Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:22:47.026Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Uncertain Destiny: Indian Captivities on the Upper Connecticut River

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Colin G. Calloway
Colin G. Calloway
Affiliation:
Colin G. Calloway currently Adjunct Lecturer in United States History at Keene State College, 229 Main Street, Keene, New Hampshire 03431.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The prospect of being taken captive by Indians was one of the greatest terrors for pioneers on the American frontier. From seventeenth-century Massachusetts to twentieth-century Hollywood, Indian captivity has been regarded as a fate worse than death, and western frontiersmen advocated saving the last bullet for oneself to prevent it. Whites inhabiting the trans-Mississippi west in the nineteenth century had in fact every reason to dread falling into Indian hands and a good idea of what was in store for them: among the nomadic tribes of the Great Plains, male captives were tortured (before being put to death), female captives were invariably subjected to sexual and physical abuse and generally condemned to a life of drudgery, while captive children might be killed out of hand or taken into the tribe. In the northeastern woodlands, however, the fate in store for whites captured by Indians was by no means so certain. A study of the experiences and narratives of captives on the upper Connecticut River during the era of Indian raids from Canada suggests that to be captured by Indians in northern New England was a terrifying and traumatic experience, but was certainly no guarantee of death, torture, abuse, or even mistreatment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , August 1983 , pp. 189 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rister, Carl Coke, Border Captives: The Traffic in Prisoners by Southern Plains Indians, 1835–1875 (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1940), passimGoogle Scholar; White, Lonnie J., ‘White Women Captives of Southern Plains Indians, 1866 1875’, Journal of the West, 8 (1969), 327–54Google Scholar; Dodge, Colonel Richard Irving, Our Wild Indians: Thirty- Three Years' Personal Experience among the Red Men of the Great West (Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington, 1883), pp. 523–24, 529–32Google Scholar; Heard, J. Norman, White into Red: A Study of the Assimilation of White Persons Captured by Indians (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1973), pp. 76–106Google Scholar; Custer, Elizabeth B., Following the Guidon (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1976 edn), pp. 60–61Google Scholar; Hodge, Frederick W., ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (New York: Pageant Books, 1959), 1, 203–06Google Scholar.

2 Carleton, Philips D., ‘The Indian Captivity’, American Literature, 15 (1943–1944), 169–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pearce, Roy Harvey, ‘The Significances of the Captivity Narratives’, American Literature, 19 (1947–1948), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vail, R. W. G., The Voice of the Old Frontier (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), ch. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barbeau, Marius, ‘Indian Captivities’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 94 (1950), 522–48Google Scholar; Van Der Beets, Richard, ‘The Indian Captivity as Ritual’, American Literature, 43 (1972), 548–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., ed., Held Captive By Indians: Selected Narratives, 1642 1836 (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1973), introduction; Slotkin, Richard, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Koldony, Annette, ‘Review Essay’ on the III-volume Narratives of North American Indian Captivities, selected and arranged by Washburn, Wilcomb E. (New York: Garland, 1976–1980)Google Scholar, Early American Literature, 14, (1979) 229–35Google Scholar.

3 Williams, John, The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion; or a Faithful History of Remarkable Occurrences in the Captivity and Deliverance of Mr. John Williams (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966)Google Scholar;Sheldon, George, A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts … with a special study of the Indian Wars in the Connecticut Valley (Deerfield: A. E. Hall 1895–1996), 1, 293–358Google Scholar; Slotkin, p. 96. First editions of captivity narratives are extremely rare since many were literally ‘read to pieces’ when first published. However, the popularity of the genre necessitated various reissues. For a valuable summary of the publishing histories of the more famous narratives, see Vail, Robert W. G., ‘Certain Indian Captives of New England’, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 68 (1944–1947), 113–16Google Scholar and idem., Voice of the Old Frontier, ch. 2. Most of the older editions mentioned in this work were consulted in the Rare Book Collection at Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire.

