The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America

“Once, it was the most famous episode in early American history,” writes bestseller Swanson (Manhunt) in this meticulous account of the eponymous 18th–century massacre, which occurred in an isolated British frontier settlement during Queen Anne’s War. In the predawn hours of February 29, 1704, approximately 240 Native and French raiders attacked the small settlement of Deerfield (in present-day Massachusetts), where they murdered 47 colonists, took 112 captives, and burned most of the town to the ground. Transported over 300 miles north on foot, the survivors became servants or adopted family members in Native communities. One prominent captive, Rev. John Williams, later wrote about his experiences. His eight-year-old daughter, Eunice, who was sent to live with a Mohawk group, eventually assimilated and married. She refused to leave her adopted home years later during an attempted rescue. The latter third of Swanson’s narrative pivots ingeniously from the event itself to examine the town’s subsequent history, drawing on hundreds of years of published accounts, pageants, and tourist attractions to trace the massacre’s afterlife in British and American mythologizing as it evolved to suit the settlers’ changing relationship with Native America (from victimhood, to victory, to guilt). The result is a rewarding close look at the process of history-making. (Feb.)