Raid on Deerfield

The Raid on Deerfield occurred during Queen Anne's War on February 29, 1704, when joint French and Native American forces under the command of Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville attacked the English settlement at Deerfield, Massachusetts just before dawn, razing the town and killing fifty-six colonists. De Rouville's forces consisted of forty-seven French and French Canadian soldiers and 200 Native Americans, mostly Abenaki, Kanienkehaka and Wyandot, accompanied by a few Pocumtuck. Of the colonists killed, twenty-two were men, nine were women, and twenty-five were children. The novel The Ransom of Mercy Carter gives a very good and detailed story of Mercy Carter's journey.

A total of 109 residents, including the women and children who had survived the attack, were taken captive and forced on a months-long, 300-mile trek to Quebec in harsh winter conditions; twenty-one of them died along the way.^[1] More than sixty of those who reached Quebec were eventually ransomed or otherwise managed to make their way back to New England, but a number of others, including Eunice Williams, the young daughter of Deerfield's pastor, chose to remain in French and Native communities, such as Wendake, for the rest of their lives.^[2]

Source notes

Further reading

• Demos, John. "The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America", (New York, 1994)

• Haefeli, Evan and Sweeney, Kevin. "Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield", (Amherst, 2003)

• Smith, Mary. "Boy Captive of Old Deerfield", (Aeonian, 1976)

External links

• Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704
• Digital Collection "Old Indian House" (photo) and (painting)
• Frary House
• Historic Deerfield Buys 1703 letter that predicts attack
• Historic Deerfield museum
• Fates of Individuals Taken Captive at Deerfield

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