Raid on Deerfield

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Raid on Deerfield

The Raid on Deerfield happened on February 29, 1704, during Queen Anne’s War. French soldiers and about 240 Native American allies attacked the English frontier town of Deerfield, Massachusetts Bay, near the Connecticut River. Led by Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, the raiders were part of a force of roughly 300 men.

The attackers burned part of the town, killed many residents, and took a large number of captives. About 50 villagers were killed, and roughly 110 people were carried off to Canada, mostly to Montreal. Some died or were killed during the long winter trek. The captives were taken overland for nearly 300 miles, where many were adopted into Native families or later ransomed.

One of the first casualties inside the village was Reverend John Williams’s household. Williams was captured but his life was spared when his gun misfired; his wife and most of their children and servants were taken captive. His seven-year-old daughter Eunice was adopted by a Mohawk family and later married a Mohawk man; she lived the rest of her life in Canada. Williams’s captivity narrative, The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion, published in 1707, helped popularize the Deerfield story in the English colonies.

The raiders did not succeed in destroying every house, but they did burn 17 of Deerfield’s 41 homes and take supplies. The attack shocked New England and led to stronger frontier defenses. It also sparked English raids against French-held lands in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia) later that summer.

Many captives were exchanged or ransomed in the following years (1704–1706). Some captives chose to stay in Canadian or Native communities, especially the children who were adopted or who found new lives there. A portion of Deerfield has been preserved as Historic Deerfield, a living-history museum that commemorates the raid and explores cross-cultural contact on the colonial frontier.

The Deerfield raid has a complex memory. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was often described as a massacre and used to promote frontier heroism, but historians today emphasize the wider context of border conflict and the many factors shaping both English settlements and Native communities.