In fact, until just after the American Revolution, the Albanians called that street Jonkheer Straet. It became State Street in honor of the independence of the United States. In a book that was so well researched, I found this error galling; Albany played an important role in trying to redeem Eunice and yet it seemed like Demos opted not to spend time researching the history of the city. Instead he translated State into its Dutch "Staat" and called it a day. However, this is the one fault I found with this book.

[Richard Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up second hand, as I find the assimilation of captured white settlers into Native American tribes fascinating.

From John Ford's The Searchers to Philipp Meyer's The Son, they have been dealt with in fiction, but the Unredeemed Captive deals with a real-life case.

In the early 18th Century, church minister John Williams and his family are captured when their Massachusetts town is attacked. Some die, some are "redeemed" (released), but daughter Eunice remains with her captors.

But more than that, she remains with them willingly - marrying and integrating into the tribe, much to the distress of her surviving family.

There is some fascinating detail in this account. I wasn't aware of how Native Americans were used by both French Canada and the English colonies as surrogates in cross-border warfare, or how significant numbers of natives (and Eunice) converted to Catholicism.

There is much in here then about the blending of identities - and the uneasy accommodation that existed between settlers and "Indians".

There is a poignancy also in capturing a moment before the mass extermination and destruction of the Native Americans and their ways of life had truly taken hold.

But be warned - the details of Eunice's new life are scarce - she herself never left any account of her experiences.

And that is both this book's strength and weakness. On the one hand the sparsity of facts builds up the air of mystery, and allows the author to speculate a little. But it also leaves much unanswered.

At times I found John Demos's poring over the detail of the documentary evidence that does exist slightly too exhaustive. This is micro-history in the extreme.

He also insists on using much of the original idiom of the 18th Century settlers - ye instead of the etc etc, which I found slowed me down and were unnecessary. It would not have diminished the historical rigour of the book one bit to make those more accessible to the 21st Century reader.

But by delving into detail, Demos does immerse you in the world of 18th Century colonial America and opened my eyes to elements that had passed me by. T

he tantalising moments when settlers connect with the Native Americans and "unredeemed captive" Eunice are particularly poignant, as the divide between two different cultures fractures but never quite collapses.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have much to learn! I thought Cotton Mather was a character in The Crucible (close, but no). And John Williams is a composer (yes, but in this case we're dealing with the Puritan Minister who became famous for the account of his experiences called THE REDEEMED CAPTIVE).

This is a very well written, very detailed account of a massacre and capture of New England colonists by the French & Indians of "New France". Not really a spoiler, due to the name of the book, but most of the focus ends up on one girl, John's daughter, and her long, LONG captivity. Which becomes less about captivity, and more of a choice for her.

I found it fascinating and I look forward to meeting the author in Vermont in a few weeks at Booktopia.

I love how Booktopia books weave together. In this case, the Jesuits play a prominent role as the "evil popists" living to the north. Puritans have absolutely horrible things to say about Catholics! At last October's Booktopia we were with the 'Jesuits in Space' in THE SPARROW. In both cases they are the explorers of new lands.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jaghte oghte. Do you know what these two words mean? Maybe not. But if you read the book you will definitely know. They’re the only two words we have on record of the Unredeemed Captive herself actually speaking, aside from a letter much later in her life (but not written down by her). This book is so in depth yet readable, I can’t recommend it enough. I don’t think I realized the extent which the French and English would use Indian tribes to fight each other over territory. I think you will enjoy the relief of not having to read any excruciating details of major battle formations and plans that would normally accompany a book like this. Instead we get so much of the everyday life of regular New Englanders and French and Indians. (By the way, if the word “Indian” triggers you, don’t read this book). There is a door from the 1704 attack that is still in Deerfield, Massachusetts, all marked up with 300 year old scars from tomahawks used to break in the night that Eunice Williams and 111 others were captured.

