Mrs. Kelly's adventures among the American Indian was read to me recently and these notes are the result of some comparative stories I collected.
Mary Jemison: captured near Fort Duquesne in her early teens by Shawnee after they killed her family. Sold to Seneca and married one who died on a hunt. She had one child. She married again and had six children. She was allowed to leave but it would have meant leaving her first son and bringing the other children to a white world so she decided to stay. She died at age 90.
"No people can live more happy than the Indians did in times of peace, before the introduction of spiritous liquors among them. Their lives were a continual round of pleasures. Their wants were few, and easily satisfied, and their cares were only for to-day -- the bounds of their calculation for future comfort not extending to the incalculable uncertainties of to-morrow. If peace ever dwelt with men, it was in former times, in the recess from war, among what are now termed barbarians. The moral character of the Indians was (if I may be allowed the expression) uncontaminated. Their fidelity was perfect, and became proverbial. They were strictly honest; they despised deception and falsehood; and chastity was held in high 'veneration, and a violation of it was considered sacrilege. They were temperate in their desires, moderate in their passions, and candid and honorable in the expression of their sentiments, on every subject of importance." Jemison as dictated to her biographer.
Mary Rowlandson: A Narrative of the Captivity, Sufferings and Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Boston: Nathaniel Coverly, 1770. Kidnapped during King Phillip's War with her three children, she was a captive for 11 weeks. One child dies of her wounds. Her narrative is filled with biblical references and many discount it as Puritan vision of the natives. She and her children are eventually ransomed.
Fanny Kelly: a story of frontier life, bravery and depravation. Everyone is accosted by killers, either people or diseases. Unlike Jemison, Kelly truly hated her captors and thought them savage, deceitful, cruel, and sadistic. They murdered her adopted child and scalped her. She was a captive for eleven months and came in contact, often unknowingly, with famous events and people. She is a flowery writer and survived through religious devotion and cold cunning.
Olive Oatman's family was travelling alone in Arizona after several splits from Mormon groups. They were attacked and her family killed in 1851 when she was fourteen, probably by Tolkepayas. She was sold to Mohave. After several years she was ransomed and had a flurry of excitement over her story which got a lot of publicity, especially as a result of the tribal tattooing she received. Her story is suspected as being not terribly accurate.
What is astonishing in these stories is the almost casual acceptance of risk the pioneers showed as they expanded West, the terrible dangers that both whites and Indians ran in daily living and the incredible savagery that the Indian was capable of contrasted with real compassion. There was also true danger in the teepee as man and woman frequently and violently attacked each other. This was not simple domestic abuse, it was assault with serious intent. In the Indian camp, starvation was a significant risk. Pioneers poisoned the food they left behind. Prairie fires could be fatal to an entire tribe. They travelled huge distances regularly.
The reaction to these stories can be interesting too. Everything is analyzed now. Subtle motive are uncovered in the most unsubtle people. Richardson's story is often dismissed as a Puritan tract. Kelly's story, presenting the Indian as far from the Noble Savage as possible, come under specific attack usually of the "we did a lot of bad things, too" variety. Many readers insist upon a vision of kindly Redmen at home in Nature when the truth is quite, necessarily, different. These are not reeds shaken by the wind, they are a survivalist army.
Lakota Sioux:
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