The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America

by JohnPutnamDemos (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $3.25

  Early on the morning of 29 February 1704, a French and Indian war party opened fire on the small fortified town of Deerfield, Massachusetts and took captive the eminent Puritan minister, John Williams, his wife and their five children. Two and a half years later Reverend Williams was released and returned to Boston amid public celebration but his daughter Eunice remained behind. In The Unredeemed Captive, John Demos tells the story of the decades-long attempt to 'redeem' her. She became the subject of fervent prayer across New England and expeditions to release her but always remained out of reach until the worst fears were confirmed: Eunice became so absorbed in her new culture that she forgot her native language, married a young Mohawk and refused to return to Deerfield. Her dramatic and extraordinary story is one of race, religion, and the conflict between two cultures, it is beautifully told by Demos in this remarkable history book.