Native Life: Slaves and Captives Along the Great Warpath

It was the stuff of every Colonial family's nightmares, and it happened many times on the frontier.  A party of Natives would burst into a lonely cabin, kill anyone who resisted and capture the rest.  The Settlers would then be route-marched along an Indian trail to a place they knew not where.  Captives who failed to keep up would be killed along the trail, usually with a blow to the head from a tomahawk or other war club.  The others would be taken to a Native village.  Any surviving men or older boys would be tortured and burned to death.  Younger boys who seemed likely candidates for warrior training would be made to run the gauntlet, two long lines of warriors who would try to strike the young man with sticks or other implements until he'd completed the race, or dropped dead.  Girls would be distributed to families within the community as slaves.  If any of these people were lucky, they would be adopted into the tribe and spend many years, maybe the rest of their lives there. 

Yes, it happened.  Many people, such as John Stark, Mary Jemison and Simon Girty, lived among the Indians as captives and adoptees and lived to tell the tale.  Later in life, when given the choice, some such as Jemison refused to go, preferring to stay with her Native husband and children.  Simon Girty and his two brothers returned to Fort Pitt and got jobs as an interpreters and scouts, trading on their knowledge of several Native tribes.  John Stark joined Robert Roger's band of Rangers, where his knowledge of Native hunting and warfare came in handy.  They weren't the only ones. 

The truth is that Natives took captives in war, both other Natives captured in battle, and Settlers.  All captives, regardless of their origin, would face this initial ordeal.  Travel down the rugged Indian paths was quick.  It had to be.  War parties knew that a pursuing rescue force would soon be on their trail.  Conditions were rugged.  Paths forded creeks and rivers, detoured around waterfalls, rocky outcrops and snags.  Injuries were frequent, particularly among Settlers who were did not have the clothes or shoes to withstand such a journey.  Anyone who could not keep the pace, or became sick or injured on the march, had to be killed and quickly. 

There were several reasons for Natives taking captives in raids.  The primary one was as a show of strength.  Settlers or other Natives encroaching on another tribes hunting range had to be dealt with before others showed up and dispossessed that tribe, or seriously impacted the animal population they would need for next year's meat.  As discussed in yesterday's post, warfare between the Native tribes and between the tribes and Europeans was constant from 1628 onward.  Many families lost husbands, fathers and brothers. These had to be replaced somehow.  When a captive boy had run the gauntlet and shown his physical toughness and suitability for warrior training, he was more likely to be adopted into a family who had just lost another male member in warfare.  It would now be the boy's job to grow into a sturdy, dependable warrior to replace the one who was lost.  Disease also took its toll.  Other captives were adopted to replace members of the tribe or band who had died of illness or accident. 

Finally, some Indians did take slaves.  These were of two kinds.  Captives who were not deemed worthy of adoption into a tribe and had not been killed were traded to other tribes who might take them in.  Other captives often stayed in the village of the tribe or band that had captured them, doing drudge work until they were adopted, traded, or even ransomed or rescued.  Some tribes in what is now the Southeastern United States also owned black slaves, captured on raids or purchased in trades.  Some of these people, too, earned their freedom, intermarried with Natives and made their lives as Native Americans.  More on this later, because it is a controversial topic. 

Many captives grew to love their Indian families.  Girty formed a bond with his foster father, Gayasuta, that was broken only when Gayasuta learned that Girty had initially joined the Revolutionaries seeking Independence from the British Crown.  Mary Jemison refused opportunities and offers of escape time and again, fearing she would have to leave her children, or that she and they would be ostracized in White society.  In her memoirs, she spoke of her Native husbands with deep respect and affection, noting that they had never abused her.  More on captivity narratives later.  Stark and Rogers parted ways after Stark was ordered to attack the Native village where he had once lived.  He refused, siting the fact that his foster parents still lived in that village.  Others, though, looked back on their time with the Natives in anger.  Lewis Wetzel, a Virginia man, escaped captivity and devoted his life to terrorizing his former captors, killing all he could and daring them to try to reclaim him and take his scalp. 

Tomorrow on Great Warriors Path, we'll look at the life of one Cherokee adoptee, William Holland Thomas, and his continuing gratitude to the Native father who'd raised him and to his tribe of adoption.