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Hannah Swarton (1651 - 12 October 1708), née Joana Hibbert/Hibbard, was a New England colonial pioneer who was captured by Abenaki Indians and held prisoner for years, first in an Abenaki community and later in the home of a French family in Quebec. She was eventually freed and told her story to Cotton Mather, who used it as a moral lesson in several of his works.
She married John Swarton in Beverly, Massachusetts on 8 January 1670 or 1671. Bentley, Elizabeth Petty, Torrey, Clarence Almon. New England marriages prior to 1700. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1985 They had five children in Beverly, Massachusetts: Vital Records of Beverly, Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849, Vol 1 - Births. Topsfield Historical Society; Topsfield, MA. Salem: Newcomb and Gauss: 1906.
In 1687, John Swarton of Beverly received a 50-acre land grant in North Yarmouth. In his petition he said he was from Jersey and had fought with Charles II in Flanders in the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660). The family moved from Beverly to Casco Bay in 1689, and were visited there later that year by Benjamin Church. Coleman, Emma Lewis. New England captives carried to Canada between 1677 and 1760, during the French and Indian wars. Portland, Maine: The Southworth Press, 1925.
On 16 May 1690, the fortified settlement on Casco Bay was attacked by a war party of 50 French-Canadian soldiers led by Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, about 50 Abenaki warriors from Canada, a contingent of French militia led by Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière, and 300-400 additional natives from Maine, including some Penobscots under the leadership of Madockawando. Fort Loyal was attacked at the same time. About 75 men in the Casco settlement fought for four days before surrendering on 20 May, on condition of safe passage to the nearest English town. Instead, most of the men, including John Swarton, were killed, and the surviving settlers were taken captive, including Hannah Swarton and her children Samuel, Mary, John, and Jasper Swarton. One source says that of over 200 people in the fort, only 10 or 12 survived and were taken into captivity. John Thomas Hull, "The Siege and Capture of Fort Loyall: Destruction of Falmouth, May 20, 1690," A Paper Read Before the Maine Genealogical Society, June 2 1885, by John T. Hull. Printed by Order of the City Council of Portland. Owen, Strout & Company, printers, 1885
From May 1690, until February 1691, she traveled on "many weary journeys" with the Indians through the wilderness of northern Maine. She describes being starved and forced to work in the snow without adequate clothing. Hannah's native mistress was a Catholic who had been raised in an English community at Black Point (present-day Scarborough, Maine). She told Hannah that her captivity was punishment for her rejection of Catholicism. Another English captive, John York, lived with Hannah until he became too weak to work and the Abenakis killed him.
Hannah believed that her captivity and suffering were divine punishment inflicted on her for her sins, a common theme in Puritan literature of the time. In particular, Hannah identifies leaving "public worship and the Ordinances of God" by moving from Beverly, Massachusetts, to Casco Bay, a rural community "where there was no Church, or Minister of the Gospel," as a transgression, even though she probably had little choice in the matter. She also remained certain that she would eventually be delivered and would afterwards be inspired to "declare the Works of the Lord," as payment for her freedom.
He had her treated at a local hospital (probably the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec) and his wife paid a ransom to Hannah's Indian master. (Although it was common at the time for the French to "buy" English prisoners from the Indians, Letki, Elaine, "Captives of the French and Indian Wars, 1676-1763: English Slavery in Canada," Doctoral Thesis in History, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, 14 Dec 2019 the French later discouraged this practice. Bumstead, J. M. "'Carried to Canada!': Perceptions of the French in British Colonial Captivity Narratives, 1690-1760." American Review of Canadian Studies, 13 (1983): 79-96.) He then employed Hannah as a housekeeper, although she was, in effect, a slave. She was fed and clothed well, but was subjected to pressure to convert to Catholicism, which she resisted. Tara Fitzpatrick, "The Figure of Captivity: The Cultural Work of the Puritan Captivity Narrative," American Literary History, Vol. 3, No. 1: Spring, 1991, pp. 1-26 Hannah states in her narrative that her French family threatened to have her sent to France, where she would be burned as a Heresy, but Hannah continued to refuse to convert, arguing with the "Nuns, Priests, and Friars" whom she met at church, using quotations from scripture. Hannah was forced to attend mass regularly until her mistress decided that she was not going to convert, and thereafter did not require her to go to church.
