Notizen zu dieser Person
Daughter of William and Hannah Lovett Rider of Shelburne (now in Deerfield), Franklin, Massachusetts. Taken captive by French and Indian raiders in the famed Deerfield Massacre of 29 Feb 1704. Located in a relatively isolated position in the Massachusetts colony, on the edge of English settlement, Deerfield became a target of frontier conflict between the French and English and their differing Native American allies. (Borneman, Walter R (2006). The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America. New York: Harper Collins. pp. 6-7). Upon a slab over the grave of (son) Col. Hinsdale is engraved the following inscription-- "Underneath Deposited is the Body of Col. Ebenezer Hinsdale who for his superior natural endowments, extensive learning and usefulness not only in private life but in various important public offices he sustained, was far known and admired. After a long illness he died, Jan. 6th, 1763 in the 57th year of this age. Here also lies buried the body of Mrs. Mary Beal, the mother of Col. Ebenezer Hinsdale, who was born on her return from captivity in Canada, and with whom she lived a widow at the time of his death, which is thought to have been brought on her in the morning after, when she died Anno Etatis 83. Her husbands were Lieut. Hinsdale and Mr. George Beal. By the first she had two sons, Colonel Ebenezer and John. History of Hinsdale, New Hampshire pg.181 The raiders destroyed 17 of the village's 41 homes, and looted many of the others. Of the 291 people in Deerfield on the night of the attack, only 126 remained in town the next day. They killed 44 residents of Deerfield: 10 men, 9 women, and 25 children, five garrison soldiers, and seven Hadley men. Of those who died inside the village, 15 died of fire-related causes; most of the rest were killed by edged or blunt weapons. The raid’s casualties were dictated by the raiders’ goals to intimidate the village and to take valuable captives to French Canada. A large portion of the slain were infant children, who were not likely to have survived the trip to Canada. Raiders took 109 villagers captive; this represented forty per cent of the village population. They also took captive three Frenchmen who had been living among the villagers. The raiders also suffered losses, although reports vary. New France's Governor-General Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil reported the expedition only lost 11 men, and 22 were wounded, including Hertel de Rouville and one of his brothers. John Williams heard from French soldiers during his captivity that more than 40 French and Indian soldiers were lost; Haefeli and Sweeney believe the lower French figures are more credible, especially when compared to casualties incurred in other raids. A majority of the captives taken were women and children, as the French and Indian captors considered them more likely than adult males to successfully assimilate into native communities and a new life in French Canada. Captivity and ransom For the 109 English captives, the raid was only the beginning of their troubles. The raiders intended to take them to Canada, a 300-mile (480 km) journey, in the middle of winter. Many of the captives were ill-prepared for this, and the raiders were short on provisions. The raiders consequently engaged in a common practice: they killed those captives when it was clear they were unable to keep up. Williams commented on the savage cruelty of the Indian raiders; although most killings were "not random or wanton," none of those killed would have "needed to" be killed had they not been taken in the first place. Most (though not all) of the slain were the slow and vulnerable who could not keep up with the party and would likely have died less quickly en route. Only 89 of the captives survived the ordeal. Survival chances correlated with age and gender: infants and young children fared the worst, and older children and teenagers (all 21 of whom survived the ordeal) fared the best. Adult men fared better than adult women, especially pregnant women, and those with small children. In the first few days several of the captives escaped. Hertel de Rouville instructed Reverend Williams to inform the others that recaptured escapees would be tortured; there were no further escapes. (The threat was not an empty one - it was known to have happened on other raids.) The French leader's troubles were not only with his captives. The Indians had some disagreements among themselves concerning the disposition of the captives, which at times threatened to come to blows. A council held on the third day resolved these disagreements sufficiently that the trek could continue. According to John Williams' account of his captivity, most of the party traveled up the frozen Connecticut River, then up the Wells River and down the Winooski River to Lake Champlain. From there they made their way to Chambly, at which point most of the force dispersed. The captives accompanied their captors to their respective villages. Williams' wife Eunice, weak after having given birth just six weeks earlier, was one of the first to be killed during the trek; her body was recovered and reburied in the Deerfield cemetery. Calls went out from the governors of the northern colonies for action against the French colonies. Governor Dudley wrote that "the destruction