Peacetree has lived in Haverhill for two decades. They may have planned to ransom her back to her family, which was a common practice at the time. Scholars believe that’s because by the time Duston made her escape, she was no longer traveling with her original captors but with a family group - likely Abenaki - made up of two men, three women and seven children. A number of Duston's victims were children, he says, not warriors. Standing in the shadow of the Haverhill statue on a windy spring evening, Peacetree explains how the popular legend - in which Duston acted in self-defense against a group of Native American warriors who had kidnapped her and killed her newborn - is contradicted by historical evidence. ![]() “That hatchet is supposedly the one that she actually used to ‘scalp the warriors’,” says Ron Peacetree, of the Haverhill Historical Commission. It, along with a similar statue in Boscawen, New Hampshire, have become flashpoints in the country’s ongoing debate about racist monuments, as locals reevaluate the Duston legend. The statue honors Hannah Duston, a 17th-century English colonist who is believed to have killed 10 Native Americans in order to escape captivity during King William’s War. In her right hand she grips a small hatchet. Scowling ferociously, she leans forward, pointing her left hand accusingly. In Haverhill, Massachusetts, a statue of a woman towers over a patch of daffodils in the city’s G.A.R. ![]() ![]() This story has been updated as the Haverhill City Council has voted to keep the statue of Hannah Duston in the park, but alter a portion of the inscription, and remove the hatchet. (Jesse Costa/WBUR) This article is more than 1 year old.Įditor’s Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence against children that may be disturbing.
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