Join us for an evening with Jay Atkinson author of Massacre on the Merrimack

Description

 
Early on March 15, 1697, a band of Abenaki raided the English frontier village of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Striking swiftly, the Abenaki killed twenty-seven men, women, and children, and took thirteen captives, including Hannah Duston and her week-old daughter, Martha. A short distance from the village, one of the warriors murdered the squalling infant by dashing her head against a tree.
After witnessing her infant’s murder, Duston resolved to get even. Two weeks into their captivity, Duston and her
companions, a fifty-one-year-old woman and a twelve-year-old boy, moved among the sleeping Abenaki with tomahawks and knives, killing two men, two women, and six children.
After returning to the bloody scene alone to scalp their victims, Duston and the others escaped down the Merrimack River in a stolen canoe. They braved treacherous waters and the constant threat of attack and recapture, returning to tell their story and collect a bounty for the scalps.
Was Hannah Duston the prototypical feminist avenger, or the harbinger of the Native American genocide? In this exquisitely researched and riveting narrative, bestselling author Jay Atkinson sheds new light on the early struggle for North America.
 
Sponsored by The Friends of the Salisbury Public Library