Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

The Captivity of Jonathan Alder.—Page [15].

At the end of a year, or little more, Jonathan acquired their language, and became in a measure reconciled and contented; but their food, which was principally hominy and meat, went against him for a long time. As soon as he grew stout enough to carry a rifle, they gave him an old musket to begin with, and told him he must learn to hunt. Delighted with his new trust, and pleased with the idea of becoming a hunter and a warrior, he devoted himself to learn the use of the piece. His first essays were made upon mud-turtles, which he would approach as they lay basking on a rock in the sunshine; and when he had acquired skill enough to kill them by hitting the rock just beneath them, and thus blowing them into the air—sometimes to the height of six or seven feet—he tried his skill upon larger game. Alder remained with the Indians until after the treaty with Wayne, in 1795. He gives many particulars of great interest concerning the movements of the Indians during the long and bloody wars which preceded that propitious event. Peace being established, and almost all the white prisoners having returned to their former homes and friends, he began to feel a desire to see his mother and his relatives again. His long residence among the Indians, however, had deprived him of all knowledge of the English language, and he had lost all recollection even of the State in which he had lived. He had not, therefore, the least clew to aid him in the search.

Watching his opportunity, however, and having long entertained the idea of escaping, he at last succeeded in eluding the suspicions of his red friends, and in beginning his enterprise. Choosing a season of the year when game and berries were plenty, and stocking his bag with dried venison, he set out, avowedly, on a hunting expedition; and the true object of his journey was not suspected for some days after the time of his expected return. He had nothing to guide him toward the white settlements, except a knowledge that they lay in a northerly direction. His skill in woodcraft being equal to that of the Indians', he was enabled to bear the fatigues and discouragements of his wanderings. A band of red men, whom he encountered, treated him as one of themselves, they belonging to a friendly tribe; and, after three weeks of solitary marches, sleeping at night as the circumstances permitted, he emerged into a country once familiar to him, but now considerably changed during the fifteen years of his absence.

But his friends, nor their surroundings, were not so much changed as himself. He was not only an Indian in his appearance, but in many of his feelings. Glad as he was to get back, he soon became very home-sick for the wild life he had abandoned. The clothes, the warm beds, the chairs, the food and table, the restraints of civilization, were, for a time, almost insupportable. It was but very gradually that the white blood of his ancestors begun to stir anew in his veins, and the powerful ties and instincts of early associations to break up the strong bonds of more recent habits. He was almost as many years in becoming a white man as he had been in growing an Indian.

A writer upon the character of the Indians, in his defense of them, says that if an Anglo-American were placed in the same circumstances with a native, he would make a precisely similar person in every trait and habit. "This averment is sustained by a reference to the white people who had been taken prisoners in childhood and brought up among the Indians. In every such case, the child of civilization has become the ferocious adult of the forest, manifesting all the peculiarities, tastes and preferences of the native Indian. His manners, habits, propensities and pursuits have been the same; his fondness for the chase and his aversion to labor the same; so that the most astute philosophical observer has been unable to detect any difference, except in the color of the skin; and, in some instances, even this distinction has been removed by long exposure to the weather, and the free use of oils and paints. There have been cases in which the children of white parents, who have been raised among the Indians from early infancy, have been taken home, in middle life, to their relatives, but have refused to remain, and have returned to the tribes in which they were brought up. One case of this kind occurred within the knowledge of the writer. A female, captured in infancy, and reared among the Indians, was brought in by them at the treaty of Greenville, and sent to her parents in Kentucky. She soon became so discontented and restless that, in spite of all their efforts, she left them, returned to her former associates, and was again happy." All of which is doubtless true, but does not disprove the many barbarous instincts of the red-men.

In the fall of 1788, Matthias Van Bebber, aged eighteen, and Jacob, aged twelve years, were out a short distance from Point Pleasant, with a horse, when they were waylaid by four Indians. Jacob was leading the horse, and Matthias was a short distance ahead, with a rifle across his shoulder, when the Indians fired two guns at Matthias. One of the balls struck him over the eyes, momentarily blinding him; he sprang one side, and fell into a gully. Jacob, on hearing the report of the guns, fled, pursued by three of the savages. Matthias, in the mean time, sprang up and took to a tree. The remaining Indian did the same. The lad brought up his gun to an aim, the Indian dodged, when the former improved the opportunity to fly, and escaped to the fort. The other three, after a tight chase of half a mile, caught Jacob, who, being very active, would have escaped, had not his moccasins been too large. They then retreated across the Ohio with their prisoner. He was a sprightly little fellow, small of his age, and his captors, pleased with him, treated him kindly. On the first night of their encampment, they took him on their knees and sang to him. He turned away his head to conceal his tears.

On arriving at their town, while running the gauntlet between the children of the place, an Indian boy, much larger than himself, threw a bone, which struck him on the head. Enraged by the pain, Jacob drew back, and running with all his force, butted him over, to the great amusement of the gazing warriors. He was adopted into an Indian family, where he was used with kindness. On one occasion his adopted father whipped him, but not severely, which affected his new mother and sister to tears. After remaining with the tribe about a year, he escaped, traveling five days through the wilderness to his home. When he arrived at maturity he was remarkable for his fleetness. None of the Indians who visited the Point could distance him in running.

One of the most interesting histories on record of the return of white prisoners from among the red-men is connected with Boquet's defense of Fort Pitt, and his expedition from that fort into the wilderness, to overawe his adversaries by the display of his strength, and to recover the vast number of men, women and children, held by the savages, amounting, in all, to over three hundred. Fort Pitt stood on the present site of Pittsburg, and, at the time of which we write, 1772, was the only spot, excepting Fort Detroit, from the Falls of Niagara to the Falls of St. Mary, over which the English flag waved. Our splendid territories were being ravaged by the Indians; families, who had effected a home and comforts, being driven back by the tomahawk, with their scattered remnants, to the East, from which they had emigrated, or into Fort Pitt, which alone opposed itself to the murderous waves which dashed against, and threatened to undermine it. It withstood, like Fort Detroit, a long siege by the savages, was reinforced, the reinforcements, before reaching the fort, having given battle to, and defeated the Indians.

The Indians, disheartened by their overwhelming defeat, and despairing of success against the fort, now that it was so heavily reinforced, retired sullenly to their homes beyond the Ohio, leaving the country between it and the settlement free from their ravages. Communication being rendered safe, the fugitives were able to return to their friends, or take possession of their abandoned cabins. By comparing notes, they were soon able to make out an accurate list of those who were missing—either killed or prisoners among various tribes—when it was found to contain the names of more than two hundred men, women and children. Fathers mourned their daughters, slain or subject to a captivity worse than death; husbands, their wives, left mangled in the forest, or forced to follow their savage captors—some with babes at their breasts, and some, whose offspring would first see the light in the red-man's wigwam—and loud were the cries for vengeance which went up on every hand.