Captors and Captives

EVAN HAEFELI is assistant professor of history at Columbia University KEVIN SWEENEY is professor of history at Amherst College.

An impressive account that explores the raid from the conflicting viewpoints of the raiders, both French-Canadian and Native American, and the Deerfield villagers - as well as its place in the century-long conflict between the two colonial empires. - Boston Globe ""An exceptionally well-researched, engaging, and cogent book. Captors and Captives is sure to become the standard account of the 1704 raid, likely to withstand the scrutiny of antiquarians and professional historians alike. The authors' meticulous research has uncovered new insights about a story that has been told and retold for three centuries. They have also expertly situated Deerfield within the historiographies of New England, New France, and Native America, suggesting new directions for each of these vibrant and complex subfields. If Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville accomplished the extraordinary by approaching Deerfield with so formidable and diverse an arsenal, Haefeli and Sweeney's book is a fitting commemorative for the event, for they have done the same."" - Reviews in American History ""An absorbing and important depiction of the diverse communities scattered across the Northeast at the turn of the century - particularly French and Indian - and the sometimes bitter, sometimes friendly relationships that connected them.... The cross-cultural, continental, transatlantic, and biographical aspects of Captors and Captives make it useful and fun for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses on colonial America."" - Journal of American History ""Broad in perspective, meticulous in its attention to detail, imaginative in its conception, Captors and Captives is a model of the historian's craft.... The story of the attack itself has been told countless times, but Haefeli and Sweeney have brought an uncommon sensitivity to the sources and have reconstructed the details of the event in ways that might once have been thought impossible."" - New England Quarterly ""Haefeli and Sweeney use individuals' experiences to illuminate the variety of motives - private and communal, religious and political, imperial and local - that prompted individuals into action or inaction. Especially valuable is the corrective contribution of this approach with respect to New France, exposing the heterogeneous collection of identities, allegiances, and interests that shaped French policy and French settlers' behaviors along the northern frontier.... What makes this study all the more impressive and effective as a social history is that the authors were able to translate this wealth of data into a gripping narrative."" - American Historical Review