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Deerfield Massacre

In the winter darkness in 1704, hundreds of French and Indian warriors swept down on the frontier town, killed dozens of villagers, and forced 112 captives to march to Canada.

Editor's Note: James L.

A very distant world of Puritans and the Native Americans they dispossessed is brought to complex life by John Demos in his latest book.

John Demos can do something that no one else I’ve read can do as well: bring to empathetic life the distant world of the New England Puritans.

One terrible night came to symbolize the whole struggle for supremacy on the North American continent.

Our traditional picture of colonial New England is essentially a still life. Peaceful little villages. Solid, strait-laced, steadily productive people. A landscape serene, if not bountiful.

As it Looked Ninety Years Ago…

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