Date Published: May 21, 2024
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
About the Book
Colonist Benjamin Waite, a devoted husband, father, and skilled military scout in King Philip’s War, reluctantly obeys orders to guide an attack against a camp of Algonquian Natives.
After the catastrophic event, Benjamin is burdened with guilt and longs for peace. But the Algonquians, led by the revered sachem Ashpelon, retaliate with vengeance upon Ben’s Massachusetts town of Hatfield, capturing over a dozen colonists, including his pregnant wife Martha and their three young daughters.
Hatfield 1677 is a tale of three interwoven yet diverging journeys of strength and survival: Benjamin, driven by love and remorse to rescue his family; Martha, forced into captivity and desperately striving to protect her children; and Ashpelon, willing to risk everything to ensure the safety and freedom of his people.
Based on the lives of the author’s ancestors, this riveting and unforgettable novel gives voice to three vastly different experiences in North America during a time before the creation of the Declaration of Independence. Then, the land was but a wilderness and a battleground; equality was not yet perceived as self-evident; and liberty and happiness were nothing more than dangerous pursuits.
Excerpt
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sept 19, 1677, Night
Camp
ASHPELON
I could not rest, so I paced about our camp, watching the exhausted English sleep. We had staked them down, as we would for several nights until they no longer knew where they were and no longer dreamt of escape. We staked only the men and the women. The English children we kept by our small cooking fire. They were our wampum, our gems for trading. Whether ransomed back to their English parents or sold to the French to the north, they would bring a high price. Or perhaps we would keep some. To replace the ghosts of our children, slaughtered by the English at Peskeompskut and in so many other massacres.
A few of our warriors stalked the forest, calling to me and each other in the sounds of owls and wolves. They scouted for signs of the English and the Mohawks. From their hoots and howls, I learned we’d not been followed. Not yet. And still, I walked amongst the captives. They lay on their backs, arms spread wide like their angels but pinioned to the earth. Unable to fly.
It was good we had taken their women. At least one, the Waite woman, was with child which increased the price we could ask for her. The men were a mistake. They were a foolish risk, especially the elderly warrior Plympton. Old but not weak. A possible danger to us. But some of our women had asked for men in retribution for husbands and sons killed by the English.
The English might not be following, but I was not sure about the Mohawks, our ancient enemies. They were like fawning English dogs, begging for scraps in trade for hunting down our people. The English think they can trust them, but in our language, their name Mohawk means “flesh-eater.”
Likewise, Mohawks will soon learn, like we have, that the English cannot be trusted. They ask to share the land but build fences, walls, and stockades and use guns to tell us we are no longer welcome. The English will feed you one day and whip you the next.
The French treated us fairly when they wanted beaver furs, and some of us bowed to their God. But now that beavers are scarce, the French may resolve they no longer need us. Still, Canada is our safest refuge now. Even our former enemies, the Abenaki, have opened their clans to us since Metacomet’s death.
The forest hides us well. The moon is just a sliver of a raccoon’s whisker, a harvest moon no more. We lit only one small fire for cooking. It was a warm night, and we needed the concealment of darkness. The moon would grow again and would soon be round and full as the Waite woman’s belly—the Leaf Falling Moon. By then, we would be far to the north, where neither English nor Mohawks could find us.
About the Author
Laura C. Rader earned a BA in psychology from San Diego State University, where she minored in history and took creative writing and literature classes. She drew on those passions in her thirty-year career as a history and English teacher of elementary and middle school students. Now, a full-time historical fiction writer, Laura also enjoys studying genealogy, attending neighborhood book club meetings, taking forest walks with her Rough Collie, and visiting her adult daughter in Brooklyn. Originally from California, Laura lives twenty miles north of Raleigh, North Carolina. Hatfield 1677 is a work of historical fiction inspired by a story Laura discovered about her ninth great-grandparents while researching her family’s genealogy.
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