I read this book last year and found it amazing.
The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early America, by John Demos (TPB, 1994, $2) Winner of the Bancroft Prize, and finalist of the National Book Awards. SOLD
English Puritans in Mass. "endeavored to 'civilize' a 'savage' native populace. There, in February 1704, a French and Indian war party descended on the village of Deerfield, massacring some inhabitants and abducting others. Among the captives were the eminent minister John Williams and his five children. Williams would eventually be released, but his small daughter Eunice remained with her captors. Years later, to the horror of her family," she decided to stay with her native family, convert to their religion of Catholicism, take a Mohawk husband, and would have a child with him. Eventually she would return to her family to visit, but not to stay. Her family could never understand why she would chose to stay with such "savages". Demos theorizes that she may have found the respect given by Mohawks to their women more to her liking than the life she would have had with her Puritan family. Look for this book on the new non-fiction table, avail. 9/19.
