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The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America Paperback – March 28, 1995

by John Demos (Author)

64 customer reviews

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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.

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Editorial Reviews

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"Fascinating and alluring in the way the best writing on history can be."--The Observer

"Powerful and useful. . . .Demos has achieved the kind of balancing act that historians constantly strive for but seldom achieve."--New Republic

"This thought-provoking study explores the multiple communities to which apparently simple people belonged and how their domestic lives were overtaken by political events. Fascinating, lively, and especially timely to an age struggling to understand the implications of its own cross-cultural encounters."--Kirkus

"A masterpiece...recovering for us the poignant story of lives and families shattered and then painfully knitted together again in the complex cultural encounters between English, French, and Mohawk peoples in eighteenth-century America. There is nothing quite like it in our literature. It is a stunning achievement that should change forever the way we write and tell stories about the American past."--William Cronon

From the Publisher

"A masterpiece...recovering for us the poignant story of lives and families shattered and then painfully knitted together again in the complex cultural encounters between English, French, and Mohawk peoples in eighteenth-century America. There is nothing quite like it in our literature. It is a stunning achievement that should change forever the way we write and tell stories about the American past."--William Cronon

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Product details

Paperback: 315 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (March 28, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679759611
ISBN-13: 978-0679759614
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 64 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #90 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Colonial Period
- #196 in Books > History > Americas > Native American
- #337 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural

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Carolyn Leonard

Hard to find information on lives of Indian Captives

December 18, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

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.

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Shirley Miller

Interesting historical narrative

April 22, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

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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Great book!

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This book was horrendous. Just terrible. Had to read it for class and struggled through the entire thing. Hard to read

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It is very good quality and it doesn't even seem like its used

I got my book so fast. It is very good quality and it doesn't even seem like its used!

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I need this for my history class and it looks good and there is one thing I am little not ...

Thanks for the book! I need this for my history class and it looks good and there is one thing I am little not feel uncomfortable is that it came late for me.Read more

Published on September 18, 2015

Alexander

A Wonderful Idea Ruined by an Unbearable Writing Style

This book is by far the worst I have ever read. By it's summary, it seems interesting enough, and I was really excited to dig into it.Read more

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Grant Bodmer

It was a sad story but a real eye opener

This book was very interesting! It was a sad story but a real eye opener! The book came in good condition and arrived on time!!!

Published on September 4, 2015

EllieA

One of my favorite portraits of Native Americans v. Whites

This is a wonderful book about the wretched Puritans, the practice of ransoming captives during the French and Indian Wars, and of the positive status of women in Northeastern and...Read more

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