1697
Bounty policyBook sources
Massachusetts rewards Hannah Dustin for scalps
New England; Abenaki captives’ families
The Massachusetts legislature rewarded Dustin for scalps taken during her escape from captivity, including those of women and children. The payment illustrates official incentives for killing Indigenous people.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
Dunbar-Ortiz connects this episode to the broader development of scalp bounties; it was not the beginning of all scalping.
Sources
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014), chapter 4