Footnotes - EuniceKWilliams

Footnotes/Further Reading

Footnote # 1

Anne Bradstreet, "Childhood," from Works; quoted in Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 93.

Footnote # 2

Cotton Mather, Bradstreet, "Diary" II; quoted in Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 98.

Footnote # 3

New England Primer circa 1683, excerpted in Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1, ed. by George McMichael (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974), p. 84).

Footnote # 4

"With about 800 to 1000 people in 1704 it [Kahnawake] was easily the largest Native American community in New France," larger than most French and English colonial settlements; Deerfield's population at the time of the raid numbered only 270. Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, Captors and Captives (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), page 67. Kahnawake's traditional longhouses likely numbered more than 60, which was the number reported by Jesuit Father Chauchetière in 1682, when the population was smaller.

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland, OH: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1896-1901), 62:173.

Footnote # 5

Haefeli and Sweeney in Captors and Captives, pages 72-73, describe the Kahnawake oral tradition of the woman whose daughter died in a smallpox epidemic and who was inconsolable. Fearing that she would die from grief, others in her clan urged her to ask her male relatives to capture a child to replace the dead girl. On page 152, the authors note that Eunice Williams's first Kanienkeha name was Waongote, "they took her and place her as a member of the tribe." Daniel Richter in The Ordeal of the Longhouse (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), page 33, reports the mourning customs of smearing the face with charcoal or dirt and neglecting one's appearance for a year after the death of a loved one, and the right of the women of the bereaved household to demand a mourning war for captives to assuage their grief.

Footnote # 6

The description of the adoption ceremony—the ritual bath and new clothing and the speech—are adapted from the account of James Smith, a young captive from Pennsylvania at Kahnawake, excerpted in David Blanchard, 7 Generations (Kahnawake, Quebec: Kahnawake Survival School Center for Curriculum Development, 1980), pages 153-154.

Footnote # 7

"Ista" is a Kanienkehaka word for "Mother." The same term was used for maternal aunts, one's mother's sisters, whose relationships with each other's children were almost as close as with their own.

Footnote # 8

Eunice's brother Stephen reported this behavior (Native anger at captives speaking English) in his account of captivity among the Wôbanakiak, as did Joseph Kellogg, who was at Sault-au-Récollet and Kahnawake.

Footnote # 9

Kateri Tekakwitha was a Kanienkehaka woman of Algonquin descent who converted to Catholicism in Iroquoia and moved to Kahnawake, where she practiced severe penance such as fasting and self-mortification until her death at 24 in 1680. After her death, her grave became a pilgrimage site, where miraculous cures were said to be effected. She was the first Native American to be beatified (a step on the way to sainthood) by the Catholic Church.

Footnote # 10

John Williams reports Eunice's words—and that she afterwards confessed her fears to other English captives who, upon their release, reported this to Williams—in The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion (Northampton, MA: Hopkins, Bridgman and Company, 1853), page 36.

Footnote # 11

Many Natives had more than one name during their lifetimes; among the Iroquois, names were given during the Midwinter or Green Corn Festivals. Eunice's Kanienkehaka names and their meanings are as reported in Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, Captors and Captives (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), pp. 152-3. Abenaki advisor Marge Bruchac adds: "Conclusions about Eunice's name and the names of her children are based on the Kahnawake church records, as interpreted by C. Alice Baker and Reverend Guillaume Forbes, and the testimony of her Kanienkehaka grandson, Eleazar Williams. There is little extant oral history in the Kanienkehaka community about Eunice's name; she was assumed into the tribe as an adopted captive, no more special than any other."

Footnote # 12

In The Unredeemed Captive (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), John Demos suggests that the "Arousent" who appears in connection with the plot described might be the same Arosen who married Eunice Williams. Although this is conjecture, it is known that Arosen had connections in the Albany, New York, area. He participated in the illegal fur trade between Montreal/Kahnawake and Albany; information reported by Stephen Williams in his diary suggests that both Arosen and Eunice traveled there with some frequency.

Footnote # 13

The story of Eunice and Arosen's marriage is related by John Schuyler, one of several Schuyler men from Albany with close ties to the Kanienkehaka both in New York and in the Native villages of New France. The Schuylers were likely involved in the illegal fur trade between Albany and Montreal via Kahnawake and other Native settlements. John Schuyler made a trip to New France in the spring of 1713, with the aim (among others) to try to redeem Eunice Williams. He challenged the Jesuit about marrying such a young, captive girl to an Indian, and was told that the Jesuit had refused the couple several times until they came and told him "that they were joined together" and would "live together heathen like" whether or not he married them. George Sheldon, History of Deerfield (Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1983), I:349-50. To this account, we have added the details about Kanienkehaka wedding customs; the customs described were observed by the Jesuit Lafiteau, who lived at Kahnawake from 1712–1717.

Footnote # 14

Schuyler's and Eunice's words, and the entire scene, are as described in John Schuyler's account, published in George Sheldon's History of Deerfield (see footnote 12).]

Footnote # 15

John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), pages 113–116. In addition to Williams's letter to Sewall, Demos's source is a journal of the trip kept by John Stoddard.

Footnote # 16

George Sheldon, History of Deerfield (Deerfield, MA: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1983), I:349-50.

Footnote # 17

John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), page 157 and note 62, page 289.

Footnote # 18

Demos, The Unredeemed Captive, page 177; the quote is from Stephen Williams's diary.

Footnote # 19

Demos, The Unredeemed Captive, page 178; the quote is from Hinsdale's letter in the Williams family papers.

Footnote # 20

This quote from Stephen Williams's diary is quoted in Demos, The Unredeemed Captive, page 189. The following information about Eunice/Kanenstenhawi's four visits to New England is based on Demos's account on pages 188–232, which in turn is largely drawn from Stephen Williams's diary.

Footnote # 21

Demos, The Unredeemed Captive, page 228.

Footnote # 22

Demos, The Unredeemed Captive, page 231-232.