4 Van Der Beets, ‘The Indian Captivity Narrative as Ritual’, pp. 548–62, sees this ‘archetypal journey of initiation’ through the stages of abduction, transformation by ordeal and adoption, and eventual return as the unifying principle of the genre. The Remarkable Captivity and Surprising Deliverance of Elizabeth Hanson… (Dover, N.H., 1824)Google Scholar.

5 Slotkin, pp. 94–96; Vaughan, Alden T. and Clark, Edward W., eds, Puritans among the Indians: Accounts of Captivity and Redemption 1676–1724 (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 1–10Google Scholar; Pearce, Roy Harvey, ‘“The Ruines of Mankind:” The Indian and the Puritan Mind’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 13 (1952), 200–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simmons, William S., ‘Cultural Bias in the New England Puritans' Perception of Indians’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 38 (1981), 56–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Minter, David L., ‘By Dens of Lions: Notes on Stylization in Early Puritan Captivity Narratives’, American Literature, 45 (1975), 335–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carroll, Peter N., Puritanism and the Wilderness: The Intellectual Significance of the New England Frontier 1629–1700 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 76–79, 212Google Scholar.

6 Penhallow, Samuel, The History of the Wars of New-England with the Eastern Indians, or a Narrative of their continued Perfidy and Cruelty… (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1969), e.g. pp. 46–47, 49Google Scholar; Pillsbury, Hobart, New Hampshire: A History (New York: The Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1927), 1, 78Google Scholar; Belknap, Jeremy, The History of New-Hampshire (Dover, N.H.: Stevens and Ela & Wadleigh, 1831), pp. 145–48Google Scholar;Mary Ellery, The Indian Captive, in Vermont State Historical Society Library, Montpelier, Vt, p. 53Google Scholar.

7 E.g. Parkman, Francis, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1898), p. 6Google Scholar; cf. Jackson, Eric P., ‘Indian Occupation and Use of the Champlain Lowland’, Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, 14 (1931), 113–60Google Scholar; Day, Gordon M., ‘English–Indian Contacts in New England’, Ethnohistory, 9 (1962), 28–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haviland, William A. and Power, Marjory W., The Original Vermonters: Native Inhabitants, Past and Present (Hanover, N.H. and London: Univ. Press of New England, 1981), pp. 1–202Google Scholar. Russell, Howard S., Indian New England Before the Mayflower (Hanover, N.H. and London: Univ. Press of New England, 1980), p. 24Google Scholar.

8 Day, ‘English–Indian Contacts’, pp. 27–28; Cook, Sherburne F., ‘Interracial Warfare and Population Decline among the New England Indians’, Ethnohistory, 20 (1973), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sevigny, P. André, Les Abénaquis: Habitat et migrations (17e et 18e siècles) (Montreal: Les Editions Bellarmin, 1976), pp. 117–67Google Scholar; Haviland and Power, pp. 219–25, 227–29; Shea, John Gilmeary, trans. and ed., History and General Description of New France by the Rev. P. F. X. de Charlevoix, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1962), 2, 200–01Google Scholar; 4, 275; 5, 23, 277. Vaughan, Alden T., New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians 1620–1675 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965)Google Scholar, presents a more favourable interpretation of Puritan–Indian relations, one challenged by Thomas, G. E., ‘Puritans, Indians and the Concept of Race’, New England Quarterly, 48 (1975), 3–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

9 Parkman, Francis, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1898), pp. 364–66Google Scholar; 391 93; idem., A Half Century of Conflict (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1898), 1, 47–48, 55–56, 101; Snow, Dean R., ‘Eastern Abenaki’, in Trigger, Bruce G., ed., Handbook of North American Indians, 15: Northeast (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 143Google Scholar; Bailey, Alfred Goldsworthy, The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Cultures, 1504–1700 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2nd edn, 1969), pp. 26–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eccles, W. J., France in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 66, 100, 105Google Scholar; Shea, ed., 2, 200; Washburn, Wilcomb E., ‘Seventeenth Century Indian Wars’, in Trigger, , ed., Handbook, 15, 94–95Google Scholar.

