5. Hannah found other English captives being held by the Abenaki
The Abenaki, like most of the Native Americans of the northeast, did not consider women to be worthy of the attention of men beyond their duties as servants and wives. This was particularly true when traveling, whether as a war party or for other reasons. Women prepared the food, made the camp, gathered the firewood, repaired the weapons, and for the most part kept watch over the prisoners. Hannah Duston and Mary Neff, being in the eyes of the Abenaki warriors mere women, were not bound and dragged along as they traveled north. They traveled in company with the native women, who ensured that the existence of the English women was unpleasant enough. After a fortnight, Hannah and Mary were left in the care of an Indian family, likely Pennacook Indians.
Already residing with the family was another English captive, a teenage boy by the name of Samuel Leonardson. It was unusual for a boy of his age to be in residence with a family without having assumed some of the duties of the warriors, even if he had been adopted by the Abenaki, and had earned a certain degree of their trust. Leonardson had been instructed by either the Abenaki women or their husbands in the use of the tomahawk and the scalping knife. According to some versions of Hannah’s legend, it was she who encouraged young Leonardson to ask the Indians to teach him how to use the tomahawk on a man, which they obligingly (and somewhat unbelievably) agreed to teach him. If the tale is true, the trusting Abenaki taught the captured British boy how to kill with a tomahawk and then allowed him to sleep unguarded, with such weapons to hand, and recently captured Englishwomen nearby.