Raid On Deerfield - Legacy and Historical Memory

Legacy and Historical Memory

Deerfield holds a “special place in American history.” As Mary Rowlandson's popular captivity narrative The Sovereignty and Goodness of God did a generation earlier, the sensational tale stressed reliance on God’s mercy and “kept alive the spirit of the Puritan mission” in eighteenth century New England. Williams’ account heightened tensions between English settlers and Native Americans and their French allies and led to more war preparedness among settler communities.

The events at Deerfield were not commonly described as a massacre(hyperlink) until the 19th century. Reverend John Taylor’s 1804 centennial memorial sermon first termed the events at Deerfield a “massacre.” Previous eighteenth century accounts emphasized the physical destruction and described the raid as “the assault on,” “the destruction of,” or “mischief at” Deerfield. Viewing the raid as a “massacre,”19th century New Englanders began to remember the attack as part of the larger narrative and celebration of American frontier spirit. Persisting into the twentieth century, American historical memory has tended to view Deerfield in line with Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis as a singular Indian attack against a community of individualistic frontiersmen. Indeed, re-popularized and exposed to a national audience in the mid-twentieth century with the establishment of Historic Deerfield, the raid was contextualized in a celebration of exceptional American individual ambition. This view has served as a partial justification for the removal of Native Americans and has obscured both the larger patterns of border conflict and tensions and the family based structure of Deerfield and similar marginal settlements. Although popularly remembered as a tale of the triumph of rugged Protestant male individualism, the raid is better understood not along the lines of Turner’s thesis, but as an account of the strong factors of community life and cross-cultural interaction in border communities.

An 1875 legend recounts the attack as an attempt by the French to regain a bell, supposedly destined for Quebec, but pirated and sold to Deerfield. The legend continues that this was a "historical fact known to almost all school children." However, the story, which is a common Kahnawake tale, was refuted as early as 1882 and does not appear to have significantly affected American perception of the raid.

Canadians and native Americans who are less influenced by Williams’ narrative and Turner’s thesis, have given the raid a more ambivalent place in memory. Canadians view the raid not as a massacre and mass abduction but as a successful local application of guerilla techniques in the broader context of international war and stress the successful integration of hundreds of captives taken in similar conflicts during Queen Anne’s War. Similarly, most Native American records justify the action in a larger military and cultural context and remain largely unconcerned with the particular event.

A portion of the original village of Deerfield has been preserved as a living history museum, ; among its relics is a door bearing tomahawk marks from the 1704 raid. The raid is commemorated there on the weekend closest to February 29. Moving towards a more inclusive Historic Deerfield’s yearly reenactment and educational programs treat “massacre” as a “dirty word” and stress Deerfield as a place to study cultural interaction and difference at society’s borders.