Hannah Duston (also spelled Dustin, Dustan, Durstan, Dustun, Dunstun, or Durstun) (born Hannah Emerson, December 23, 1657 – March 6, 1736, 1737 or 1738) was a colonial Massachusetts Puritan woman who was taken captive by Abenaki people from Quebec during King William's War, with her first newborn daughter, during the 1697 raid on Haverhill, in which 27 colonists, 15 of them children, were killed. In her account given to Cotton Mather, it is stated that the Abenakis killed her newborn baby and several other captives soon after the raid. While detained on an island in the Merrimack River in present-day Boscawen, New Hampshire, she killed and scalped ten of the Abenaki family members holding them hostage, with the assistance of two other captives.
Duston's captivity narrative became famous more than 100 years after she died. During the 19th century, she was referred to as an American folk hero and the "mother of the American tradition of scalp-hunting." Some scholars assert Duston's story became a legend in the 19th century only because her story was used to justify violence against Native American tribes as innocent, defensive, and virtuous. Duston is believed to be the first American woman honored with a statue.
Biography
Early life
Hannah Emerson was born December 23, 1657, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, to Michael Emerson and Hannah Webster Emerson; she was the oldest of 15 children. At age 20, she married Thomas Duston Jr., a farmer and brick-maker. The Emerson family would later become the subject of attention when Elizabeth Emerson, Hannah's younger sister, was hanged for infanticide on June 8, 1693. One of Hannah's cousins, Martha Toothaker Emerson, and her father, Roger Toothaker, were accused of practicing witchcraft and tried at the Salem witch trials (1692–93). the town was raided by a group of about 30 Abenaki from Quebec. In the attack, 27 colonists were killed (half of them children), and 13 were taken captive, to be either adopted or held as hostages for the French. Hannah's husband Thomas, who was building a new brick home about half a mile away, fled with eight of their nine children.
:"About 19 or 20 Indians now led these away, with about half a score of other English captives, but ere they had gone many steps, they dash'd out the brains of the infant against a tree, and several of the other captives, as they began to tire in the sad journey, were soon sent unto their long home."
Rebellion and escape
The captives were taken north to an island in the Merrimack River at the mouth of the Contoocook River, where, during the night of April 29 or 30, while the Indians were sleeping, Hannah led Mary and Samuel in a revolt:
:"...furnishing themselves with hatchets for the purpose, they struck home such blows upon the heads of their sleeping oppressors, that ere they could any of them struggle...they fell down dead."