Captive Histories: English, French, and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid

by Evan Haefeli (Editor)

This volume draws together an unusually rich body of original sources that tell the story of the 1704 French and Indian attack on Deerfield, Massachusetts, from different vantage points. Texts range from one of the most famous early American captivity narratives, John Williams's The Redeemed Captive, to the records of French soldiers and clerics, to little-known Abenaki and Mohawk stories of the raid that emerged out of their communities' oral traditions. Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney provide a general introduction, extensive annotations, and headnotes to each text. Although the oft-reprinted Redeemed Captive stands at the core of this collection, it is juxtaposed to less familiar accounts of captivity composed by other Deerfield Quentin Stockwell, Daniel Belding, Joseph Petty, Joseph Kellogg, and the teenaged Stephen Williams. Presented in their original form, before clerical editors revised and embellished their content to highlight religious themes, these stories challenge long-standing assumptions about classic Puritan captivity narratives. The inclusion of three Abenaki and Mohawk narratives of the Deerfield raid is equally noteworthy, offering a rare opportunity not only to compare captors' and captives' accounts of the same experiences, but to do so with reference to different Native oral traditions. Similarly, the memoirs of French military officers and an excerpt from the Jesuit Relations illuminate the motivations behind the attack and offer fresh insights into the complexities of French-Indian alliances. Taken together, the stories collected in this volume, framed by the editors' introduction and the assessments of two Native scholars, Taiaiake Alfred and Marge Bruchac, allow readers to reconstruct the history of the Deerfield raid from multiple points of view and, in so doing, to explore the interplay of culture and memory that shapes our understanding of the past.

Genres: History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2006

About the author

Evan Haefeli, Associate Professor of History at Columbia University, specializes in colonial American and Native American history. He has published on indigenous relations with European colonists, the experience of captivity, the history of the book in early America, colonial revolts, witchcraft, religious conflict, conversion, and toleration, as well as the role of European imperial competition in shaping colonial American society. He is currently completing a long-term study of the complex origins of American religious pluralism. His research interests include early modern religion and colonial American society (especially in New England and the Mid-Atlantic), politics, cross cultural relations, comparative colonialism, frontier relations, the history of the book, Atlantic history, and the history of religious tolerance.

Reviews

[Jane Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captive History Narrative. I guess I read a lot of captive stories, looking for ancestors? It's hard to remember which are which anymore, but that part of history, I was studying and I liked to read all I could get my hands on.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Deerfield Raid, 1704, told from the perspectives of Native Americans and colonists. A photo of mine is included in this book!
In 1704, a French and Indian coalition raided the frontier village of Deerfield, Massachusetts, destroying property, killing 50 of the inhabitants, and kidnapping 112. Forced to march in the dead of winter to Canada, many of the captives died along the way. Many survived, however, and later printed narratives of their ordeals. The most famous victims of this raid were members of the Williams family, and much has been written about them in subsequent centuries. In Captive Histories, Sweeney and Haefeli have gathered primary documents pertaining to the Williams survivors and those less famous. The difference in this book is the inclusion of multiple perspectives, including the Abenaki and Mohawk stories that have been passed from generation to generation via oral tradition. Letters, military reports, oral narratives,and memoirs are collated and evaluated in such a way as to compare and contrast the English, French, and Native American points of view, and assess belief systems, traditions, the the reliability of the evidence. Captive Histories does not read like a historical novel; it is an important and valuable piece of research and socio/political/cultural commentary on one of colonial New England's most notorious events.