Pocumtuck (Amerind tribe)

The privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste in the summer of 1696 leads Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville's expedition out of Acadia to attack strongholds on the New England coast.

After having captured two frigates at the mouth of St. John River, the first target is the vitally important port at Pemaquid (present day Bristol, Maine).

The port is protected by Fort William Henry (also known as Fort Pemaquid).

Baptiste and the expedition soundly destroy the fort and dismantle it.

Acadia becomes a source of torment for the settlers of New England.

The New Englanders strike back within weeks of the attack on Pemaquid.

An expedition under command of Colonel John Hathorn and accompanied by Major Benjamin Church sets out in 1696 to destroy Fort Nashwaak (present day Fredericton, New Brunswick), Acadia's capital.

Governor Villebon had been alerted and prepared his defenses.

The New England troops arrive opposite the fort on October 18, land three cannons and assemble earthworks on the south bank of the Nashwaak River.

Baptiste, here to defend the capital, joins the natives and puts himself at their head for the duration of the siege.

There is a fierce exchange of fire for two days, with the advantage going to the better-sited French guns.

The New Englanders are defeated, having suffered eight killed and seventeen wounded.

The French have lost one killed and two wounded.

The English, in withdrawing from the Siege of Fort Nashwaak, had given up up two small boats, which Baptiste uses to head to Grand Pre.

While in Grand Pre, he had armed the vessels and recruited Acadian crew members to make a descent on the coast of New England.

Baptiste in March 1697, captures eight English fishing vessels within three leagues of Casco Bay.

Despite being injured three times in the raid, Baptiste is able to capture the vessels and take many prisoners.

Two New England privateer ships arrive at the scene but Baptiste is able to beat them back and safely return to Grand Pre with his prizes.

Villebon had again sent Baptiste to raid the New England ports in May 1697.

Baptiste, for a second time, had been captured and imprisoned in Boston for over a year.

Despite the official end of the war iwith the Treaty of Ryswick, the New Englanders are reluctant to release him.

The European war had ended in 1697,  but continues in New England for two more years.

Baptiste, upon his release, in December 1698, returns to Port Royal.

Villebon had made Baptiste captain of a small coast guard vessel and captain of the Port Royal militia.

Baptiste is protecting Acadian fishing interests off of Acadia when he is captured in 1702 and again imprisoned in Boston on the eve of Queen Anne's War.

During Queen Anne's War, Queen Anne is reported to have ordered that no prisoners are to be exchanged and that Baptiste is to be hanged, because he is an officer of the garrison of Port Royal who had been made prisoner during peacetime, and who had then failed to recover his freedom, on the ground of his being a pirate.

On hearing this, Governor of Plaisance (Placentia), Newfoundland Jacques-François de Monbeton de Brouillan had sent an express messenger to Boston, to declare to the governor that the he will retaliate if Baptiste is killed.

This saves Baptiste's life.

Joint French and native forces attack the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, on February 29, 1704, during Queen Anne's War, in what becomes known as the 1704 Raid on Deerfield.

Under the command of Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville are forty-seven Canadiens and two hundred Abenaki, Kanienkehaka, and Wyandot as well as a few Pocumtuck.

They strike at dawn, razing Deerfield and killing fifty-six colonists, including twenty-two men, nine women, and twenty-five children.

The French and native raiders take as captives one hundred and nine survivors, including women and children, and force them on a months-long trek to Quebec.

Many die along the way; some are killed because they cannot keep up.

Deerfield and other communities collect funds to ransom the captives, and negotiations are conducted between colonial governments.

Baptiste is kept in strict seclusion on Boston's Castle Island until December, 1706.

New France and Acadia have made significant diplomatic efforts to get him back, insisting that he be released as part of a prisoner exchange involving captives taken by French and native raiders in the 1704 Raid on Deerfield.

Difficulties in obtaining Baptiste's release have also lead to the delay in the return of another prominent prisoner, Acadian Noel Doiron.

Canada, on New England's release of he French pirate Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste, arranges redemption of numerous Deerfield people, among them the minister John Williams, who writes a captivity narrative about his experience, which is published in 1707 and becomes well known.

Because of losses to war and disease, the Mohawk and other tribes often adopt younger captives into their tribes.

Such had been the case with Williams' daughter Eunice, eight years old when captured.

She will become thoroughly assimilated, marrying a Mohawk man at age sixteen.

Most of the Deerfield captives eventually return to New England.

Other captives during this period remain by choice in French and Native communities such as Kahnawake for the rest of their lives.

Baptiste had eventually returned to Acadia in 1706 and for the rest of Queen Anne's War will serve as port captain of the Acadian settlement of Beaubassin.

He is reported to have served with distinction in the first Siege of Port Royal in 1707.