John Demos's The Unredeemed Captive

In John Demos’s The Unredeemed Captive, he must have “lurched heavily through the drifts”1 of information, and sometimes lack there of, to explain the view points of the British colonials, the French colonials, and the Mohawk tribe members. The story begins in the Puritan town of Deerfield within the British colony of Massachusetts. during the late 1600s. With the start of another war between Britain and France, fighting breaks out in their colonies as well, including the Americas. The town of Deerfield if led by the minister John Williams whom the French Indians take for a prisoner exchange at a later date. The Indians ransack Deerfield and take many prisoners on the long, treacherous journey to Canada for the French colonists. Most families

Demos looks into the different family style of the Mohawk tribe. The Mohawk tradition holds the woman in charge while the Puritans maintain a patriarchal society like in Britain. He looks at Eunice trip to Canada on top of the shoulders of her eventual uncle, Hatironta. Eunice looks back to see her “falling back, gasping, calling out for rest.” The view on top of a strong man showed her the weakness of her father and upon hearing of his remarriage she described him as “faithless, forgetful father: protector who could not protect, comforter who would not comfort, caretaker who did not care.”2 Why such a change in heart from the seven year old girl? Was it the death of her mother? Demos did not go into it, but her father did not protect. Did her father's inability to take care of her on the march after the raid? John Williams's strength failed him and he could not “walk for the two of them”3 Eunice found comfort and care in the Indian who picked her up. Or did the change occur during the raid? Eunice awakes in the darkness to shouts in a different language and flames blazing outside her window, and she gets taken down the stairs by strangely dressed men. Her father failed to protect her or comfort her. Another possibility Demos does not investigate the possibility of any occurrence before the raid which created the rift between Eunice and the civilized world. Demos claims “the training, the discipline would surely have been firm-- and carefully channeled. Eunice did not enjoy, nor want to learn her catechism and she found peace when she arrived with the Mohawk