10 Fenton, William N., ‘Northern Iroquoian Culture Patterns’, in Trigger, , ed., Handbook, 15, 316Google Scholar; Parkman, , Half Century of Conflict, 1, 62Google Scholar.

11 Knowles, Nathaniel, ‘The Torture of Captives by the Indians of Eastern North America’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 82 (1940), 211Google Scholar; Vaughan, Alden T. and Richter, Daniel, ‘Crossing the Cultural Divide: Indians and New Englanders, 1605–1765’, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 90 (1980), 73–77Google Scholar; Fenton, pp. 315–16; Trigger, Bruce G., ‘Early Iroquoian Contacts with Europeans’, in Handbook, 15, 352Google Scholar; Otterbein, Keith F., ‘Why the Iroquois Won: An Analysis of Iroquois Military Tactics’, Ethnohistory, 11 (1964), 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Colden, Cadwallader, The Hisiory of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New York in America (Ithaca and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1973), p. 8Google Scholar; de Charlevoix, Pierre, Journal of a Voyage to North America (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966), 1, 371–72Google Scholar. On the cult of ‘mourning war’ see Smith, Marian W., ‘American Indian Warfare’, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2nd series, 13 (1951), 348–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wallace, Anthony F. C., The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), pp. 93–107Google Scholar. Wallace gives a perceptive account of a torture ritual among the Huron, pp. 103–07.

12 Grant, W. L., ed., Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, 1604–1618 (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1959), pp. 166–67, 184–85Google Scholar; Charland, Thomas M., Histoire des Abenakis d'Odanak (Montreal: Les Éditions du Levrier, 1964), p. 49Google Scholar; cf. Heard, , White into Red, pp. 101–02Google Scholar; Hodge, , ed., Handbook of American Indians, 1, 203–06Google Scholar. The Indians of the Northwest Pacific coast tended to spare male captives for use as slaves.

13 Coleman, Emma Lewis, New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars (Portland, Me: The Southworth Press, 1925), 1, 2, 132Google Scholar; Smith, Robinson V., ‘New Hampshire Persons Taken as Captives by the Indians’, Historical New Hampshire, 8 (1952), 24, 27Google Scholar; Vail, ‘Certain Indian Captives’, p. 117.

14 O'Callaghan, Edmund, ed., The Documentary History of the State of New York (Albany: Wecd, Parsons, 1850), 2, 355Google Scholar; Slotkin, , Regeneration Through Violence, p. 116Google Scholar; Coleman, p. 120. Spanish authorities faced a similar dilemma in ransoming captives from the Kiowa and Comanche in the late eighteenth century. Rister, , Border Captives, vii–viii, p. 42Google Scholar.

15 Vaughan and Richter, esp. pp. 53, 58–60; cf. Slotkin, pp. 97–98. Axtell, James, The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1981), p. 162Google Scholar.

16 Rogers, Robert, Journals of Major Robert Rogers; containing an Account of the several Excursions be made under the Generals who commanded upon the Continent of North America, during the late War (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms 1966, facsimile of London 1765 edn), pp. 144–59Google Scholar; cf. Auger, Leonard A., ‘St. Francis Through 200 Years’, Vermont History, 27 (1959), 290–91Google Scholar; Day, Gordon M., ‘Rogers' Raid in Indian Tradition’, Historical New Hampshire, 17 (1962), 14Google Scholar; Charland, pp. 117–18.

17 Clark, Charles E., The Eastern Frontier: The Settlement of Northern New England 1610–1763 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1970), pp. 352–59Google Scholar; Billington, Ray Allen, Westward Expansion (New York: Macmillan, 4th edn 1974), p. 104Google Scholar.

