I recently read a historical-fiction novel that was based on an actual story. Indian Captive, by Lois Lenski, tells the amazing journey of a teenage English girl taken into the Seneca Indian Tribe.
It is the riveting, thought-provoking, unforgettable tale of Mary “Molly” Jemison.
Just a Pennsylvania Family
The book begins by setting the scene. Molly is a young teenager, known for her bright yellow hair, and is one of the several Jemison children who live on their family’s farm in peaceful Pennsylvania.
Well, maybe it’s not exactly peaceful.
The Jemisons are warned of nearby Native American Indians, coming to capture anyone in their way. Mr. Jemison refuses to leave. He’s not easily scared out of his own home. “Who’s afeard of Injuns? Let ‘em come!”
But when the Indians do arrive, they storm into the house and immediately take captive every Jemison. They burn the house. They tie up the children. In a second, Molly’s whole life is wrecked, turned inside out, and run into the woods.
They separate Molly from the group, along with one of the neighbor’s boys, and whisk them into the deep, dark wilderness of North America.
They force the two kids to run through the forests and rough terrain and rivers and snow.
They come to a fort, and there, Molly is inspected by two Indian woman—Shining Star and Squirrel Woman—before they buy her, take her to the river, and set off with her in their canoe.
Molly is, understandably, distressed. She misses her family. She misses her home. She misses her old, wonderfully simple life. When they come to Seneca Town, the women’s Indian village, they replace her clothes with deerskin and moccasins and throw her old ones into the river. The book says that “Molly fell upon the ground and sobbed as if her heart would break.” Her last possession to remind her of home, made so lovingly by her mother, tossed into the river like common trash.
Native American Life
The start of her life as an Indian woman begins roughly, to say the least. She is constantly terrified, angry, or depressed. Molly can barely understand the Indian’s words, can barely do the tasks they demand she performs, can in no way make any friends in this strange new home.
But slowly…she begins to get to know the Indians, and comprehend their language, and even makes a friend or two. They teach her their ways—collecting food, caring for babies, molding clay pots, embroidering moccasins. Molly accepts her situation and embraces life as a Native American.
During this time, she goes on many adventures and experiences new things. She makes the best of her less-than-comfortable world, and the Indians respect and love her as their own.
There are sad aspects, though, like learning her family was killed just after she left them, and seeing the animals killed for dinner, and losing a dear friend.
Then an English captain named Morgan comes to take her back to the world of the “pale faces”. He wants to adopt her.
Molly thinks hard about it. She feels torn, because she’s come to love the Indians so well, but she also knows she could belong with the English. In the end, she knows that…
“…By coming to the Indians, she was the richer.”
-Indian Captive
The New Home
Molly stays as a Native American. She realizes that, if she cannot return to her family, she wants to be with these people, these people who adopted her in and showed her a new life. Molly, the reluctant Indian captive, has become a devoted woman of the Seneca Tribe.
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