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Statues To Hatchet-wielding Colonist Hannah Duston Reconsidered

Hannah Duston statue
CRAIG MICHAUD VIA WIKICOMMONS

Statues in Massachusetts and New Hampshire honoring an English colonist who took a hatchet to her Native American captors after the death of her baby are being reconsidered.

Historians and Native Americans argue many of Hannah Duston's victims weren't Indigenous warriors, but children.

They say the 17th-century tale was used by European colonists to justify eradicating New England's Indigenous population. In Massachusetts, the Haverhill City Council has voted to remove the hatchet that Duston fiercely wields in the city's statue.

In New Hampshire, an advisory committee is weighing changes to a similar memorial at the alleged site of Duston's bloody revenge.

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