As presented by EotAW, it may seem that the colonial period in North America was nothing but a string of massacres. Well, that’s not true. There were also plagues, whippings, and outright warfare. But then, after the Revolution, everything got better.
Regardless, on this day in 1704, French troops and their Native allies sacked the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, among the most harrowing episodes of Queen Anne’s War. The attackers killed close to 50 villagers and forced those who survived, more than 100 others, to make a forced march to Quebec. Many of the captives were later ransomed or returned to Massachusetts. But several of them, most famously Eunice Williams, chose to live out there lives in Indian country. Williams’s father, Deerfield’s minister, John Williams, published a memoir of the ordeal, The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion.
There have been other books about the Deerfield raid and its aftermath. John Demos’s controversial and weird experiment with narrative, The Unredeemed Captive, of course. Also, Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney’s Captors and Captives. And I’m pretty sure that Historiann is working on something as well. But since we’re in front of our computers, I thought I’d draw your attention to this site, which is the best effort I know of to bring a subject so fraught with cultural politics as this one to the interweb. Rather than trying to create a unified narrative of the event and its context, the historians who worked on the site used multiple perspectives to tell the story. The result is pretty impressive, I think. But I’m not sure. Because my judgement is clouded by what I know: the literature on public history and collective memory. So take a look and let me know what you think.
[Update: Historiann comes through with a very interesting reply to this post.]
18 comments
February 29, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Vance Maverick
Because my judgement is clouded by I know: the literature…
I’m a latitudinarian in matters grammatical, and I’ve thought Eric’s past strictures on your use of the comma were overly, well, strict. But this one may be a bridge too far even for me.
February 29, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Vance Maverick
Ack, what’s the name for the grammatical version of Murphy’s law? I meant the COLON.
February 29, 2008 at 2:10 pm
ari
It’s just missing a word: “what.” Which I’ll fix right now. Then it’s just fine.
February 29, 2008 at 2:12 pm
ari
Meanie. Conclusion-jumper.
February 29, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Vance Maverick
The law I was thinking of is Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation (via Language Log, of course).
Also see: the end of Canto I.
February 29, 2008 at 2:18 pm
ari
That’s very funny. You’re redeemed.
February 29, 2008 at 2:22 pm
eric
Also see: the end of Canto I.
Solecistic anti-Semite.
February 29, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Vance Maverick
I’ll give you “anti-Semite”. But one man’s solecism is another’s creativity.
February 29, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Smith Michaels
Personally I really enjoyed the Demos book when I read it for my early Atlantic history class. It’s the most ‘intimate’ history book I’ve ever read. Often it felt like you were sitting at the table with Demos as he was doing his research and he was passing you documents as he uncovered them. The text often felt like he was passing you this or that and saying “Isn’t this interesting?”, “Why look at this! This changes everything!” The excitement Demos had when was writing really bleed through and I couldn’t help myself but occasionally be swept away by Demos’ sheer enthusiasm for his scholarly project.
The book was sometimes a complete bore but that sense of scholarly intimacy kept me awake when a lesser book would have put me to sleep.
Of course, some else’s millage may vary.
Back a bit more on topic, very cool site, Ari. I’ll have to really dive into it when I get home.
February 29, 2008 at 2:35 pm
ari
That’s the very best rationale for re-reading Unredeemed Captive that I can think of, Smith. Thanks.
February 29, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Ben Alpers
Of course, some else’s millage may vary.
Indeed. If the millage is too low, it’s hard to sustain the level of education spending necessary to provide even a basic education in U.S. history.
February 29, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Smith Michaels
Ah. Shit. That should have been “Of course, some*one* else’s *mileage* may vary”. Not “Of course, some else’s millage may vary.”
Apologies for my crappy proof-reading and my brain moving faster than my fingers once again.
February 29, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
I’m with Smith Michaels on Demos’ _The Unredeemed Captive_. I too enjoyed watching over the author’s shoulder as he weighed the evidence, sorted out conflicting narratives, and filled in the often substantial gaps in the record.
It was not so much his narrative, his uncovering of new resources, or his interpretation of the events subsequent to the raid on Deerfield that made the book exciting to me. Rather, it was the intimate look he shared with the reader about the process of writing history. _The Unredeemed Captive_ is about what we as historians do; it is about the craft of writing history.
Yes, as Ari rightfully points out, the result is a “weird experiment,” but I think it’s one that works.
March 1, 2008 at 1:33 am
Hemlock
The website’s pretty amazing. Scanned artifacts and “Voices and Songs” downloads…all on Deerfield? Impressive.
Check out Demos’s latest book, Circles_and_Lines…it’s fun to read after a pint or two.
March 1, 2008 at 6:30 am
jhm
Thanks for the link. The museum has really come a long way in a the (relatively) few years since I went went to school. It seems odd that even though I could often see Mt. Sugarloaf from my classroom window, and went to visit Old Deerfield Village, the history of Deerfield presented to us was so skewed.
March 1, 2008 at 7:58 am
Historiann » Colonial history: yes indeed Ari, lots of massacres!
[…] away in the library on my next impressive tome, and this link came in over the bloggy transom, Colonial History: Nothing but Massacres?, in commemoration of the raid by French-allied Indians (Wabanaki, Hurons, and Mohawks) on […]
March 2, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Michael
I realize that I am late to the party, but really, “…live out there lives…?”
March 4, 2008 at 9:43 am
Adam Arenson
And got to jump in once again on the Demos book — it was a National Book Award finalist, and provides new and different insights into the Deerfield events, beyond what a read of the narrative alone could do.
That I run a Writing History group, helping historians become more engaged with their audiences and the power of experimental history, and that John Demos has been our faithful Faculty advisor for many years, of course has nothing to do with how much I like it…