[Michael Maciolek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Eunice Williams, the daughter of a Puritan Preacher in early 1700's Massachussetts, who is taken by a Native and French raiding party and brought back to Montreal. To her family's horror, she chooses willingly to stay in Montreal after being permitted to return, becoming both a Catholic and marrying a Native man (her family cannot say which one is worse). Though eventually she opens up to repeatedly visiting her old family in Massachussetts, she dies in her 80's in Canada.

The author did a good job at researching and telling the story of Eunice and her family, providing plenty of context as to the period of time at issue. I learned a lot about early American colonial wars - wars that are often skipped over but that had profound consequences for those living through them.

The book got slow towards the middle. Maybe that's just me, but it took me a while tofinish this one, even though I was so excited when I started reading it. I think the pace just naturally slowed down - after the initial raid and long trek up to Montreal (where Eunice's mother is hatcheted and killed by the captors), the rest of this book details her family's efforts to repatriate her.

Overall, a very interesting story and a good job of telling it by the author.

[Jason Koivu · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a book meant for laymen and set up to tantalize with stories of CAPTIVES!, this actually provides solid insights into tribal life and culture during the days when America was a newborn colony.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after a visit to historic Deerfield in Massachusetts, because I wanted to learn more about the Deerfield residents who were captured and taken to Canada as captives. I was especially interested in Eunice Williams, the girl who was captured, then never returned to her biological family or birthplace, even after being given the choice to do so.
This book is definitely more of a historic text than a story, so it took me awhile to get through it. It is not a lesisurely read at bedtime. When I started reading it, I thought, ugh, I'll never get through this. But I kept reading it because I wanted to know what happened and why.
Demos did a lot of research and it shows; the book is filled with quotes from writings during the time period (1704 - early 1800's) and has references notated on just about every paragraph. The author also adds his own interpretations and thoughts to certain passages, such as pointing out when a preacher's sermon changes his word choice from 'we' to 'they' to 'you' as tone and intent changes. Demos is great at clarifying the often verbose sermons and writings of the period.
So the book had way more information than what I was looking for... it covers the history of the English/French/American Indian conflicts, the different Native American tribes (Iroquois, Oneida, Mohawk, Kahnawake, Abenaki,etc), different religions: Puritan and Catholic, and so on. Every chapter captures the angst and hope of the Williams family for about 60 years praying and trying to get their sister Eunice to leave her Kahnawake life and come back and live in New England. After awhile I too was getting weary, and kept thinking, why don't they just give up trying to make her move back to Massachusetts, and be happy having visits from her? But, because of all the religious detail Demos explained, it helps to understand the family in the context of their times. The views of the Puritans, their opinions of 'savages', and the arrogance of the English and French thinking they had a right to fight over land that native Americans were already living on, all these themes in the book were very frustrating to read, but that is what was going on during the 1700's. Demos does a good job bringing these topics to light, and explaining how they shaped the actions, decisions, and thoughts of everyone involved in the Deerfield raid, and subsequent related events.

Recommend this for history buffs!

[Gale · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Long Wait for Redemption --but Whose?

This meticulously-researched book is not for armchair historians--no matter how closely connected they may be to Colonial Massachusetts. Actually it seems more destined to appeal to or impress professors and serious historians, who revel in quaint spelling, archaic grammar and a plethora of quotations from primary sources. It takes 80 pages to reach details about the prolonged captivity and acculturation of 6-year-old Eunice Williams of Deerfield. In fact it takes many pages of European background to reach the decision of a company of Puritans to settle in the New World—ostensibly to improve the lives of the resident “savages.”

Winner of a National Book Award for best adult history much of the opening chapters read like a dissertation; we wonder when the tale will be taken up of the title protagonist. Kudos to the author for attempting to present both sides of the protracted social conflict: White versus Native Americans. Also the perpetual tug of war for men’s souls as the French Jesuits and English Protestants vied for moral control—each side deeply suspicious of the other—leaving many Native American converts confused.

