Raid on Deerfield

June 8, 2005 8:34 PM

Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704 (Flash) In the pre-dawn hours of February 29, 1704, a force of about 300 French and Native allies launched a daring raid on the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, situated in the Pocumtuck homeland. . .Was this dramatic pre-dawn assault in contested lands an unprovoked, brutal attack on an innocent village of English settlers? Was it a justified military action against a stockaded settlement in a Native homeland? Or was it something else?
posted by mlis (7 comments total)

“The website brings together over 20 historical scenes; 23 narratives of people's lives; 165 biographies; over 130 artifacts and historic documents from PVMA and more than 30 institutions in the U.S., Canada, France, England, and Italy; 15 interactive maps; over 400 glossary definitions; over 200 bibliography and webography citations; voices and songs; over a dozen essays; more than 100 illustrations/paintings, many commissioned expressly for this project; and an interactive timeline covering 120 years of Deerfield, North America, and world history, and a Teachers' Guide.” [via D-Lib Magazine]
posted by mlis at 8:34 PM on June 8, 2005

Wow, this makes me a bit homesick. I went to Deerfield a lot, and the museum was pretty cool, for such a small place. My favorite exhibit was The Sheldon Door, which looks much more impressive in person. I always got the image of the people on either side of it.
Nice link, I look forward to draining my laptop's battery exploring the rest of the site. thanks!
posted by Busithoth at 8:58 PM on June 8, 2005

Neat. And clear as to how mindboggling it is to understand and fully appreciate the colonization of North America.
posted by bardic at 9:45 PM on June 8, 2005

Unredeemed Captive is an interesting and well-written account of the raid and the attempts to get captives back, from the English side.
posted by jb at 7:36 AM on June 9, 2005

I second jb's recommendation of The Unredeemed Captive, one of those rare works of history which reads like a novel. Basically, it's the story of one of the Deerfield captives, a young girl who gets carried off by the Mohawks; her family spend years trying to get her back, only to find, when they finally reach her, that she's been totally absorbed into Mohawk society and doesn't want to return. A fascinating and heartbreaking story which really ought to be made into a movie.
posted by verstegan at 12:45 PM on June 9, 2005

That's one of the best history sites I've ever seen -- I've just scratched the surface, and will be returning to explore further. If only more people would realize how complex interactions between cultures are, then and now...

I have to say, the Mohawks (Kanienkehaka) were great if you were one of them but scary as hell otherwise, much like the Mongols. Their aim was basically to dominate the entire Northeast and as much else as they could, and they did amazingly well by playing the English and French off against each other; once the French lost out, so did the Mohawks, who couldn't stand up to the Brits by themselves. Which was fine with all the other Native Americans they'd been bullying for decades.
posted by languagehat at 2:51 PM on June 9, 2005

As I got deeper into the site, I realised that the Williams (the family in Unredeemed Captive) feature prominently - which isn't surprising considered that John Williams was the minister and a well-known Puritan divine, who became even more famous due to his captivity and the sermons/speeches he later gave about it.

The only problem with Unredeemed Captive is that it is, by nature of the sources, more about John Williams and how he perceived natives and couldn't understand his daughter's desire to remain. The author certainly wanted to try to get at both the native viewpoint, and especially at Eunice Williams' (the daughter who remained), but he just didn't have the richness of sources he did on John and Stephen Williams. It still is extremely well written history.

This website is a good balance - the stories are obviously more simplified, but bring in much more about the several native cultures involved as well the French point of view.

And languagehat said too, about the depth and quality of of the site. This is an excellent post.
posted by jb at 3:07 PM on June 9, 2005