3. Hannah lived during a time of brutal violence in New England
King William’s War was but the latest in a series of conflicts between the English settlers and the natives, who were backed by their allies from France. The French envisioned America as an economic colony, providing furs and other wealth to the throne via trade with the native tribes, rather than the establishment of settlements dependent on the mother country. By the 1690s, the conflicts in North America had destroyed many of the indigent peoples of New England, the remnants of their tribes taking shelter with the Abenaki, who reigned over the lands of northern New England and southern Canada. Abenaki raids on English settlements were notorious for their mercilessness, a violence encouraged by the French missionaries, many of them Jesuits who welcomed the destruction of the Protestant English as a means that justified by the end.
The savage nature of the wars in North America were reflected in the conflicts in Europe, of which they were but a sideshow to the monarchs on their gilded thrones. English settlers resented the French, but began to resent the English as well, as protecting troops were often absent, and the responsibility for protecting the settlements landed on the settlers themselves. During King William’s War, whole Massachusetts towns (and Connecticut and New Hampshire towns as well) were razed by the savagery of the Abenaki attacks. The settlers remained on or near their farms, establishing alarm systems to rouse the militia to defense at the same time it warned the women and children to flee for the security of frontier strongholds and blockhouses. Such was the situation on the Massachusetts frontier, including Haverhill, in March, 1697.