Captive
In 1703 a young girl is kidnapped by Abenakis Indians from the English settlement of Wells, Maine and force-marched through dense forests to a settlement in Quebec. Adopted by an Abenakis family, she lives in a Jesuit mission for five years before her freedom is negotiated by a Catholic priest. She is caught up in the clash between the English Crown and the French King and their Native allies who are fighting a bitter and bloody battle for territory. At the age of seven, Esther Wheelwright becomes a pawn in the highly charged struggle between Protestant England and Catholic France for the hearts and minds of North America. To the French, she was a prize captive who had renounced the religion of her parents; to her Abenakis family, she replaced a lost child and to the English Puritans, she was a soul they could not afford to lose. Esther Wheelwright becomes a passionate convert to Catholicism and refuses all pleas from her English family to return home and shuns an offer of marriage into the Quebec aristocracy to retreat into a cloister as an Ursuline nun.Among her extraordinary achievements, she rose to become Mother Superior, fought for the rights of the Catholics in Quebec, buried General Montcalm and helped to ensure the survival of the Quebecois after the French defeat in 1759. During her lifetime, she crossed the greatest cultural divides of the eighteenth century. Raised a Puritan girl, she became a beloved Abenakis child, was then adopted into the family of the French governor and became a French Canadian. She was a witness to the wars between the greatest political powers of her era and a major power broker from behind the convent walls.
- Released
- 2005
Details
Release year: 2005
Storyline
In 1703 a young girl is kidnapped by Abenakis Indians from the English settlement of Wells, Maine and force-marched through dense forests to a settlement in Quebec. Adopted by an Abenakis family, she lives in a Jesuit mission for five years before her freedom is negotiated by a Catholic priest. She is caught up in the clash between the English Crown and the French King and their Native allies who are fighting a bitter and bloody battle for territory. At the age of seven, Esther Wheelwright becomes a pawn in the highly charged struggle between Protestant England and Catholic France for the hearts and minds of North America. To the French, she was a prize captive who had renounced the religion of her parents; to her Abenakis family, she replaced a lost child and to the English Puritans, she was a soul they could not afford to lose. Esther Wheelwright becomes a passionate convert to Catholicism and refuses all pleas from her English family to return home and shuns an offer of marriage into the Quebec aristocracy to retreat into a cloister as an Ursuline nun.Among her extraordinary achievements, she rose to become Mother Superior, fought for the rights of the Catholics in Quebec, buried General Montcalm and helped to ensure the survival of the Quebecois after the French defeat in 1759. During her lifetime, she crossed the greatest cultural divides of the eighteenth century. Raised a Puritan girl, she became a beloved Abenakis child, was then adopted into the family of the French governor and became a French Canadian. She was a witness to the wars between the greatest political powers of her era and a major power broker from behind the convent walls.