Massacre on the Merrimack : Hannah Duston's captivity and revenge in colonial America

Resource Information

The work Massacre on the Merrimack : Hannah Duston's captivity and revenge in colonial America represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Massacre on the Merrimack : Hannah Duston's captivity and revenge in colonial America

Title remainder

Hannah Duston's captivity and revenge in colonial America

Statement of responsibility

Jay Atkinson

Title variation

Hannah Duston's captivity and revenge in colonial America

Creator

• Atkinson, Jay, 1957-

Subject

• Abenaki Indians -- Wars
• Abenaki Indians -- Wars
• Biography
• Captivity
• Duston, Hannah Emerson, 1657-
• Duston, Hannah Emerson, 1657- -- Captivity, 1697
• Haverhill (Mass.) -- Biography
• History
• Indian captivities
• Indian captivities -- Merrimack River Valley (N.H. and Mass.)
• Indian captivities -- New England
• Indians of North America
• 1600 - 1699
• King William's War (United States : 1689-1697)
• Massachusetts -- Haverhill
• Merrimack River Valley (N.H. and Mass.) -- History -- 17th century
• New England
• Northeastern States
• United States
• United States -- History -- King William's War, 1689-1697
• United States -- Merrimack River Valley
• Women murderers
• Women murderers -- Merrimack River Valley (N.H. and Mass.) -- Biography
• Indians of North America -- Northeastern States -- History -- 17th century

Genre

• History
• Biography

Language

eng

Summary

• True story of murder, captivity, revenge, and escape, set against the fiery backdrop of the French and Indian war. Examines the period in American history when French Catholicism vied for control of the frontier with English Protestantism, and the bloody deeds of Hannah Duston--who escaped her Native American captors and returned to her settlement of Haverhill, Massachusetts, with a collection of scalps--passed into legend
• Early on March 15, 1697, a band of Abenaki warriors in service to the French raided the English frontier village of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Striking swiftly, the Abenaki killed twenty-seven men, women, and children, and took thirteen captives, including thirty-nine-year-old Hannah Duston and her week-old daughter, Martha. A short distance from the village, one of the warriors murdered the squalling infant by dashing her head against a tree. After a forced march of nearly one hundred miles, Duston and two companions were transferred to a smaller band of Abenaki, who camped on a tiny island located at the junction of the Merrimack and Contoocook Rivers, several miles north of present day Concord, New Hampshire. This was the height of King William?s War, both a war of terror and a religious contest, with English Protestantism vying for control of the New World with French Catholicism. After witnessing her infant?s murder, Duston resolved to get even. Two weeks into their captivity, Duston and her companions, a fifty-one-year-old woman and a twelve-year-old boy, moved among the sleeping Abenaki with tomahawks and knives, killing two men, two women, and six children. After returning to the bloody scene alone to scalp their victims, Duston and the others escaped down the Merrimack River in a stolen canoe. They braved treacherous waters and the constant threat of attack and recapture, returning to tell their story and collect a bounty for the scalps. Was Hannah Duston the prototypical feminist avenger, or the harbinger of the Native American genocide? In this meticulously researched and riveting narrative, bestselling author Jay Atkinson sheds new light on the early struggle for North America

Biography type

individual biography

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

• 973.2/5092
• B

Index

index present

LC call number

E87

LC item number

.D97 2015

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography