Historic Adventures: Tales from American History

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The story of what had occurred was only too plain to her a few minutes later. What had happened to many other pioneers had happened to her family. Clutching Christian in her arms she ran to the house of her nearest neighbor. There she heard that the Indians had left the same track of blood through other parts of the valley; that farmers had been slain; their crops burned; and their children carried off into the wilderness. The terrified settlers banded together for protection. For weeks new stories came of the Indians' massacres. If ever there were heartless savages these were! They did not carry all the children to their wigwams; some were killed on the way; and among them was little Barbara Hartman. Word came from time to time of some of the stolen children, but there was no word of Regina or Susan Smith, the daughter of the neighboring farmer.

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Far in the forests of western New York was the camp of a great Indian tribe. The wigwams stood on the banks of a beautiful mountain stream, broken by great rocks that sent the water leaping in cascades and falls. In one of the wigwams lived the mother of a famous warrior of the tribe, and with her were two girls whom she treated as her daughters. The name of the old squaw was She-lack-la, which meant "the Dark and Rainy Cloud," a name given her because at times she grew very angry and ill-treated every one around her. Fortunately there were two girls in her wigwam, and when the old squaw was in a bad temper they had each other for protection. The older girl had been given the name of Saw-que-han-na, or "the White Lily," and the other was known as Kno-los-ka, "the Short-legged Bear." Like all the Indian girls they had to work hard, grinding corn, cooking and keeping house for the boys and men who were brought up to hunt and fight. Sawquehanna was tall and strong, spoke the language of the tribe, and looked very much like her Indian girl friends.

In the meantime many battles had been fought through the country of the pioneers, and the English colonists were beating the French and Indians, and driving the Frenchmen farther and farther north. In 1765 the long war between the two nations ended. Under a treaty of peace the English Colonel Boquet demanded that all the white children who had been captured by the Indian tribes should be surrendered to the English officers. So one day white soldiers came into the woods of western New York and found the wigwams there. The children were called out, and the soldiers took the two girls from the old squaw Shelackla. Then they went on to the other tribes, and from each they took all the white children. They carried them to Fort Duquesne. The Fort was in western Pennsylvania, and as soon as it was known that the lost white children were there, fathers and mothers all over the country hurried to find their boys and girls. Many of the children had been away so long that they hardly remembered their parents, but most of the parents knew their children, and found them again within the walls of the fortress.

Some of the children, however, were not claimed. Sawquehanna and her friend Knoloska and nearly fifty more found no one looking for them and wondered what would happen to them. After they had waited at Fort Duquesne eight days, Colonel Boquet started to march with his band of children to the town of Carlisle, in hopes that they might find friends farther east, or at least kind-hearted people who would give the children homes. He sent news of their march all through the country, and from day to day as they traveled through the mountains by way of Fort Ligonier, Raystown, and Louden, eager people arrived to search among the band of children for lost sons and daughters. When the children came to Carlisle the town was filled with settlers from the East.

The children stood in the market-place, and the men and women pressed about them, trying to recognize little ones who had been carried away by Indians years before. Some people who lived in the Blue Mountains were in the throng, and they recognized the dark-haired Indian girl Knoloska as Susan, the daughter of Mr. Smith, the farmer who had lived near the Hartmans. Knoloska and Sawquehanna had not been separated for a long time. They had kept together ever since the white soldiers had freed them from the old squaw's wigwam. Sawquehanna could not bear to think of having her comrade leave her, and Susan clung to her adopted sister's arm and kissed her again and again. The white people were much kinder than the old squaw had been, and instead of beating the girls when they cried, and frightening them with threats, the officers told Sawquehanna that she would probably find some friends soon, and if she did not, that perhaps Susan's family would let her live in their home. But as nobody seemed to recognize her Sawquehanna felt more lonely than she had ever felt before.

Meanwhile Mrs. Hartman was living in the valley with her son Christian, who had grown to be a strong boy of fourteen. Neighbors told her that the lost children were being brought across the mountains to Carlisle, but there seemed little chance that her own Regina might be one of them. She decided, however, that she must go to the town and see. Travel was difficult in those days, but the brave woman set out over the mountains and across the rivers to Carlisle, and at last reached the town market-place. She looked anxiously among the girls, remembering her little daughter as she had been on that autumn day eleven years before; but none of the girls had the blue eyes, light yellow hair and red cheeks of Regina. Mrs. Hartman shook her head, and decided that her daughter was not among these children.

As she turned away, disconsolate, Colonel Boquet said to her, "Can't you find your daughter?"

"No," said the disappointed mother, "my daughter is not among those children."

"Are you sure?" asked the colonel. "Are there no marks by which you might know her?"