The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America

“To recapitulate: Cambridge (England), Iroquoia, Dedham, Deerfield, Madrid. In short, multiple beginnings: none of them truly ‘first,’ each of them contributing, in one way or another, to the story that follows.” 

As a historian, Demos is able to provide a holistic view of the Deerfield massacre. He draws attention to the numerous forces that culminated in that one, singular event in history. This philosophy—the idea that a multitude of historical and social forces shapes the course of history—informs Demos’s approach to his subject and his treatment of the subject in general. 

“A severe indictment, very severe. But an accurate sign of popular feeling as winter approaches. Night of wolves.” 

Demos analyzes a letter from Solomon Stoddard, a pastoral colleague to John Williams who was based in a small Massachusetts town close to Deerfield. In the letter, Stoddard warns that the Native American way of waging war is particularly “barbarous” and that they “act like wolves.” Demos’s treatment of the letter highlights his flair for re-framing primary source documents in a narrative way.

“The moral of all this seems clear. If you are living at Deerfield in 1704, and if capture is your fate, it’s better by far to be a grown man than a woman, and best of all to be a teenager.” 

Many Deerfield residents who survived the initial Native American attack did not survive the grueling walk from Massachusetts to Canada. Demos analyzes the odds of surviving the walk by demographic. He finds that women fared worse than men, but teenagers of either gender had the highest rate of survival. This passage emphasizes how perilous life was for the Deerfield community, even for survivors of the attack.