Eunice Kanenstenhawi Williams

Eunice Williams, also known as Marguerite Kanenstenhawi Arosen, (17 September 1696 – 26 November 1785) was an English colonist taken captive by French and Mohawk warriors from Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1704. Taken to Canada with more than 100 other captives, the seven-year-old girl was adopted by a recently converted Mohawk family at Kahnawake and fully assimilated into Mohawk society. She was baptized as the Catholic "Marguerite" and renamed A'ongonte, meaning "she who has been planted as an ash tree." She eventually married a Mohawk man, François-Xavier Arosen, having several children and remaining with the Mohawk for the rest of her life. While choosing not to return to her natal family, she, along with her children, repeatedly made the trek to Deerfield to visit with her Puritan siblings over the course of her life. Her father, Rev. John Williams and her brother Samuel made numerous efforts to ransom her to no avail. Moreover, they failed to persuade her to return to Massachusetts and her birth family.