The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America

The Introduction (“Beginnings”) asks the seemingly simple question: Where does the story of Eunice and the Deerfield massacre begin? Demos then offers up five different origins of the story, all from different eras, involving different people, and across different countries. Why does Demos see it as important to start the book by stating that history is non-linear? 

Eunice, despite being the main character of the story, does not have a “voice” insofar as very few of her direct words (in terms of historical documents) survive. Examine how this might affect the narrative. Unpack the letter on page 231 from Eunice (as translated into English) to Stephen Williams, as the piece of writing that most directly gives a “voice” to Eunice. 

French and British colonialism in New England is the unseen force that animates and undergirds Eunice’s story. How does Eunice’s life, as a microcosm, embody the colonialism of the era? Draw out the different ways that colonialism can be mapped onto Eunice’s story.

Of all the Williamses, Demos calls Stephen the most “approachable” figure thanks to “his years of assiduous diary-keeping” (172). What other figures are “approachable” in this way? How might it affect and skew the story that we hear certain voices more than others? 

Chapter 5 opens with a rumination on how John Williams must have dealt with the news of Eunice’s marriage to a Kahnawake man: “Still, he continued to pray—and to work—for her redemption” (100). Midway through the book, the Puritans’ persistence in getting Eunice back to Deerfield is made clear. How does their persistence change throughout the course of the book? What does this persistence say about the book’s larger religious themes?

One of the major themes in The Unredeemed Captive is the limitation of the study of history. Demos frequently elucidates the struggles of historical research. For example, in Chapter 8, he writes: “John Williams had visited his daughter in Kahnawake at least twice, but there is no evidence that he reflected carefully on her life there. None of his still extant writing offer so much as a comment on the ways of the mission Indians” (167). What are the primary challenges Demos identifies when studying the history of Native Americans in colonial America? Can you think of any other challenges?

The term “Indians” has largely fallen out of favor, but Demos uses it throughout The Unredeemed Captive. What other ideas about Native American/indigenous populations might have changed since the book was written in 1995? How might these changes shift the book’s overall messaging and meaning? 

In Chapter 10, Demos writes: “The petite histoire of particular households and villages yields to the grande histoire of colonies, kingdoms, empires. Increasingly, the characters on our ‘stage’ respond to forces beyond their sight or control” (214). Describe three examples of petite histoire described in the book, drawing out the grande histoire that affected those incidents. Aside from colonialism, what are the other major social/cultural forces that animate the drama in this book?