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eBook The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America download

by John Putnam Demos

ISBN: 0394557824
Author: John Putnam Demos
Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (March 29, 1994)
Language: English
Pages: 315
ePub: 1783 kb
Fb2: 1502 kb
Rating: 4.1
Other formats: docx lrf doc azw
Category: History
Subcategory: Americas

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The Unredeemed Captive book.

The Unredeemed Captive book. Despite a captivating story and compelling prose, Demos' book focuses more so on the redeemed captives, John an 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.

In The Unredeemed Captive, John Demos, Yale historian and winner of the Bancroft Prize for his book Entertaining Satan, tells the story of the minister's captured daughter Eunice, who was seven years old at the time of the Deerfield incident and was adopted by a Mohawk family living at a Jesuit mission-fort near Montreal. On the contrary, she had forgotten how to speak English, had married a young Mohawk man, and could not be prevailed upon to return to Deerfield.

In The Unredeemed Captive, John Demos, Yale historian and winner of the Bancroft Prize for his book Entertaining . Early on the morning of February 29, 1704, before the settlers of Deerfield, Massachusetts, had stirred from their beds, a French and Indian war party opened fire, wielding hatchets and torches, on the lightly fortified town.

John Putnam Demos is an American author and historian. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (Winner of the Ray Allen Billington Award). He was awarded the 1995 Francis Parkman Prize for his book The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early America . The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World.

Nominated for the National Book Award, this book is set in colonial Massachusetts where, in 1704, a French and Indian war party descended on the . by John Putnam Demos. Select Format: Hardcover.

Nominated for the National Book Award, this book is set in colonial Massachusetts where, in 1704, a French and Indian war party descended on the village o.

Get started today for free. All Documents from The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America. history final 2012-12-10. Demos was awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his book Entertaining Satan. He retired in December 2008 as the Samuel Knight Professor of History at Yale University, USA.

Edmunds, R. David, The Shawnee Prophet Edmunds, R. David et a. The People: A History of Native America Egloff, Keith, and Deborah Woodward, First People: The Early Indians of Virginia, 2 nd ed. Ehle, John, Trail o. Ehle, John, Trail of.Evers, Larry and Barre Toelken, ed. Native American Oral Traditions: Collaboration and Interpretation Ewers, John . The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains Ewers, John . Plains Indian History and Culture: Essays on Continuity and Change Exley, Jo Ella Powell, Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family Fagan, Brian, Ancient North America, 4 th ed. Fagan, Brian, The Great Journey: The Peopling of Ancient America, updted.

Small red remainder mark on top edges. Examines the 1704 Indian capture of the eminent minister John Williams, his wife, Eunice Mather Williams, and their five children ISBN: 0394557824 (Williams, John, Williams, Eunice, Mohawk Indians, Indian Captivities, Deerfield, Massachusetts, Queen Anne's War). Other Products from hartmannbooks (View All).

Nominated for the National Book Award, this book is set in colonial Massachusetts where, in 1704, a French and Indian war party descended on the village of Deerfield, abducting a Puritan minister and his children. Although John Williams was eventually released, his daughter horrified the family by staying with her captors and marrying a Mohawk husband.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Comments: (7)

Xisyaco

The Unredeemed Captive (nonfiction) shows the path of abduction and adoption of American settlers by Indians. The book starts in 1704 when protestant pastor John Williams and his five children are taken captive at Deerfield, a small village in Massachusetts.

Two of Williams' children are murdered the night of the raid. The minister, along with his wife and other children (Samuel: age fourteen, Stephan: age twelve, Esther age eight, Eunice age six, and Warham age four), were herded along with 112 other Deerfield captives on a three hundred mile journey to Montreal that lasted for two months. During the journey the surviving Williams children are scattered amongst the various participating Indians tribes. As the family separates they all realize it may be the last time they ever see each other.

Indians assign the captives to a family in different tribes and places. After sometimes brutal initiation, the adopted captives in many cases are considered members of the Indian family. The Indians are led and indoctrinated by Jesuit Catholics. Rev. John Williams and his followers and the whole Protestant nation are horrified. Protesting against Catholic religion is the back bone of the Puritans' self-existence.

In many cases it was possible to "redeem" a captive by exchanging money with the tribe's captors, once found. Most of the Williams family were eventually "redeemed" and released, all except the youngest child "Eunice," who was only six when taken. First her adopted family refused to let her go, then she refused to leave them.

After ten years of fruitless attempts for Eunice's release, John Williams was deeply saddened by the news that Eunice had forgotten how to speak English, had been baptized to the Roman Catholic faith by Jesuit priests, took an Indian name and married a "savage," as he was referred to in the Williams family correspondence. Until his death in 1729, John Williams continued efforts to have Eunice freed and returned. After the father's death, his son Rev. Stephan Williams, carried on the c
rusade. When contact is finally made, it is interesting to learn Eunice's story.

The author has carefully documented his sources for this true story. I especially enjoyed this book because an "aunt" in my family was held captive for five years when she was a child. This helped me understand her life. The book would have benefitted by a good editor to present the story in a more readable format.

Cargahibe

Demos combines subjective interpretation with objective historical facts in this account of the Williams family's experience of the French and Indian raid on Deerfield in 1704, but he does not confuse the two. He clearly differentiates between what is known and what can be reasonably inferred. He demonstrates very well the anguish of the Williams family over the loss of Eunice through the written and spoken words of her father, Reverend John Williams, and her brother, Reverend Stephen Williams. The book follows Eunice's life from early childhood through to her death and beyond that, to her great and great-great grandchildren's visitations to Deerfield. He treats her experience and that of her family with sympathy and understanding. A good read for historical details as well as for an understanding of the emotional impact of living in a colonial frontier village with neighbors who can be both friends and enemies, depending on the circumstances and timing. I gave it only 4 stars instead of 5 because I feel that he stretched the subjective inference into outright speculation in a few places where a little more research would have been better than speculation. For example, when he mentions the killing of the Williams family slave en route to Montreal, he suggests racism as a motive, and states that there doesn't seem to be much other explanation. But, there were some complexities in the situation that suggest other possibilities. The captors had been drinking just before the killing. They had killed the slave's wife in the initial attack and the slave might have lashed out verbally in grief and anger at them, prompting them to react violently in return. There was also the issue that Demos described, of a dispute between Native Americans over killing Rev. Williams to avenge a Native relative who was killed during the attack. Williams was spared, but it's quite possible that his slave was killed as a compromise. A few other comments sound like they lack enough substance to be a reasonable inference, i.e. his parenthetical question of whether the marriage of a Stebbins woman at Deerfield to a French fur trader created a fifth column within the village. Still a good read and full of factual as well as narrative descriptions of the people and the setting.

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