The purpose of this research is to examine issues surrounding the story of captivity of seven-year-old Eunice Williams by Indians in early eighteenth-century Deerfield, Massachusetts, as well as her subsequent decision, first made as an adolescent and repeatedly confirmed as an adult, to remain with the Mohawk Indians at Kahnawake instead of rejoining her biological family. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which Eunice's captivity became an issue and then to explore possible reasons that she chose to remain at Kahnawake, with reference to Demos's The Unredeemed Captive and to Axtell's analysis of the not uncommon phenomenon of colonial-era Europeans who made choices similar to that of Eunice Williams.
A raid made by Indians on the Puritan settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1704 resulted in the deaths of some 50 villagers and the carrying-off of more than 110 men, women, and children on an eight-week forced march to the "popish country" of Catholic Montreal, in midwinter. The most prominent among the captives was the family of the Reverend John Williams, who in his account of his captivity describes being separated during the forced march from his wife and five surviving children, three of whom were ransomed quickly in Montreal; two other children were killed in the initial attack. Within two days, Williams's wife, who was weak and recovering from childbirth, was killed when she fell behind along the trail, but the other children were either carried or transported on a sleigh for the entire journey. Williams's son Stephen was reunited with him in 1705, but the fate of seven-year-old Eunice was much more problematic. Although Williams was permitted to meet and speak with Eunice, first at a Jesuit mission near the Mohawk community where she had been taken and later in Montreal, he was not allowed to take her back home to Deerfield.
In the years following, Williams undertook to reclaim Eunice, w...