18 Underwood, Wynn, ‘Indian and Tory Raids on the Otter Valley, 1777–1782’, Vermont Quarterly, n.s. 15 (1947), 195–221Google Scholar; Lovejoy, Evelyn M. Wood, History of Royalton, Vermont (Burlington, Vt: Free Press Printing Co., 1911), pp. 87–182Google Scholar; Ida, H. and Washington, Paul A., Carleton's Raid (Canaan, N. H.: Phoenix, 1977)Google Scholar, Lampee, Thomas C., ‘The Mississquoi Loyalists’, Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, n.s. 6 (1938), 107Google Scholar.

19 Coolidge, Guy Omeron, ‘The French Occupation of the Champlain Valley from 1609 to 1759’, Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, n.s. 6 (1938), 309Google Scholar; Carter, Samuel, ‘The Route of the French and Indian Army that sacked Deerfield Feb. 29th, 1703–4 [O.S.] on their return march to Canada with the captives’, History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 2 (1898), 126–51Google Scholar; Jackson, ‘Indian Occupation and Use of the Champlain Lowland’, p. 309.

20 Johnson, Richard R., ‘The Search for a Usable Indian: An aspect of the Defence of Colonial New England’, Journal of American History, 64 (1977), 623–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Callaghan, ed., 2, 355; Williams, John A., ed., The Public Papers of Governor Thomas Chittenden (Montpelier, Vt: Sec. of State, 1969), pp. 413–15Google Scholar; 427n, 513; McCorison, Marcus A., ‘Colonial Defence of the Upper Connecticut Valley’, Vermont History, 30 (1962), 50–62Google Scholar.

21 ‘Captivity of Zadock Steele’, in Indian Narratives (Clarcmont, N.H.: Tracy and Brothers, 1854), p. 214Google Scholar; Herwig, Wes, ‘Indian Raid on Royalton’, Vermont Life (Fall 1964), p. 19Google Scholar. Mahon, J. K., ‘Anglo-American Methods of Indian Warfare, 1676 1794’, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 45 (1958–1959), 259–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reckons that surprise was the Indian's only basic offensive tactic.

22 ‘Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson’, in Drake, Samuel G., ed., Indian Captivities, or Life in the Wigwam; being true narratives of captives who have been carried away by the Indians… (Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1852), pp. 22–23Google Scholar; The Remarkable Captivity and surprising Deliverance of Elizabeth Hanson, p. 6; Williams, , Redeemed Captive, p. 8Google Scholar; The Destruction of Royalton, 16 Oct. 1780, Dartmouth College Library, MS. 780566.

23 The Account of John [Quentin] Stockwell of Deerfield, Massachusetts, Being a Faithful Narrative of His Experiences in the Hands of the Wachusetts Indians – 1677–1678 (Somerville, N.J.: Clark S. Yowell, 1928), p. 6Google Scholar;‘A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson’, in Indian Narratives, p. 145Google Scholar; Williams, Samuel, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont (Walpole, N.H.: Isiah Thomas and David Carlisle, 1794), p. 145Google Scholar.

24 Williams, , Redeemed Captive, pp. 11, 14, 17Google Scholar; George Avery [Journal of the Royalton raid, 1780], Dartmouth College Library, MS. 780900.5, p. 5; Johnson, p. 143; Parkman, , Half Century, 1, 73–74Google Scholar; Cabot, Mary R., ed., Annals of Brattleboro 1681–1895 (Brattleboro, Vt: F. L. Hildreth, 1921), 1, 6Google Scholar; Mary Ellery, The Indian Captive, pp. 54–56; Pilsbury, , New Hampshire, 1, 139–40Google Scholar. Thomas Hutchinson saw a parallel between Indians killing stragglers and Henry V ordering the execution of French prisoners at Agincourt when he thought his army was in danger: Hutchinson, Thomas, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay, ed. Mayo, Lawrence Shaw (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1970), 2, 104nGoogle Scholar.

