The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Revisiting 1704 massacre
Detailed account potent with context.
“The Deerfield Massacre” is a mostly absorbing, deeply researched book that spans about 300 pages, but its most potent words may be this unassuming quartet: “Pocumtuck (later renamed Deerfield).”
Those four words say a mouthful. Deerfield was a town that, because it was on the western edge of American civilization in the 1700s, was repeatedly attacked by Native people, including a violent 1704 siege eventually dubbed the “Deerfield Massacre.”
What the words “Pocumtuck (later renamed Deerfield)” remind us is that many, if not most, of the attackers regarded the renamed village as ancestral land stolen from them.
James L. Swanson’s book acknowledges there are multiple ways to view the “massacre,” which is further complicated by the attack being a joint venture of Natives and the French, who had their own reasons for confronting the British-allied Deerfield villagers.
Early chapters recount the attack, captives’ forced march to Canada and survivor John Williams’ yearslong attempt to reunite his surviving family — including a daughter, Eunice, who was kidnapped at 7, but spent her remaining eight decades in Canada.
Swanson takes a you-arethere approach to the attack, capturing details such as the Williams family’s efforts to protect themselves (their hacked-up door is still on display in a Deerfield museum) and their horror as they watched the murders of several family members. He’s equally good on the aftermath, as Williams, a minister, struggles to rebuild his life, start a second family and reassemble the first one.
That last part will be especially compelling to readers who like to imagine the story that exists just outside the bounds of a history book. Swanson acknowledges that, although John Williams insisted on referring to Eunice as a “captive,” she quickly rejected that notion, eventually marrying a Native man, creating her own family and forgetting how to speak English.
Swanson also is adept at contextualizing the massacre and showing how, in recent years, a greater understanding of what happened has been achieved.