She leaves Wiishto for Fort Pitt, in company with her Husband.--Her
feelings on setting out.--Contrast between the labor of the white and
Indian Women.--Deficiency of Arts amongst the Indians.--Their former
Happiness.--Baneful effects of Civilization, and the introduction of
ardent Spirits amongst them, &c.--Journey up the River.--Murder of
three Traders by the Shawnees.--Her Husband stops at a Trading
House.--Wantonness of the Shawnees.--Moves up the Sandusky.--Meets her
Brother from Ge-nish-a-u.--Her Husband goes to Wiishto, and she sets
out for Genishau in company with her Brothers.--They arrive at
Sandusky.--Occurrences at that place.--Her Journey to Genishau, and
Reception by her Mother and Friends.
In the spring, when Thomas was three or four moons [months] old, we
returned from Sciota to Wiishto, and soon after set out to go to Fort
Pitt, to dispose of our fur and skins, that we had taken in the winter,
and procure some necessary articles for the use of our family.
I had then been with the Indians four summers and four winters, and
had become so far accustomed to their mode of living, habits and
dispositions, that my anxiety to get away, to be set at liberty, and
leave them, had almost subsided. With them was my home; my family was
there, and there I had many friends to whom I was warmly attached in
consideration of the favors, affection and friendship with which they
had uniformly treated me, from the time of my adoption. Our labor was
not severe; and that of one year was exactly similar, in almost every
respect, to that of the others, without that endless variety that is to
be observed in the common labor of the white people. Notwithstanding the
Indian women have all the fuel and bread to procure, and the cooking to
perform, their task is probably not harder than that of white women, who
have those articles provided for them; and their cares certainly are not
half as numerous, nor as great. In the summer season, we planted, tended
and harvested our corn, and generally had all our children with us; but
had no master to oversee or drive us, so that we could work as leisurely
as we pleased. We had no ploughs on the Ohio; but performed the whole
process of planting and hoeing with a small tool that resembled, in some
respects, a hoe with a very short handle.
Our cooking consisted in pounding our corn into samp or hommany, boiling
the hommany, making now and then a cake and baking it in the ashes, and
in boiling or roasting our venison. As our cooking and eating utensils
consisted of a hommany block and pestle, a small kettle, a knife or two,
and a few vessels of bark or wood, it required but little time to keep
them in order for use.
Spinning, weaving, sewing, stocking knitting, and the like, are arts
which have never been practised in the Indian tribes generally. After
the revolutionary war, I learned to sew, so that I could make my own
clothing after a poor fashion; but the other domestic arts I have been
wholly ignorant of the application of, since my captivity. In the season
of hunting, it was our business, in addition to our cooking, to bring
home the game that was taken by the Indians, dress it, and carefully
preserve the eatable meat, and prepare or dress the skins. Our clothing
was fastened together with strings of deer skin, and tied on with the
same.
In that manner we lived, without any of those jealousies, quarrels, and
revengeful battles between families and individuals, which have been
common in the Indian tribes since the introduction of ardent spirits
amongst them.
The use of ardent spirits amongst the Indians, and the attempts which
have been made to civilize and christianize them by the white people,
has constantly made them worse and worse; increased their vices, and
robbed them of many of their virtues; and will ultimately produce their
extermination. I have seen, in a number of instances, the effects of
education upon some of our Indians, who were taken when young, from
their families, and placed at school before they had had an opportunity
to contract many Indian habits, and there kept till they arrived to
manhood; but I have never seen one of those but what was an Indian in
every respect after he returned. Indians must and will be Indians, In
spite of all the means that can be used for their cultivation in the
sciences and arts.
One thing only marred my happiness, while I lived with them on the Ohio;
and that was the recollection that I had once had tender parents, and
a home that I loved. Aside from that consideration, or, if I had
been taken in infancy, I should have been contented in my situation.
Notwithstanding all that has been said against the Indians, in
consequence of their cruelties to their enemies--cruelties that I
have witnessed, and had abundant proof of--it is a fact that they are
naturally kind, tender and peaceable towards their friends, and strictly
honest; and that those cruelties have been practised, only upon their
enemies, according to their idea of justice.
At the time we left Wiishto, it was impossible for me to suppress a
sigh of regret on parting with those who had truly been my friends--with
those whom I had every reason to respect. On account of a part of our
family living at Genishau, we thought it doubtful whether we should
return directly from Pittsburgh, or go from thence on a visit to see
them.
Our company consisted of my husband, my two Indian brothers, my little
son and myself. We embarked in a canoe that was large enough to contain
ourselves, and our effects, and proceeded on our voyage up the river.
Nothing remarkable occurred to us on our way, till we arrived at the
mouth of a creek which Sheninjee and my brother said was the outlet of
Sandusky lake; where, as they said, two or three English traders in fur
and skins had kept a trading house but a short time before, though they
were then absent. We had passed the trading house but a short distance,
when we met three white men floating down the river, with the appearance
of having been recently murdered by the Indians, we supposed them to
be the bodies of the traders, whose store we had passed the same day.
Sheninjee being alarmed for fear of being apprehended as one of the
murderers, if he should go on, resolved to put about immediately, and we
accordingly returned to where the traders had lived, and there landed.
At the trading house we found a party of Shawnee Indians, who had taken
a young white man prisoner, and had just begun to torture him for the
sole purpose of gratifying their curiosity in exulting at his distress.
They at first made him stand up, while they slowly pared his ears and
split them into strings; they then made a number of slight incisions in
his face; and then bound him upon the ground, rolled him in the dirt,
and rubbed it in his wounds: some of them at the same time whipping
him with small rods! The poor fellow cried for mercy and yelled most
piteously.
