Introduction
In his book “The Unredeemed Captive,” author John Putnam Demos depicts a fascinating contest of cultures, featuring the English Puritan Protestants of New England, the Roman Catholics of France and the Native Americans against the setting of Colonial America. The Native Americans involved were not French subjects but rather independent allies of the French (Demos 70).
John Demos portrays the clash of cultures against the background of war, family values, religion and treatment of captives.
Discussion
The war was sparked by the French desire to free Pierre Maissonat, a French partisan whom they considered a ‘privateer’ for looting and plundering English property but who was looked upon as a despicable ‘pirate’ by the English Puritan settlers (Demos 6). The French with their Native American allies attacked the English town of Deerfield, Massachusetts with the aim of capturing prominent personality Reverend John Williams to later utilize him as a bartering tool in exchange for the freedom of Maissonat. While the French were astute in their war tactics, using their Indian allies well to conduct a sneak attack and take prisoners while covering their return by holding back the chasing Englishmen, for the Native Indians there was an “added – and central – consideration: their steadily worsening poverty” (Demos 116) as war incentive. However, several shortcomings and weaknesses were exposed in the English culture related to war. First of all, they were unable to defend Deerfield properly. The guards on watch are not alert enough to prevent the Indians from stealthily attacking; they were “strangely amused, as by a trampling noise around the Fort, as if it were beset by Indians” (Demos 4). By the time an alert was raised, the attackers had already secured a strong foothold, easily raiding homes and taking away many captives. The Puritan men showed lack of good sense and strategy by leaving their families unprotected as they tried to “rally outside as a counterforce” (Demos 8).
On the subject of family values, the Puritan culture, exemplified by John Williams, left much to be desired. Not only was Williams not able to safeguard his family from being captured by the Indian allies of the French, but he also put up a pathetic showing on the marching route to Canada. He marched weakly, abandoning his daughter Eunice and other children to be cared for by other captives. Perhaps his worst failure was his inability to protect his wife from meeting an untimely death during that fateful march. Having been witness to these failings on the part of her father, it is not surprising that despite the pleas of John Schulyer, Eunice refused to visit John Williams later, instead responding: “Jaghte oghte. Peut-etre que no” – meaning “maybe” or “no” (Demos 97). Secondly, Puritan culture demanded that women be totally subject to the orders of men, even to the extent that “property descended through the male line and authority too, was centered in men” (Demos 133). Thirdly, Puritan culture required children to be strictly disciplined; they were “obliged to curtail their personal expressions” (Demos 133). On the other hand the Iroquois Indian culture integrated women in their society. Iroquoian women possessed “real authority” (Demos 156). In a typical Iroquoian house the matrons were in charge of the entire household (Demos 145). Iroquoian men who were “mostly idle,” contributed little to the upkeep of their families except for “going on hunts” periodically (Demos 150). As a result of their hard work and authority, Iroquoian women displayed a more “strong and robust constitution” as compared to their North European counterparts (Demos 147). Iroquoian children were not only given a few chores to perform towards the upkeep of the family, but that too was done through “suggestion and not firm discipline;” and moreover no one “would dare to strike or punish them” (Demos 134).
On the subject of religion, the culture of the Protestant Puritans taught that only a few persons {“a little sanctuary” (Demos 56)} are ultimately chosen to enter Heaven while the majority would be denied this sanctuary and be consigned to Hell. On the other hand, the Roman Catholics believed that most people will be allowed into Heaven; this belief contributed in considerable part to Catholicism being largely accepted by the masses as compared to Puritanism. As for the Native Indians, most had either accepted Catholicism outright or were “a kind of half Roman Catholics” (Demos 144). The Native Indians took their religion seriously, were known to take special pleasure in church singing (Demos 119) while several of them were outstanding exponents of their religion . While the Catholics were basically not against Puritanism, the Puritans believed in themselves as the “People of God” and considered the Catholics as their enemies (Demos 62). Some Puritans even thought that “Satan himself, enraged by the conversion of so many Indians, drove them [Catholics] on” (Demos 118). The Puritan hatred for Catholics is well illustrated by their condemnation of Eunice’s Catholic Indian husband Francois Xavier as a “Philistine” and a “Savage” (Demos 89).
Puritans looked at captivity as a spiritual trip that not only constituted a punishment to prisoners for their sins, but also as a destiny charted for them by God; it was their duty to bear their ordeal because by doing so they would please God. The French accorded their captives good treatment and in many cases even granted naturalized citizenship to them. However they were guilty of some unfair practices such as not permitting a captive woman who was the widow of a Frenchman, the right to take her children and property if she wished to leave (Demos 108). The Native Indians looked at captivity from a business as well as a humanitarian angle. They marched their captives along the northern trail to Canada in businesslike fashion, not hesitating to “slay at intervals” (Demos 23) those who were too feeble and unable to keep up with the rest; Indian prisoners were the subject of thriving trade for Montreal and Quebec merchants who reconciled them to their original families in future for payment (Demos 73)}. From a humanitarian angle, Indians practiced “adoption’ of captives into their families – an old practice signifying “every drop of white blood was washed out of the captives’ veins” (Demos 71-72)}. An outstanding example of successful Indian adoption was Eunice, who totally, wholeheartedly and without compulsion integrated into the Indian society and culture. When John Williams tried to retrieve her, at first the Indian family that had adopted her refused to part with the girl, declaring that they “would rather part their hearts” (Demos 136). Williams was rebuffed at the second attempt by Eunice herself who declared her unwillingness to return to the Williams family and the Puritan way of life. Eunice not only chose to be baptized as Catholic , but she went on to marry a Catholic Indian and later her two daughters too married Indian men (Demos 154); Eunice herself went on to live in the Native Indian village until her demise.
In conclusion, by concentrating on family values and personal relationships of unremarkable, simple people as their domestic lives are manipulated by political occurrences rather than on the exploits of the famous and/or the notorious, John Demos demonstrates why he is regarded as a pioneer among the newer school of academia and professional historians. He does well to shatter the cultural conflicts between Christian and heathen, Native American and European, nature and civilization – conflicts on which the tale of Colonial American history has customarily been constructed. The depicted cultural clashes become particularly intriguing and enthralling when viewed through the story’s prism of war, family values, religion and treatment of captives – all of which radiate from the nucleus that is Eunice Williams, ‘The Unredeemed Captive’ whose soul stretches across the centuries with a message that God has made people of all nations with one blood. John Demos’ masterpiece is a wonderful work of socio-psychological depth and massive social integrity that is intransigent in the quality level of its scholarship, yet at the same time enthralling to a wide, non-academic assembly of readers primarily interested in the essential characteristics of cultural identity and conflicting contemporaneously existing societies.
Reference
Demos, John Putnam. “The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America.” USA: First Vintage. 1995.