Eunice Kanenstenhawi Williams - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Eunice Williams was born on 17 September 1696, the daughter of the Puritan minister John Williams and his wife Eunice Mather Williams. On 29 February 1704, the Williams' home was attacked during a raid on the settlement led by French and allied Abenaki and Mohawk fighters. Later called the Deerfield Massacre, the event was part of a series of raids and conflicts between the French and English, and their Indian allies, during Queen Anne's War in the early 18th century.

The Indians killed numerous settlers in their houses, including Eunice's six-week-old sister Jerusha and younger brother John Williams, Jr. They took captive more than 100 settlers, including 7-year-old Eunice, her parents, and four of her siblingssiblings. The captives were taken on a strenuous march northward. The next day, a Mohawk warrior killed her mother after she fell while crossing the icy waters of the Green River. Others of the youngest and oldest captives were killed if they could not keep up with the large party.

Eunice and the surviving members of her family reached Fort Chambly in Quebec six weeks later; from there she was taken to Kahnawake, a settlement of Catholic Mohawks south of Montreal across the St. Lawrence River. She was adopted by a woman who had recently lost her own daughter in a smallpox epidemic. Eunice was given the symbolic name Waongote, meaning "one who is planted like an Ashe", and was instructed in the Mohawk language and customs, and catechized in the Roman Catholic religion. When she converted to Catholicism, she was baptized Marguerite.

When the survivors of Deerfield learned that their captured relatives and neighbors were being held in Quebec, they began negotiations through various intermediaries to ransom them. During these years, Rev. Williams was allowed to meet with Eunice on two occasions; both times he responded to her requests for guidance by telling her to frequently recite the Puritan Catechism.