25 Stockwell, pp. 10–12; Johnson, pp. 150–51.

26 Stockwell, p. 7; Sheldon, , History of Deerfield, 1, 182Google Scholar.

27 Avery, p. 5; Steele, p. 216; Herwig, p. 21; Stock well, pp. 8–9.

28 Rowlandson, p. 38; ‘The Captivity and Sufferings of Miss Sarah Garish’, in Chase, Francis, ed., Gathered Sketches from the Early History of New Hampshire and Vermont (Claremont, N. H.: Tracy, Kenny, 1856), p. 24Google Scholar; Hanson, p. 17; Belknap, , History of New Hampshire, p. 146Google Scholar.

29 Jaenen, Cornelius J., Friend and Foe: Aspects of French– Amerindian Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1976), p. 137Google Scholar; Bailey, , The Conflict of European and Eastern Algonkian Cultures, p. 98Google Scholar; Parkman, , Half Century, 1, 99Google Scholar. C. Alice Baker, by contrast, suggested that French influence actually increased the likelihood of Indian atrocity. In her work, war parties were raised to a fever pitch of religious fanaticism by Jesuit priests prior to departure from their villages. It would seem that any such fanaticism might have abated somewhat by the time the warriors reached their goal at the end of a two-or three-month journey, possibly in dead of winter. At any rate, Ms Baker revealed far more about her own religious prejudices than about French–Indian relations. Baker, C. Alice, True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada During the Old French and Indian Wars (Cambridge: A. E. Hall, 1897), p. 40Google Scholar; But see also Knowles, ‘The Torture of Captives by the Indians of Eastern North America’, p. 172; Belknap, p. 146; ‘Three Narratives of Excessive Distress of Persons taken at the Destruction of Salmon Falls’, in Drake, , ed., Indian Captivities, p. 110Google Scholar.

30 Axtell, James, ‘The White Indians of Colonial America’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 32 (1975), 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘A Narrative of the Captivity of Nehemiah How…’, in Drake, , ed., Indian Captivities, p. 128Google Scholar; Williams, p. 11; Johnson, p. 144; Narrative of Titus King of Northampton, Mass. A Prisoner of the Indians in Canada 1755–1758 (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Soc., 1938), p. 5Google Scholar.

31 ‘Narrative of the Captivity of Joseph Bartlett among the Indians’, in Coffin, Joshua, A Sketch of the History of Newbury… (Boston: S. G. Drake, 1845), pp. 331–32Google Scholar; ‘The Captivity of Mrs. Isabella McCoy, of Epsom, N.H.’, in Chase, , ed., Gathered Sketches, p. 49Google Scholar; Stockwell, p. 10; Johnson, pp. 148–49; Hanson, pp. 7–9; Williams, p. 11; King, pp. 5–7; How, p. 128; ‘A Particular Account of the Captivity and Redemption of Mrs Jemina Howe…’, in Drake, , ed., Indian Captivities, p. 158Google Scholar; Sheldon, 1, 310. French armies marching from Canada into the Iroquois country in the seventeenth century were similarly affected by the severity of the northern winters; Coolidge, ‘French Occupation of the Champlain Valley’, pp. 160–64; 171–72.

32 Axtell, , The European and the Indian, p. 181Google Scholar; Bartlett, p. 332; McCoy, p. 49; Stockwell, pp. 9–11; Avery, MS. 780900. 5, p. 3; Johnson, pp. 144, 149; Hanson, pp. 9, 15; King, pp. 7–8; Dondore, Dorothy A., ‘White Captives among the Indians’, New York History, 13 (1932), 297Google Scholar; Steele, p. 217.

