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 newborn daughter, during the 1697 raid on Haverhill, in which 27 colonists, 15 of them children, were killed. In her account she stated that the Abenaki killed her baby soon after they were captured. While detained on an island in the Merrimack River in present-day Boscawen, New Hampshire, she killed and scalped ten of the Native American 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 a folk hero and the "mother of the American tradition of scalp-hunting." Some scholars assert Duston's story became legend in the 19th century only because the United States used her story to defend its violence against Native Americans as innocent, defensive, and virtuous. Duston is believed to be the first...
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