What does it mean to be taken captive? According to Webster's dictionary.
a captive is one who is forcibly confined, subjugated, or enslaved. It is obviously .
not a desire for anyone to become a captive of war, however this was the case.
for hundreds of colonists both French and English during the colonization of the.
"New World". John Demos, author of "The Unredeemed Captive", describes.
many of these prisoner's stories and their new lives with their captors. The book.
however is centralized around one family in particular, and their still captive.
daughter; Eunice Williams. When a child becomes captive it is almost.
unbearable for their family who can only fear the worst. But when a child is.
unwilling to return home after they have been captive for quite some time,.
it brings a whole new aspect of grief, like a nightmare, a situation that can only.
leave the captive's family in complete confusion. For John Williams, this was.
reality, his daughter Eunice, was unwilling to come home after being given the.
choice to go back or stay with her Indian captors. Indian culture was so foreign.
so frightening, and so unusual to the New England colonists, that a situation like.
Eunice's could only bring tremendous fear to her family and leave New.
Englanders asking, "What will these heathens teach and do to our people?".
Turning back the clock to the late seventeenth century, we find America in.
a state of clashing empires; New England and New France. Two Empires who.
.
take their religion so seriously that both are willing to shed blood in order to keep.
their religion spread amongst the world. France's Catholic beliefs did not .
coincide well with the Protestant beliefs of the English; creating a religious battle.
between two neighboring empires in the "new world". A third group, the natives.
of this new world, play somewhat of a neutral group. However their role in this.
conflict of religion is an important one, especially for the French who discover.