The Unredeemed Captive
A Family Story from Early America
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Nominated for the National Book Award and winner of the Francis Parkman Prize.
The setting for this haunting and encyclopedically researched work of history is colonial Massachusetts, where English Puritans first endeavoured to "civilize" a "savage" native populace. There, in February 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.
Out of this incident, The Bancroft Prize-winning historian John Devos has constructed a gripping narrative that opens a window into North America where English, French, and Native Americans faced one another across gilfs of culture and belief, and sometimes crossed over.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The armed conflicts of the 18th century between the English colonies in North America and the French settlements that stretched into Canada were fought with the support of Native American allies. Demos, a Yale history professor ( Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England ), draws on primary source material to provide a perceptive analysis of the cultural encounters that occurred between combatants by detailing the experiences of the John Williams family. Williams, a Puritan minister, and his family were captured in 1704 in their Massachusetts home by a group of Frenchmen and Native Americans, and forced to march to Canada. Although he and four of his children were later released, his wife died on the march and his daughter, Eunice, became a convert to Catholicism and married a Native American. Despite the ongoing attempts of her father and brother to persuade Eunice to return to Massachusetts, she would agree only to brief visits and lived in a Native American settlement until her death at the age of 95. Illustrations not seen by PW. History Book Club main selection ; BOMC alternate .
