Eunice Kanenstenhawi Williams
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| Eunice Kanenstenhawi Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 September 1696 Deerfield, Massachusetts |
| Died | 26 November 1785 Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada |
Eunice Williams was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts on 17 September 1696, the daughter of Puritan minister Rev. John Williams and his wife Eunice Mather Williams. On 29 February 1704, the Williams' home was attacked during a raid led by French and Mohawk fighters that became known as the Deerfield Massacre. Eunice's six-week-old sister, Jerusha, and younger brother, John, Jr., were killed by hatchet inside the Williams' home. Eunice, her parents, and four of her siblings siblings[›] were taken captive and forced to set out on a strenuous marchnorthward. The next day, her mother was killed by hatchet after she fell while crossing the icy waters of the Green River.
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Eunice and the surviving members of her family reached Quebec several weeks later, and she was taken to Kahnawake, a settlement of Christian Mohawks near Montreal, where she was adopted by a woman who had recently lost her own daughter in a smallpox epidemic. Eunice was given the symbolic name Waongote, meaning "one who is planted like an Ashe", and was instructed in the Mohawk language and customs, and also in the Roman Catholic religion.
As soon as the residents of Deerfield learned that their captured relatives were being held in Quebec, they commenced negotiations through various intermediaries to ransom them. During these months, Rev. Williams was allowed to meet with Eunice on two occasions; both times he responded to her requests for guidance by telling her to frequently recite the Puritan Catechism. When his freedom was finally arranged, he sought to have Eunice runited with him but was told by an intermediary that this was impossible because the Mohawk people with whom she was living "would as soon part with their hearts as the child.”
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[edit] Source notes
[edit] Content notes
[edit] References
[edit] Printed matter
- Demos, John Putnam. The Unredeemed Captive: a family story from early America. New York : Alfred Knopf: Distributed by Random House, Inc., 1994. ISBN 0394557824
- Haefeli, Evan and Kevin Sweeney. "Revisiting the Redeemed Captive: New Perspectives on the 1704 Attack on Deerfield," in After King Philip's War, Presence and Persistence in Indian New England. Colin G. Calloway, editor. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1997, pp. 28-71. ISBN 0874518199 (pbk.: alk. paper)
- Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, colonialism, and the cant of conquest . New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1976. ISBN 0393008304
- Lepore, Jill, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the origins of American identity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. ISBN 0679446869 (hc)
- Melvoin, Richard I., New England Outpost, War and Society in Colonial Deerfield. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1989. ISBN 0393026000
- Sheldon, George. A History of Deerfield Massachusetts: The Times when and the People by whom it was Settled, Unsettled, and Resettled, with a Special Study of the Indian Wars in the Connecticut Valley. With Genealogies, Deerfield, MA 1895 (two volumes)
- Williams, John, edited by Edward W. Clark. The Redeemed Captive. Amherst, Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1976. ISBN 0870232177 (Note: Williams first published this book in 1707.)
[edit] Websites
- Mr. Williams's Sermon on a Day of Prayer — delivered on 04 August 1741. Retrieved on March 25, 2007. (First printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, ca. 1741)
[edit] External links
A Historic and Present Day Guide to Old Deerfield (downloadable as PDF)