This book also recounts in detail the urgent efforts of Rev. John Williams—himself captured in the fateful raid of 1704. A tale of brutality, resistance, survival, and undying hope for an ultimate reunion with the lost daughter. Truly a cross-cultural family history with interbreeding and mixed heritage this book reveals the dedicated efforts of generations of Williams ministers to reestablish a loving relationship with a young woman who became Indianized to the point that she could no longer speak or understand English. Followed by an epilogue which highlights the fate of Eunice's descendants The Unredeemed Captive lays bare the soul-searching loss and anguish of a family of Massachusetts clergy. Readers’ emotions and hopes will yoyo between the two conflicting cultures, for the author clearly intends to express the validity of Native American culture.

April 19, 2010

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[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Social history suggested by my son, something he’d read for a course - liked the symmetry of the many beginnings/many endings structure - also liked the play on words in the title, ‘unredeemed’ meaning un-ransomed, unrepentant, and un’saved’ in terms of religious choice/belief. In 1704 Eunice Williams was about seven years old, part of a prominent Puritan clerical family living in Deerfield, Mass. when the community was attacked by French and Indians who killed many of the inhabitants and carried off many more as captives, Eunice and much of her family being among them. Her mother and an infant died on the arduous trip to Montreal. Over the years her father and brothers were ransomed (redeemed) and returned. Eunice remained, at first as a captive, and later by choice with her Mohawk family. Contact with her was established and she and her Indian family made several visits to Deerfield, but as she had forgotten and never re-learned English, communication was through translators, and it's a frustration for the reader that nothing in Eunice’s voice survives. Fascinating that the author was able to unearth so much information about one person who left no written record of herself.

[Theo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this book. While the hook of the narrative was certainly very compelling, I found that the 'story' lost quite a bit of steam as it went forward. About fifty pages in, the central narrative becomes a plodding patchwork of quotes lifted from colonial letters and journals woven together by Demos's often very liberal extrapolations of their authors' internal states and unspoken fears, motives, etc. Not only does this make for stilted writing, but it is poor historiography. Additionally (I've read this complaint in one or two other reviews, but I would like to reiterate it), there is a glaring lack of documentation and evidence citing native perspectives. They are harder to come by, yes, but there was existing scholarship Demos could have drawn on at the time to enrich the thoroughness his account. In fact, the one-sided evidence often suggests a sympathy for the trials endured by the victims and captives from Deerfield and implicitly villainizes the French and native actors. I thought this could be a great read to learn more about the Pioneer Valley where I live, but I left very disappointed.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It tells the story of a New England family who was captured by Native Americans in the Deerfield Raid, which took place approximately in 1704. The daughter, Eunice, never did return to her family, she had multiple opportunities, but she chose to remain with the Native Americans. This book shows the attitudes the colonists had towards the Indians, the Indian captives, Catholics, the French, the Indian captives, etc, that chose to stay, etc.

This book I think would be interesting to many people who just enjoy History, but are not into a lot of theory. He tells the story, there is some analysis, etc, but the story of this family, and of the country at that time is a major part of this book.

His writing style to a certain extent annoyed me because he was handing me his interpretations of the passages, but overall his writing style was interesting. He quotes a lot of passages from the writings of the family and people of that time including Cotton Mather, and Samuel Sewell, Samuel Sewell was a major figure in the Salem Witchcraft Trials.

[Hafsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facinating use of the imagination in retelling history. As a narrator of history and a scholar who is faced with critical gaps in the historical record as pertains to his subject, Demos deploys his own imagination when discussing how the various members in the family felt at different points in the narrative by critically examining their letters, the historical context around that time period, and the silences in their writings. The book is scholarly, but also fictional, which is what makes is compelling.

One of the issues this book brought up for my history course was Demos's fixation with viewing Eunice Williams as Eunice throughout the story, despite the fact that she herself discarded that identity and had adopted a new one (and a new name). It is almost as if he was still trying to hold on to a European part of her that she did not relate to anymore.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 2/3 of this non-fiction tale is quite interesting: in colonial New England, an English/protestant minister and his family are taken captive to Canada by Mohawk Indians who happen to be Catholic by way of French missionaries. The family is divided, but over time most of them are returned to New England in prisoner exchanges, except for the youngest daughter. She eventually assimilates and converts to Catholicism as her relatives fight for years after to redeem her from a "captivity" that she doesn't actually want to be freed from. The social and religious themes are intriguing, and the author employs every scrap of information he could find in historical documents to tell the story. The problem then? Nothing interesting happens for the last third of the book. Then everyone dies of old age.

