Why did young Eunice Williams stay with Indians who had murdered
her mother? The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early
America. By John Demos. Vintage 336 pp., $14.95, paperback. By
Janice Harayda In 1704 a French and Indian war party slaughtered
dozens of men, women, and children in a predawn attack on
Deerfield, Massachusetts. Recent histories have sanitized the
incident known as the Deerfield Massacre, calling it “the Raid
on Deerfield.” The term “raid” hardly fits the events described
in this memorable true story of Eunice Williams, who lived
through the terror that was masterminded by the French but
largely carried out by Mohawks and other Indians. Eunice was a
7-year-old Puritan minister’s daughter when she was kidnapped in
the attack – oops, sorry, “raid”! – on Deerfield at about 4 a.m.
on February 29. Her mother died on a subsequent forced march to
Canada, killed by an Indian who “slew her with his hatchet at
one stroke,” a son wrote. Her father and siblings were
eventually released. But Eunic