Raid on Deerfield 1704
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 29 February 1704 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1704 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | United States | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | North America | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Queen Anne's War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Kingdom of England | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 42.5486, -72.6071 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Raid on Deerfield, also known as the Deerfield Massacre, was an attack on February 29, 1704, of French and Native American forces on the English colonial settlement of Deerfield, Province of Massachusetts Bay. Springing just before dawn, raiders under the command of Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville burned parts of the town and killed 47 colonists. They left with 112 colonists as captives, whom they took overland the nearly 300 miles to Montreal; some died or were killed along the way because they were unable to keep up. Roughly 60 colonists were later ransomed by their associates, while others were adopted by Mohawk families at Kahnawake and became assimilated into the tribe.
In this period, English colonists and their Indian allies were involved in similar raids against French villages along the northern area between the spheres of influence. Typical of the small-scale frontier conflict in Queen Anne's War, the French-Indian forces consisted of French soldiers and about 240 Indian warriors, mostly Abenaki (from what is now Maine), but including Wendat (Huron) from Lorette, Mohawk from Kahnawake (both mission villages), and a number of Pocomtuc who had once lived in the Deerfield area.
Given the diversity of personnel, motivations, and material objectives, the raiders did not achieve full surprise when they entered the palisaded village.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Raid on Deerfield (revision 1377572470), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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Other battles of the Queen Anne's War
- Battle of Flint River 1702
- Newfoundland expedition (1702) 1702
- Siege of St. Augustine (1702) 1702
- Raid on Grand Pré 1704
- Siege of St. John's 1705
- Siege of Pensacola (1707) 1707
- Siege of Port Royal (1707) 1707
- Raid on Haverhill (1708) 1708
- Battle of Fort Albany (1709) 1709
- Battle of St. John's 1709
All 13 battles of the Queen Anne's War →
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