of Quebeck [sic] and Port Royal [would] put all the Navall stores into Her Majesty's hands, and forever make an end of an Indian War", the frontier between Deerfield and Wells was fortified by upwards of 2,000 men, and the bounty for Indian scalps was more than doubled, from £40 to £100. Dudley promptly organized a retaliatory raid against Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia). In the summer of 1704, New Englanders under the leadership of Benjamin Church raided Acadian villages at Pentagouet (present-day Castine, Maine), Passamaquoddy Bay (present-day St. Stephen, New Brunswick), Grand Pré, Pisiquid, and Beaubassin (all in present-day Nova Scotia). Church's instructions included the taking of prisoners to exchange for those taken at Deerfield, and specifically forbade him to attack the fortified capital, Port Royal. Deerfield and other communities collected funds to ransom the captives. French authorities and colonists also worked to extricate the captives from their Indian captors. Within a year's time, most of the captives were in French hands, a product of frontier commerce in humans that was fairly common at the time on both sides. The French and converted Indians worked to convert their captives to Roman Catholicism, with modest success. While adult captives proved fairly resistant to proselytizing, children were more receptive or likely to accept conversion under duress. Some of the younger captives, however, were not ransomed, as they were adopted into the tribes. Such was the case with Williams' daughter Eunice, who was eight years old when captured. She became thoroughly assimilated in her Mohawk family, and married a Mohawk man when she was 16. She did not see her family of origin again until much later and always returned to Kahnawake. Other captives also remained by choice in Canadian and Native communities such as Kahnawake for the rest of their lives. Negotiations for the release and exchange of captives began in late 1704, and continued until late 1706. They became entangled in unrelated issues (like the English capture of French privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste), and larger concerns, including the possibility of a wider-ranging treaty of neutrality between the French and English colonies. Mediated in part by Deerfield residents John Sheldon and John Wells, some captives (including Noel Doiron) were returned to Boston in August 1706. Governor Dudley, who needed the successful return of the captives for political reason, then released the French captives, including Baptiste; the remaining captives who chose to return were back in Boston by November 1706. Many of the younger captives were adopted into the Indian tribes or French Canadian society. Thirty six Deerfield captives, mostly children and teenagers at the time of the raid, remained permanently. Those who stayed were not compelled by force, but rather by newly formed religious ties and family bonds. Captive experience was largely dictated by gender as well as age. Young women most easily and readily assimilated into Indian and French Canadian societies. Nine girls remained as opposed to only five boys. These choices reflect the larger frontier pattern of incorporation of young women into Indian and Canadian society. These young women remained, not because of compulsion, fascination with the outdoor adventure, or the strangeness of life in a foreign society, but because they transitioned into established lives in new communities and formed bonds of family, religion, and language. In fact, more than half of young female captives who remained settled in Montreal where "the lives of these former Deerfield residents differed very little in their broad outlines from their former neighbors." Whether in New France or in Deerfield these women generally were part of frontier agricultural communities where they tended to marry in their early twenties and have six or seven children. Other female captives remained in Native communities such as Kahnawake. These women remained because of bonds of religion and family. While European males castigated the "slavery" of Indian women, captive women from this time commonly chose to remain in Native society rather than return to colonial English settlements. John Williams wrote a captivity narrative, The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion, about his experience, which was published in 1707. Williams' narrative was published during ongoing ransom negotiations and pressed for greater activity to return the Deerfield captives. Written with assistance from prominent Boston Puritan minister Reverend Cotton Mather, the book framed the raid, captivity, and border relations with the French and Indians in terms of providential history and God’s purpose for Puritans. The work was widely distributed in the 18th and 19th centuries, and continues to be published today (see Further Reading below). Williams' work was one of the reasons this raid, unlike similar others of the time, was remembered and became an element in the American frontier story. Williams' work transformed the captivity narrative into a celebration of individual heroism and the triumph of Protestant values against savage and "Popish" enemies. Haefeli, Evan; Sweeney, Kevin (2003). Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-503-6. OCLC 493973598
William B.
