Public_History_Mary_Nov21

The Raid on Deerfield website ‘effectively conveys the past to a “general” audience’. The site tells the story of a raid on Deerfield Massachusetts in 1704 with the abduction of a number of captives from the town. The Deerfield site dramatizes this story of early America and successfully presents many issues for consideration about the English struggle with the French and Indians. The site provides background information about the English colonists’ struggle with the French and three Indian tribes, the Wôbanakiak, Kanienkehaka and Wendat.

The site is well designed and extremely attractive. Pictures were commissioned specifically for the site. Most of the pictures use a rollover technique where users highlight a person or item to see further ‘information’. The timeline is particularly effective. It shows three rows of events. The top row of the timeline displays local history. The middle row displays events in the North, that is the northeastern part of North America. The bottom row displays corresponding events in the World. Therefore events in local history are displayed in conjunction with the region’s and World events. The site features a Teacher’s Guide that includes specific exercises for students and references to further reading. The site has a dark background with a design of symbols for the nations that surprisingly works very attractively as a backdrop.

The text is well written. There is an attempt to downplay the pro-white English settler bias of earlier interpretations and to assume a more universal point of view. Thus the treatment of the Indians prior to the raid on Deerfield is described including an attack on Indians at Peskeompskut that was the beginning of English offensive action against Native peoples in the Connecticut River Valley during Metacom's War which along with disease was disastrous for the Indians. The presumption then becomes that the Deerfield raid was not without justifiable cause.

The most difficult aspect of deciding whether this site ‘effectively conveys the past’ for a historian in pursuit of truth is the use of fictional characterizations to dramatize the story of the raid. Site creators are not only straightforward and candid but also enthusiastic about their approach. They contend that ‘the people narratives provide the heart and soul of the website. They tell the stories of the people behind the raid and in doing so, capture viewers' attention, provoke curiosity, invite involvement and convey layers of meaning.’ The site contains an explanation: ‘where there are few or no written records, we have fashioned "composite narratives," based on historical, archaeological, traditional, and linguistic evidence used to create plausible life stories’. For two slaves, Parthena and Frank, only 2 or 3 bits of information are certain. These facts are the slim basis for a story of how the slaves came to Massachusetts, how they were treated and how they reacted to life in New England and what happened to them in the Raid. I do not wholly buy this historical license. The fictional characterizations do not invite my ‘involvement’ but rather my skepticism. However, I think there is value in this site for the “general” audience who are not so prone to pondering the motives of historians and are likely to come away with an understanding of the perilous life on the New England frontier and an appreciation for the complexity of the struggle.