The Deerfield Massacre : a surprise attack, a forced march, and the fight for survival in early America / James L. Swanson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt (now an Apple TV+ series) and in the tradition of Empire of the Summer Moon comes a spellbinding account of a forgotten chapter in American history: the deadly confrontation between natives and colonists in Massachusetts in 1704 and the tragic saga that unfolded.

Once it was one of the most infamous events in early American history. Today, it has been nearly forgotten.

In an obscure, two-hundred-year-old museum in a little town in western Massachusetts there stands what once was the most revered relic from the history of early New England: the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre of 1704. This impregnable barricade--known to early Americans as "The Old Indian Door"--constructed from double-thick planks of Massachusetts oak and studded with hand-wrought iron nails to repel the tomahawk blades wielded by several attacking Native tribes, is the sole surviving artifact from one of the most dramatic moments in colonial American history: In the leap year of 1704, on the cold, snowy night of February 29, hundreds of Indians and their French allies swept down on an isolated frontier outpost to slaughter or capture its inhabitants.

The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of survival, sacrifice, family, and faith ever told in North America. One hundred and twelve survivors, including their fearless minister, the Reverend John Williams, were captured and forced to march three hundred miles north into enemy territory in Canada. Any captive who faltered or became too weak to continue the journey--including Williams's own wife--fell under the tomahawk or war club.

Survivors of the march willed themselves to live and endured captivity. Ransomed by the royal governor of Massachusetts, the captives later returned home to Deerfield, rebuilt their town and, for the rest of their lives, told the incredible tale. The memoir of Rev. Williams, The Redeemed Captive , published soon after his liberation, became one of the first bestselling books in American history and remains a literary classic. The Old Indian Door is a touchstone that conjures up one of the most dramatic and inspiring stories of colonial America--and now, at last, this legendary event is brought to vivid life by popular historian James Swanson.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Prologue (1)
• Part I A History of Superstition, Violence, and Massacre (15)
• 1 "Dear and Deadly Grapes" (17)
• 2 Blood in the Snow: February 29, 1704 (49)
• 3 "Fell by the rage of ye Barbarous Enemy": On the March (67)
• Part II The Aftermath: Captivity and a Test of Faith (79)
• 4 Tales of Captivity (81)
• 5 Redemption and Return to Zion (107)
• 6 End of Days (119)
• Part III Memory, Myth, and Legend (147)
• 7 Antiquarian Sanctification (149)
• 8 Colonial Revival and Patriotism Enthroned (195)
• 9 New Interpretations and a "Massacre" Reimagined (227)
• Epilogue: The Ghost of a Town (243)
• Acknowledgments (247)
• Appendix: List of Historical Characters (255)
• Chapter Notes (261)
• Bibliography (273)
• Illustration Credits (291)
• Index (293)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

"Once, it was the most famous episode in early American history," writes bestseller Swanson (Manhunt) in this meticulous account of the eponymous 18th--century massacre, which occurred in an isolated British frontier settlement during Queen Anne's War. In the predawn hours of February 29, 1704, approximately 240 Native and French raiders attacked the small settlement of Deerfield (in present-day Massachusetts), where they murdered 47 colonists, took 112 captives, and burned most of the town to the ground. Transported over 300 miles north on foot, the survivors became servants or adopted family members in Native communities. One prominent captive, Rev. John Williams, later wrote about his experiences. His eight-year-old daughter, Eunice, who was sent to live with a Mohawk group, eventually assimilated and married. She refused to leave her adopted home years later during an attempted rescue. The latter third of Swanson's narrative pivots ingeniously from the event itself to examine the town's subsequent history, drawing on hundreds of years of published accounts, pageants, and tourist attractions to trace the massacre's afterlife in British and American mythologizing as it evolved to suit the settlers' changing relationship with Native America (from victimhood, to victory, to guilt). The result is a rewarding close look at the process of history-making. (Feb.)

Booklist Review

Just before dawn on February 29, 1704, French soldiers from Canada and Native American allies attacked Deerfield, Massachusetts, which was puzzlingly underdefended. Of 300 residents, 50 were killed and over 100 were captured and marched 300 miles through deep snow to Quebec. Swanson's account of the raid and prior conflicts between the English and Native Americans are fast-paced and mostly free of stereotypes and judgments found in earlier writings about European and Native American frontier warfare. Native Americans adopted many of the captives, some of whom wished to remain in Native American society. The English ransomed other captives and they returned to Massachusetts, if not necessarily to Deerfield. Swanson chronicles relief, happiness, and trauma experienced by surviving captives and residents. He describes how succeeding generations have reinterpreted the raid, including how Abenaki citizens and Deerfield residents built bridges to each other after the raid. Some post-raid information may be too detailed for some readers. Swanson concludes by explaining how the story of the Deerfield Massacre has been reframed to better reflect the concerns and losses of all involved, not just the settlers.

Kirkus Book Review

A consequence of centuries-long imperial rivalries, the 1704 Deerfield Massacre in Massachusetts revealed what could befall settlers of the colonial interior: captivity, terror, and slaughter. The event, which Swanson, author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, correctly calls "one of the most dramatic episodes in colonial American history," didn't greatly alter New England's settlement. However, it did exemplify the extraordinary risks that pious, land-seeking colonists were willing to take to settle and farm lands claimed not only by Britain, but also by France and Indigenous people always threatened by Europeans' dispossession. On the snowy Massachusetts frontier that January day, Deerfield lost 63 of its 300 inhabitants to tomahawks, rifles, and arson; 112 others were seized, of whom 89 survived a 300-mile, two-month trek into Quebec. The story's central figure is the Rev. John Williams, who lost his wife and one child but whose daughter survived to spend her life voluntarily among the Native Americans who'd captured her. Relating the harrowing story, its survivors' three-year captivity, and the international context in which their release unfolded, Swanson doesn't add much to what's long been known. His fresh contributions appear in the chapters on the massacre's aftermath over the next four centuries. Native raids continued, spurring politicians, orators, and clerics to draw various lessons--many moral, some opportunistic. Townspeople and heirs of the victims erected memorials to the victims, and pageants built around heritage became a tradition. Films were shot, preservation undertaken, nostalgic tears shed for simple ways lost, and, recently, descendants of the Native assailants warmly received. "By 1776," writes Swanson, "the Deerfield Massacre was a long distant past in a place that the Founders would have found unfamiliar, strange, and even alien to them." A solid, up-to-date, briskly told history of death, resilience, and recovery in the American past. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.