33 Rowlandson, p. 31; Hanson, pp. 15–16; Belknap, p. 146:

34 Howe, pp. 156–58 (In fact, Mrs Howe had two husbands killed by Indians, Crockett, Walter Hill, Vermont, The Green Mountain State (New York: The Century History Co., 1921), 1, 111–12)Google Scholar; Hanson, p. 8; Johnson, pp. 144–52; Steele, p. 217; McCoy, pp. 49–50; Rowlandson, p. 34; Belknap, p. 148; Drake, Samuel G., ed., Narrative of the Capture and Burning of Fort Massachusetts by the French and Indians… (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1870), pp. 20, 23Google Scholar; Rev. Saunderson, Henry H., History of Charlestown, New-Hampshire (Claremont, N.H., 1876), p. 337Google Scholar; Williams, pp. 20–21; Parkman, , Half Century, 1, 73Google Scholar.

35 Rowlandson, p. 34.

36 Heard, , White into Red, pp. 98–100Google Scholar; Dodge, , Our Wild Indians, pp. 529–31Google Scholar; Rister, , Border Captives, p. 25Google Scholar; White, ‘White Women Captives of Southern Plains Indians’, pp. 327–54; Hodge, , ed., Handbook, 1, 204Google Scholar.

37 Haberly, David T., ‘Women and Indians: The Last of the Mohicans and the Captivity Tradition’, American Quarterly, 28 (1976), 435CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dondore, p. 296; McCoy, pp. 49–50; Johnson, pp. 147–48; Rowlandson, p. 35; Hanson, p. 22; King, pp. 16–17; ‘Letters relating to Mrs. Jemina How, who was taken by the Indians at Hinsdale, N.H., in July 1755’, Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, 5 (1837), 257Google Scholar; Coleman, , New England Captives, 1, 43–44Google Scholar; Parkman, , Half Century, p. 76Google Scholar; Belknap, pp. 147–48.

38 Axtell, ‘White Indians of Colonial America’, p. 67; idem., The European and the Indian, pp. 152–53, 181–82; Slotkin, , Regeneration Through Violence, p. 125Google Scholar; Heard, p. 98.

39 Johnson, p. 151; Howe, p. 158; Hanson, pp. 14–15; cf. the experiences of a prisoner of war of the British, A Narrative of Captivity and Sufferings of Ebenezer Fletcher (New Ipswich, N.H.: S. Wilder, 1813), p. 8Google Scholar.

40 King, pp. 9–10; How, p. 130; Johnson, p. 153; cf. George Avery's experience in the Indian village at Caughnawaga, MS. 780900. 5, p. 7.

41 Axtell, ‘White Indians’, pp. 71–72; Howe, p. 159; Bartlett, p. 332; Avery, p. 8; Steele, pp. 221–22; King, p. 11–14; Johnson, pp. 156–57; Charlevoix, , Journal, 1, 369–70Google Scholar.

42 Johnson, pp. 146, 159; Steele, pp. 216, 222; King, pp. 6, 13–14; Charlevoix, 1, 371–72; Williams, , Natural and Civil History of Vermont, p. 147Google Scholar.

43 Newton, William Monroe, History of Barnard, Vermont (The Vermont Historical Society, 1928), 1, 58, 80Google Scholar; cf. Read, Benjamin, The History of Swanzey, New Hampshire, from 1734 to 1890 (Salem, Mass.: The Salem Press, 1892), p. 17Google Scholar.

44 de Crèvecoeur, Hector St John, Letters from an American Farmer, ed. Blake, Warren Barton (London: J. M. Dent, 1962), pp. 214–16, 221Google Scholar; Axrell, ‘White Indians’, pp. 55 58, examines the reasons for ‘the extraordinary drawing power of Indian culture’. See also Kalm, Peter, Travels into North America… (trans. by Foster, John Reinhold, London, 1771), 3, 153–54Google Scholar; Colden, , History of the Five Indian Nations, pp. 80–81Google Scholar; Labaree, Leonard W. et al. eds, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 4, 481–83Google Scholar; Hallowell, A. Irving, ‘American Indians, White and Black: The Phenomenon of Transculturation’, Current Anthropology, 4 (1963), 519–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, ‘New Hampshire Persons Taken as Captives by the Indians’, pp. 28–29; Huden, John C., ‘The White Chief of the St. Francis Abnakis – Some Aspects of Border Warfare, 1690–1790’, Vermont History, 24 (1956), 199–210, 337–55Google Scholar. For the story of Eunice Williams see Medlicott, Alexander Jr, ‘Return to this Land of Light: A Plea to an Unredeemed Captive’, New England Quarterly, 38 (1965), 202–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baker, , True Stories of New England Captives, pp. 135–36Google Scholar.

45 Axtell and Vaughan and Richter disagree in their estimates of the numbers of people who became Indianized and opted to remain with their captors. Vaughan and Richter reckon that most of those who refused to return to New England remained with the French rather than the Indians. They find conclusive evidence of only 24 persons who became ‘white Indians’ and estimate that at most 52, or 3·2%, of the recorded New England captives underwent complete transculturarion. Axtell is prepared to accept a somewhat lower estimate than his own, but he does not agree with all of Vaughan and Richter's methods and conclusions. Vaughan and Richter, ‘Crossing the Cultural Divide’, pp. 60–62, 87, 96–99; Axtell, , The European and the Indian, pp. 162 and 351, fn. 66Google Scholar.

46 Vaughan and Richter, pp. 62–64; ‘Captivity of Mary Fowler’, in Drake, , ed., Indian Captivities, p. 142Google Scholar; Johnson, p. 157; McCoy, p. 50; Heard, p. 99.

47 Hanson, p. 10; Johnson, pp. 157–59, 165–68; Howe, pp. 159–60.

48 Vaughan and Richter, pp. 63–65; Ackernect, Erwin H., ‘“White Indians:” Psychological and Physiological Peculiarities of White Children Abducted and Reared by North American Indians’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 15 (1944), 15–36Google Scholar; Heard, pp. 102–04, 119–37; Axtell, ‘White Indians’, pp. 81–82; King, p. 17; Johnson, p. 175.

49 Slotkin, , Regeneration Through Violence, p. 128Google Scholar; Boyer, Paul and Nissenbaum, Stephen, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1978 edn), pp. 24–26Google Scholar; Heard, pp. 138–48.

50 Eunice Williams was educated at the Ursuline Convent in Three Rivers. There are many instances on record of English captives who converted to Catholicism at the French missions; many more were destroyed in 1759 when the mission registers of the Abenakis were burnt during Roger's raid on St Francis. Charland, , Histoire des Abenakis, pp. 54–59Google Scholar.

51 Vaughan and Richter, pp. 51, 60–62, 84–85; McCoy, p. 50; Howe, pp. 162–64; ‘Narrative of the Captivity of Francis Noble’, in Drake, , ed., Indian Captivities, pp. 170–71Google Scholar; Stockwell, p. 15; Hanson, pp. 20–21, 24.

52 Vaughan and Richter, pp. 68–69, reckon the death rate was five times higher!

53 Steele; pp. 273–74.

54 Jennings, , Invasion of America, pp. 146–70Google Scholar; Jaenen, , Friend and Foe, pp. 120–21, 148Google Scholar.

55 Shea, , trans. and ed., History and General Description of New France, 5, 209–10Google Scholar; 279; Coleman, , New England Captives, p. 3Google Scholar; Coolidge, ‘French Occupation of the Champlain Valley’, pp. 197–99.

56 It seems that Indian war parties occasionally carried mail from captives to anxious relatives: the Indians who raided Deerfield hung a bag of mail from a tree branch where it would be found and distributed in the settlements! Penhallow, , The History of the Wars of New-England, p. 25Google Scholar.

57 Avery, MS. 780900. 5, p. 5; Johnson, pp. 155, 159.

58 Avery, pp. 5–6; Johnson, pp. 177–78, 180; Rowlandson, pp. 23, 35; How, p. 128; Hanson, p. 24; Williams, Redeemed Captive, passim.