Eunice Williams of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was seven years old when she was captured in the 1704 Deerfield raid during Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713) and taken to the colony of New France. She was ritually adopted and assimilated into a new Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) family in Kahnawake. Despite repeated attempts by her father, Reverend John Williams, and English officials to convince her to return home, Eunice refused.

When she was first taken, Eunice was given the name A’ongote, which roughly translates to mean “she was taken and placed” as a new tribal member. At age 16, Eunice married Francois-Xavier Arosen, a Native man living in her village. She later acquired the name Kanenstenhawi, meaning “she brings in the corn,” and was accepted as a full tribal member, despite her English origins.

Kanenstenhawi bore at least three children. Her two known daughters were Catherine (Gassinontie, or “Flying Leg”), born in 1736, and Marie (Skentsiese, “New Fish”), born in 1739. She also had a son named John, who apparently died at Lake George, New York. Her progeny included one grandson and 12 great-grandchildren, two of whom were sent to school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where her brother Stephen Williams served as minister.

Kanenstenhawi made four trips back to New England, in 1740, 1741, 1743, and 1761, to visit with her Williams siblings, sometimes accompanied by Arosen. When visiting her brother in Longmeadow, she insisted on camping outside in the orchard, rather than stay in the confines of an English house. Much effort was made to encourage her to stay in Massachusetts, but she always returned to New France. Her decision to live out her life in Kahnawake was beyond comprehension to her English family and neighbors, who lamented her fate as a famous “unredeemed captive.” She passed away in 1785, at the age of 89, a beloved member of her Kanien’kehaka community.