The Raid on Haverhill was a military engagement that took place on March 15, 1697 during King William's War. Ordered by Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor General of New France,[1] French, Algonquin, and Abenaki warriors descended on Haverhill, then a small frontier community in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. In the surprise attack, the Abenaki killed 27 colonists and took 13 captive. The natives burned six homes. The raid became famous in the nineteenth century because of Hannah Dustin's captivity narrative as a result of the raid.[2]
| Raid on Haverhill (1697) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of King William's War | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Massachusetts Bay |
 New FranceAlgonquin | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Chief Nescambious | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| approximately 20 | |||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
27 colonists killed 13 captured | unknown | ||||||
Afterward
editThe last battle of the war was on September 9, the Battle of Damariscotta, in which Captain John March killed 25 native men.[3]
Even after the war was officially ended, Abenaki raids on the English colonists continued. On March 4, 1698 Pigwacket Abenaki Chief, Escumbuit led a group of 30 Indians in a raid on Andover, Massachusetts, the last and most severe Indian raid on this town. There was also another raid by the Natives of Acadia on Hatfield, Massachusetts in 1688, where they killed two settlers.[4]
Legacy
edit- Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
- Nathaniel Hawthorne "The Duston Family." The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, (1836)
- John Greenleaf Whittier in his short story "The Mother’s Revenge" (1831)
- Cotton Mather Magnalia Christi Americana (orig. pub. 1702).
See also
editReferences
edit- Texts
- Caverly, Robert B. Heroism of Hannah Duston: Together With the Indian Wars of New England (orig. pub. 1875). Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1990. ISBN 1-55613-301-4
- Samuel Drake. The Border Wars of New England
- Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana (orig. pub. 1702). New York: Russell & Russell (Atheneum House), 1967. ASIN B0007DLZGI
- Namias, June. White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier. University of North Carolina Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8078-4408-X
- Sayre, Gordon M., ed. American Captivity Narratives. Houghton Mifflin, 2000. ISBN 0-395-98073-9
- Endnotes
- ^ John Fiske. Fall of New France, Section III from Essays Historical and Literary I VOL.2, p. 99 (1902) MacMilliam & Co.
- ^ John Grenier. The First Way of War. University of Cambridge Press. 2005. pp. 40-41
- ^ "Ancient dominions of Maine : Embracing the earliest facts, the recent discoveries, of the remains of aboriginal towns, the voyages, settlements, battle scenes, and incidents of Indian warfare, and other incidents of history, together with the religious developments of society within the ancient Sagadahoc, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid precincts and dependencies". 1859.
- ^ Documents on the colonial history of New York. Vol. 4, p. 403