Publishers Weekly
12/18/2023
“Once, it was the most famous episode in early American history,” writes bestseller Swanson (Manhunt) in this meticulous account of the eponymous 18th–century massacre, which occurred in an isolated British frontier settlement during Queen Anne’s War. In the predawn hours of February 29, 1704, approximately 240 Native and French raiders attacked the small settlement of Deerfield (in present-day Massachusetts), where they murdered 47 colonists, took 112 captives, and burned most of the town to the ground. Transported over 300 miles north on foot, the survivors became servants or adopted family members in Native communities. One prominent captive, Rev. John Williams, later wrote about his experiences. His eight-year-old daughter, Eunice, who was sent to live with a Mohawk group, eventually assimilated and married. She refused to leave her adopted home years later during an attempted rescue. The latter third of Swanson’s narrative pivots ingeniously from the event itself to examine the town’s subsequent history, drawing on hundreds of years of published accounts, pageants, and tourist attractions to trace the massacre’s afterlife in British and American mythologizing as it evolved to suit the settlers’ changing relationship with Native America (from victimhood, to victory, to guilt). The result is a rewarding close look at the process of history-making. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"A vivid account . . . Swanson re-creates Deerfield’s harsh environment, powerfully evoking the trepidation of the Puritan colonizers who were isolated from 'civilization' by a sinister wooded wilderness.” —Wall Street Journal
“With his gifts of great storytelling and penetrating insight, James Swanson has given us a compelling account of an unjustly forgotten episode in American history. This is an immersive and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle
“It is easy to forget that America’s eastern frontiers were once just as savage as the more celebrated lands of the west. Call it the Wild East—the subject of James L. Swanson’s engaging new book The Deerfield Massacre. From a single horrific event Swanson builds an epic, violent portrait of a world most of us have forgotten.” —S. C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon
"A briskly told history of death, resilience, and recovery in the American past.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Acclaimed historian James Swanson's splendid The Deerfield Massacre plunges readers into the cauldron of faith, fear, and ferocity that was life in colonial New England. In this galloping work of narrative history, Swanson resurrects the long-forgotten massacre: the fate of the white captives as they fight to survive; and the plight of Native Americans as they struggle to preserve their ancestral lands. Swanson gives both sides their rightful place at the forefront of early American history." —Peter Cozzens, author of the award-winning The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
“[A] meticulous account of the eponymous 18th–century massacre . . . Swanson’s narrative pivots ingeniously from the event itself . . . to trace the massacre’s afterlife . . . The result is a rewarding close look at the process of history-making.” —Publishers Weekly
“An epic thriller from one of America’s most terrifying chapters—when the tomahawk and scalping knife ruled the New England wilderness. James Swanson’s brilliant, action-packed story evokes a mysterious and dangerous land haunted by legends of supernatural witches, as well as the real threat of bloody Indian raids. By the end of The Deerfield Massacre, readers will think they hear the sounds of tomahawks chopping through their front door.” —Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The Lincoln Conspiracy and The Nazi Conspiracy
"A wonderful read! James Swanson’s eloquent and gripping account of Deerfield’s bloody past transports readers across space and time, while critically assessing the town’s multiple efforts to grapple with its history. He explores the persistence of colonial memories, and welcomes the inclusion of often-ignored Native American voices and perspectives. From a midnight vigil in a haunting colonial graveyard, a visit to the tomahawk-splintered Indian House door, or a stroll along an icy moonlit river on a cold February night, Swanson evokes disparate and unexpectedly poetic connections. He invites readers to walk with him into, through, and beyond this complicated past." —Margaret M. Bruchac, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania and author of Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists
“In this magnificent book, James Swanson brilliantly uncovers the long-forgotten Deerfield Massacre. His vibrant prose transports readers back to 1704, a distant and forgotten America, a period even the Founders would not recognize. In the dead of night a barbaric attack engulfs a remote outpost on the Massachusetts frontier. At gunpoint, survivors of the slaughter are forced to march through a forbidding, frozen wilderness into captivity. Swanson’s thriller-like narrative is an epic tale of survival that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Highest recommendation!” —Patrick K. O’Donnell, bestselling author of The Indispensables and Washington’s Immortals
“A great book! James Swanson hits the trifecta that all popular American historians seek: a gripping and important chapter in the story of our nation; rich and fascinating research; and a propulsive, vividly cinematic sweep that transfixes readers with the physical courage, terrible suffering, and profound hope of those fighting for their lives in early America. Swanson turns the bloodbath into a key flashpoint in early New England and tells an unforgettable story of endurance and survival for the ages, restoring Rev. John Williams to our pantheon of heroes. This is first-rate American history.” —Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and author of Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Great Environmental Awakening
Kirkus Reviews
2023-12-06
A consequence of centuries-long imperial rivalries, the 1704 Deerfield Massacre in Massachusetts revealed what could befall settlers of the colonial interior: captivity, terror, and slaughter.
The event, which Swanson, author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, correctly calls “one of the most dramatic episodes in colonial American history,” didn’t greatly alter New England’s settlement. However, it did exemplify the extraordinary risks that pious, land-seeking colonists were willing to take to settle and farm lands claimed not only by Britain, but also by France and Indigenous people always threatened by Europeans’ dispossession. On the snowy Massachusetts frontier that January day, Deerfield lost 63 of its 300 inhabitants to tomahawks, rifles, and arson; 112 others were seized, of whom 89 survived a 300-mile, two-month trek into Quebec. The story’s central figure is the Rev. John Williams, who lost his wife and one child but whose daughter survived to spend her life voluntarily among the Native Americans who’d captured her. Relating the harrowing story, its survivors’ three-year captivity, and the international context in which their release unfolded, Swanson doesn’t add much to what’s long been known. His fresh contributions appear in the chapters on the massacre’s aftermath over the next four centuries. Native raids continued, spurring politicians, orators, and clerics to draw various lessons—many moral, some opportunistic. Townspeople and heirs of the victims erected memorials to the victims, and pageants built around heritage became a tradition. Films were shot, preservation undertaken, nostalgic tears shed for simple ways lost, and, recently, descendants of the Native assailants warmly received. “By 1776,” writes Swanson, “the Deerfield Massacre was a long distant past in a place that the Founders would have found unfamiliar, strange, and even alien to them.”
A solid, up-to-date, briskly told history of death, resilience, and recovery in the American past.