The sight of his distress seemed too much for me to endure: I begged of
them to desist--I entreated them with tears to release him. At length
they attended to my intercessions, and set him at liberty. He was
shockingly disfigured, bled profusely, and appeared to be in great pain:
but as soon as he was liberated he made off in haste, which was the last
I saw of him.
We soon learned that the same party of Shawnees had, but a few hours
before, massacred the three white traders whom we saw in the river, and
had plundered their store. We, however, were not molested by them, and
after a short stay at that place, moved up the creek about forty miles
to a Shawnee town, which the Indians called Gaw-gush-shaw-ga, (which
being interpreted signifies a mask or a false face.) The creek that we
went up was called Candusky.
It was now summer; and having tarried a few days at Gawgushshawga, we
moved on up the creek to a place that was called Yis-kah-wa-na, (meaning
in English open mouth.)
As I have before observed, the family to which I belonged was part of
a tribe of Seneca Indians, who lived, at that time, at a place called
Genishau, from the name of the tribe, that was situated on a river of
the same name which is now called Genesee. The word Genishau signifies
a shining, clear or open place. Those of us who lived on the Ohio, had
frequently received invitations from those at Genishau, by one of my
brothers, who usually went and returned every season, to come and live
with them, and my two sisters had been gone almost two years.
While we were at Yiskahwana, my brother arrived there from Genishau, and
insisted so strenuously upon our going home (as he called it) with him,
that my two brothers concluded to go, and to take me with them.
By this time the summer was gone, and the time for harvesting corn had
arrived. My brothers, for fear of the rainy season setting in early,
thought it best to set out immediately that we might have good
travelling. Sheninjee consented to have me go with my brothers; but
concluded to go down the river himself with some fur and skins which he
had on hand, spend the winter in hunting with his friends, and come to
me in the spring following.
That was accordingly agreed upon, and he set out for Wiishto; and my
three brothers and myself, with my little son on my back, at the same
time set out for Genishau. We came on to Upper Sandusky, to an Indian
town that we found deserted by its inhabitants, in consequence of their
having recently murdered some English traders, who resided amongst them.
That town was owned and had been occupied by Delaware Indians, who, when
they left it, buried their provision in the earth, in order to preserve
it from their enemies, or to have a supply for themselves if they should
chance to return. My brothers understood the customs of the Indians when
they were obliged to fly from their enemies; and suspecting that their
corn at least must have been hid, made diligent search, and at length
found a large quantity of it, together with beans, sugar and honey, so
carefully buried that it was completely dry and as good as when they
left it. As our stock of provision was scanty, we considered ourselves
extremely fortunate in finding so seasonable a supply, with so little
trouble. Having caught two or three horses, that we found there, and
furnished ourselves with a good store of food, we travelled on till we
came to the mouth of French Creek, where we hunted two days, and from
thence came on to Conowongo Creek, where we were obliged to stay seven
or ten days, in consequence of our horses having left us and straying
into the woods. The horses, however, were found, and we again prepared
to resume our journey. During our stay at that place the rain fell
fast, and had raised the creek to such a height that it was seemingly
impossible for us to cross it. A number of times we ventured in, but
were compelled to return, barely escaping with our lives. At length we
succeeded in swimming our horses and reached the opposite shore; though
I but just escaped with my little boy from being drowned. From Sandusky
the path that we travelled was crooked and obscure; but was tolerably
well understood by my oldest brother, who had travelled it a number of
times, when going to and returning from the Cherokee wars. The fall by
this time was considerably advanced, and the rains, attended with cold
winds, continued daily to increase the difficulties of travelling.
From Conowongo we came to a place, called by the Indians
Che-ua-shung-gau-tau, and from that to U-na-waum-gwa, (which means an
eddy, not strong), where the early frosts had destroyed the corn so that
the Indians were in danger of starving for the want of bread. Having
rested ourselves two days at that place, we came on to Caneadea
and stayed one day, and then continued our march till we arrived
at Genishau. Genishau at that time was a large Seneca town, thickly
inhabited, lying on Genesee river, opposite what is now called the Free
Ferry, adjoining Fall-Brook, and about south west of the present village
of Geneseo, the county seat for the county of Livingston, in the state
of New-York.
Those only who have travelled on foot the distance of five or six
hundred miles, through an almost pathless wilderness, can form an
idea of the fatigue and sufferings that I endured on that journey. My
clothing was thin and illy calculated to defend me from the continually
drenching rains with which I was daily completely wet, and at night
with nothing but my wet blanket to cover me, I had to sleep on the
naked ground, and generally without a shelter, save such as nature had
provided. In addition to all that, I had to carry my child, then about
nine months old, every step of the journey on my back, or in my arms,
and provide for his comfort and prevent his suffering, as far as my
poverty of means would admit. Such was the fatigue that I sometimes
felt, that I thought it impossible for me to go through, and I would
almost abandon the idea of even trying to proceed. My brothers were
attentive, and at length, as I have stated, we reached our place of
destination, in good health, and without having experienced a day's
sickness from the time we left Yiskahwana.
We were kindly received by my Indian mother and the other members of the
family, who appeared to make me welcome; and my two sisters, whom I had
not seen in two years, received me with every expression of love and
friendship, and that they really felt what they expressed, I have never
had the least reason to doubt. The warmth of their feelings, the kind
reception which I met with, and the continued favors that I received
at their hands, rivetted my affection for them so strongly that I am
constrained to believe that I loved them as I should have loved my own
sister had she lived, and I had been brought up with her.
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