During her stay in Quebec, Hannah encountered other English prisoners including Edward Tyng and John Alden III (son of John Alden Jr.). Another English captive, 12-year-old Margaret Gould Stilson, was also a servant in the same household. Eventually she was forbidden contact with other English captives except for Margaret Stilson.
Hannah's daughter Mary Swarton chose to remain in Canada, where she had already converted to Catholicism, had been re-baptized on 20 February 1695, and was renamed "Marie Souart, daughter of the late Jean Souart and Anne Souart." In 1697 she married Jean Lehait (John Lahey), an Irishman and also a former captive, and became a French citizen in May, 1710. Mary lived for the rest of her life in Montreal.
Cotton Mather's sermon of 6 May 1697 was published as an appendix to his Humiliations Follow'd With Deliverances and includes the stories of Hannah Swarton and Hannah Duston. It was republished in expanded form in Magnalia Christi Americana, a 1702 book by Mather. Mather's appendix to the sermon, A Narrative of Hannah Swarton, Containing a Great Many Wonderful Passages, Relating to her Captivity and Deliverance, is clearly Mather's work, in which he employs a woman's voice to emphasize the importance of remaining active in the church and mindful of Puritan values, in imitation of his father Increase Mather, who in 1682 published A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson. Kevin J. Hayes, The Oxford Handbook of Early American Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Mather emphasizes the dangers of living in an "ungospelized plantation", a reference to communities in rural Maine without an ordained minister, and which were prone to French (Catholic) influence. Swarton is therefore depicted as a sinner, but one who has atoned, and has been redeemed and returned to grace.
In his diary entry for 15 November 1695, Mather writes:
Mather uses the scene in which Swarton, a poorly-educated frontier woman, engages in a lively scriptural debate with the French attempting to convert her to Catholicism, to illustrate theological differences between English Protestantism and Catholicism, as a means of educating Mather's audience. Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle; Levernier, James, The Indian captivity narrative, 1550-1900, New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1997 Protestant and Catholic populations were in close contact across North America, and pressure to convert mirrored political and economic influences affecting these largely uneducated, agricultural communities. Toulouse, Teresa A. The Captive's Position: Female Narrative, Male Identity, and Royal Authority in Colonial New England. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013. For women in particular, Mather felt it necessary to keep them from being swayed by males who held some leverage over them, such as priests, landlords, administrators, or employers, and who might use threats to coerce women into conversion. Hannah Swarton's resistance to the pressure from her French masters is exhibited as a prime example of loyalty to her Puritan faith, Veronica Hladišová, "I alone have escaped to tell you: Women's Captivity Experience in Early Modern New England," Opera Historica, Vol 9(1):161-171. University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic, 2001 and has been referred to as "passive forbearance in the face of adversity." Kolodny, Annette. The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860. University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
Nonetheless, Mather diminishes his own narrator by dismissing her intellect and memory: "But it's bootless for me, a poor woman, to acquaint the world with what arguments I used, if I could now remember them; and many of them are slipt out of my memory." Stefani, Victoria Lee, "True statements: Women's narratives of the American frontier experience," doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Dept. of English, 2000 David Michael Corlett, "Steadfast in their ways: New England colonists, Indian wars, and the persistence of culture, 1675-1715", Doctoral dissertation, College of William & Mary, Dept of History, January 2011
Mather published Swarton's narrative together with that of Hannah Duston, however Duston's account became better-known as a story of revenge against Native Americans, popular at a time when westward expansion of European settlers brought them into violent conflict with Indians already living in areas where new settlements were being established. Barbara Cutter, "The Female Indian Killer Memorialized: Hannah Duston and the Nineteenth–Century Feminization of American Violence," Journal of Women's History, vol. 20, no. 2, 2008; pp 10–33 Lauren Lessing, "Theatrical Mayhem in Junius Brutus Stearns's Hannah Duston Killing the Indians," American Art, Volume 28, Issue 3, pp. 76-103 Mather depicts Duston as actively ending her captivity by killing her captors and escaping, although he avoided the moral problem raised by Duston's murder of six Indian children. Swarton makes no attempt to escape, but shows endurance in her faith and willingness to recognize and atone for her sins.
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