The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America

You must know this story or book! This is not a review/plot summary; we must answer the questions below. This essay is a response from the book “The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America” by John Demos!

Essay Question:
Demos concludes his book with an Epilogue where he describes a meeting between Eunice
Williams’s descendants from both Canada and New England. He observes “how remarkable it is – given such distinct, unlike, hostile, and irreconcilable elements – that these two groups should ever have been blended together†(Demos, 250). He then suggests that maybe the “redemption†the Williamses sought for Eunice can actually be found in the joining of these two families (Demos, 252). Demos seems to be ending his exploration of this family story on a positive note: that despite the odds, these two very different groups ultimately came, at least in some degree, to understand and accept each other.
Do you agree with Demos? For this essay, did the Williams family and the Kahnawake Indians
come to understand and accept each other more? Or did their interactions lead to more
misunderstanding and condemnation? Or alternatively…were their interactions a mixture of both? Consider how the beliefs, values, and expectations each group held affected how they thought about others and interpreted their ideas and actions. Give specific examples from the book of how these two groups either understood/misunderstood or accepted/condemned one another. Make a thorough and well-reasoned argument using evidence to support your arguments. There is no need to cite the textbook or lectures, but use the material we have been learning in class to add historical context and support your conclusions.