Footnotes - Tsohahisen

Footnotes/Further Reading

Footnote # 1

Father D'Avaugour's letter mentions that "the great chief of the Lorette Hurons" was on the Deerfield raid, but does not name him. Advisors at the Huron-Wendat National Council have suggested the name "Tsawenhohi." Tsawenhohi was a great chief in 1673; the name, which means "vulture" or "the man who sees clearly" was a hereditary chief's name.

Footnote # 2

Letter of Father Louis D'Avaugour to Reverend Father Joseph Germain, Superior General of the Canadian Missions, Concerning the Mission of Lorette in New France, October 7, 1710. In Reuben Gold Thwaites, editor, Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols. (Cleveland, OH: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1896-1901), 66:167.

Footnote # 3

Letter of Father Louis D'Avaugour in Thwaites, The Jesuit Relations, 66:167. Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney propose that Jonathan Hoyt was the captive claimed by Tsohahisen (called Thaovenhosen by the Father D'Avaugour). Haefeli and Sweeney, "Revisiting The Redeemed Captive: New Perspectives on the 1704 Deerfield Raid," in Colin G. Calloway, ed., After King Philip's War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1997), pages 57-58 and Note on page 71.

Footnote # 4

The Feast of the Dead is an important Wendat ritual, in which bodies were exhumed and their bones cleaned and reburied, mingled with those of others amid great ceremony. Father Louis D'Avaugour notes that the Wendats were especially dedicated to the Catholic Feast of All Saints (November first), which Jesuit missionaries piggybacked onto the traditional Wendat ceremony.

Footnote # 5

In addition to 15-year-old Jonathan Hoyt, the captives were his 17-year-old sister Sarah and 17-year-old Ebenezer Nims.

Footnote # 6

Bruce Trigger, in The Huron: Farmers of the North (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1990), describes the enditenhwa or thanksgiving feast as one of four types of feasts noted by Jesuit observers. These feasts were given by individuals to celebrate particular success at hunting or trading, or an escape from danger or recovery from illness. Displays of generosity to the community were of the highest value in Wendat society.

Footnote # 7

The name Achiendase and its translation is from John Lawson Steckley's compilation of Wendat names in the Jesuit Relations, published on the Petun Research Institute's website at http://www.wyandot.org/petun. The word hihwaten for "my nephew" is suggested by Wendat advisor Stephane Picard; it is variously spelled as "hih8aten" or "hiuoitan."

Footnote # 8

The story of William Dudley's ransom of Jonathan Hoyt is described in Elihu Hoyt, A Brief Sketch of the First Settlement of Deerfield, MA (Greenfield, MA: James P. Fogg, 1833), pages 25-27. Hoyt gives the medium of exchange as silver dollars, which may be an anachronism, as the English colonies used the British monetary system based on the pound. (However, there were some Spanish dollars in circulation in North America at the time.) The amount offered might have been 20 crowns; by comparison, the Kanienkehaka demanded 40 crowns in ransom for Stephen Williams, the son of Deerfield's minister, whom they understood to be a wealthy man of status. Twenty crowns equaled five pounds, at a time when the Reverend John Williams's annual salary was 80 pounds.

Footnote # 9

Letter of Father Louis D'Avaugour, October 7, 1710. In Reuben Gold Thwaites, editor, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols. (Cleveland, OH: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1896-1901), 66:159-167.

Footnote # 10

Elihu Hoyt, A Brief Sketch of the First Settlement of Deerfield, MA (Greenfield, MA: James P. Fogg, 1833), page 25.

Footnote # 11

Emma Lewis Coleman, New England Captives Carried to Canada between 1677 and 1760 during the French and Indian Wars, (Portland, Maine: Southworth Press, 1925), II:91.

Footnote # 12