[Leann · Rating 3 out of 5]

You gotta hand it to the author -- he did his research. This book contains information from numerous primary sources, and that is where the strengths of this book lie. The author delves off into trying to fill in the blanks left us by the primary sources, but that's not what he's good at. I found some of his "imaginings" of what happened to be quite different from what I imagined given the evidence he had presented. But overall, it was a fascinating look at life in the late 1600s to early 1700s, and at what happened to a family torn apart by both captivity and the deep seated differences between catholics and protestants.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this heavily-researched book about a 7-year-old girl and her family who were captured by Indians in 1704 from their home in Deerfield, MA. Everyone in the family but young Eunice either died or was eventually returned to their home but she chose to stay with the tribe, marry an Indian man and live there for the rest of her life. It's astonishing how the author put together an entire book from the meager facts available about Eunice; much of the material revolved around the conflicts between French Canada and British New England. If you would enjoy reading detailed history about this period, this is the book for you!

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided a fascinating glimpse into Colonial American History with stories of white settlers taken captive by the French and their Native allies in pre-Revolutionary War America. One of those captive families were the Williams of Deerfield, MA. Since the father (and later his sons) were ministers, they provide one of the few records through their diaries and letters. The youngest child, Eunice, was also captured and re-appeared as an adult married to a Native American. The author also documented the social structure of native tribes to provide a glimpse into this woman's life. Great reading for this history major!

[Nisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite historical book. I read it for two different classes and enjoyed it during both times. It's nice to read because while it give factual information, with some layers of speculation, it still runs the course of the story of the 'Unredeeemed captive', "Eunice".

It's really fascinating to read the meager facts about the life of this woman and the well documented attempts of her family to bring her back.

[Helen Major · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a vitally important subject in view of the appalling lack of awareness of our country's history of both the native peoples and the European peoples interactions.

[Mary]

Good

[Thady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into life and attitudes in early Americal settlements and a great call for tolerance and acceptance at the end. Highly recommended

[Ernie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a 7 year old girl and her family, who are abducted by French allied Native Americans in connection with a massacre at Deerfield, MA in the early 1700s and the efforts the family made 10 years later to redeem her at the end of the war. (Native Americans, henceforth referred to a Indians following the authors non-PC practice) By that time, she had become one of the Indian community, forgotten English, converted to Catholicism (French Jesuits) and married an Indian man. She did not want to return.

What follows is a lifetime of the Colonial family trying to redeem her and give her the inheritance (land and money) she is due. And she doesn’t. The book shows letters demonstrating the understanding, lack of understanding and evolution of the colonists’ views with the Indians. In the Epilogue the enrollment of her two grandsons in an American school is described showing and interesting acceptance of these Indians. I’ve not read captive narratives before and found this fascinating. Of course, captive narratives are different because they are written by those who returned and were taught differently.

The book also describes the uncertain and changing line of alliances between the Indian communities as well as those communities and the French and English. Complex.

The topic was fascinating. Unlike fiction, it relied heavily on presentation of existing data, validation by duplication or other means and sometimes seemed to bog down with extensive documentation. Unlike the really academic historical texts, the author relies heavily on interpretation of events and letters. That seems necessary considering how limited the actual data was. So… the reader needs to accept the ability of the author to weave information from diverse sources to accurately create a narrative. --- I accepted it. I do see that some of the other reviewers with an academic background identified shortcomings. However, from my position of ignorance I found the presentation of colonial life and interaction with the Indians illuminating.

Tough reading though. I liked it. My next book is likely to be an easier reading fiction of some sort. Beach book.