Hannah Dustin

Hannah Duston (Dustin, Dustan, and Durstan) (born Hannah Emerson, December 23, 1657 – c. 1737) was a colonial Massachusetts Puritan mother of nine who was taken captive by Abenaki people from Québec during King William's War, with her newborn daughter, during the Raid on Haverhill in 1697, in which 27 colonists were killed. While detained on an island in the Merrimack River in present-day Boscawen, New Hampshire, she killed and scalped ten of the Native family members holding them hostage, with the assistance of two other captives. She claimed the Abenaki had killed her baby during the journey to the island.

Duston's captivity narrative became famous more than 100 years after she died. Duston is believed to be the first American woman honored with a statue. During the 19th century, she was referred to as "a folk hero" and the "mother of the American tradition of scalp hunting". Some scholars assert Duston's story only became legend in the 19th century because the United States used her story to defend its violence against Native Americans as innocent, defensive, and virtuous.

Hannah Emerson was the oldest of 15 children. At age 20, she married Thomas Duston, a farmer and brick-maker. The Emerson family had previously been the subject of attention when Elizabeth Emerson, Hannah's younger sister, was hanged for infanticide.

During King William's War, Hannah, her husband Thomas, and their eight children were residents of Haverhill, Massachusetts. In March 1697, when she was 40 years old, the town was attacked by a group of Abenaki from Quebec. In the attack, 27 colonists were killed, and 13 were taken captive to be either adopted or held as hostages for the French. When their farm was attacked, Thomas fled with eight children, but Hannah and her nurse, Mary Neff (nee Corliss), were captured and forced to march into the wilderness, Hannah carrying her newborn daughter, Martha. According to the account Hannah gave to Cotton Mather, along the way her captors killed the six-day-old Martha by smashing her head against a tree.

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