A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary JemisonSeaver, James E. (James Everett)
History
A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison
Seaver, James E. (James Everett)
Jemison, Mary, 1743-1833; Seneca Indians
Mr. Jemison was in the battle, was personally acquainted with Col.
Crawford, and one that escaped with Lt. Col. Williamson. We have no
doubt of the truth of the statement, and have therefore inserted the
whole account, as an addition to the historical facts which are daily
coming into a state of preservation, in relation to the American
Revolution.
AUTHOR.]
In the time of the French war, in an engagement that took place on the
Ohio river, Hiokatoo took a British Col. by the name of Simon Canton,
whom he carried to the Indian encampment. A council was held, and the
Col. was sentenced to suffer death, by being tied on a wild colt, with
his face towards its tail, and then having the colt turned loose to run
where it pleased. He was accordingly tied on, and the colt let loose,
agreeable to the sentence. The colt run two days, and then returned with
its rider yet alive. The Indians, thinking that he would never die in
that way, took him off, and made him run the gauntlet three times; but
in the last race a squaw knocked him down, and he was supposed to have
been dead. He, however, recovered, and was sold for fifty dollars to a
Frenchman, who sent him as a prisoner to Detroit. On the return of the
Frenchman to Detroit, the Col. besought him to ransom him, and give,
or set him at liberty, with so much warmth, and promised with so much
solemnity, to reward him as one of the best of benefactors, if he would
let him go, that the Frenchman took his word, and sent him home to his
family. The Col. remembered his promise, and in a short time sent his
deliverer one hundred and fifty dollars, as a reward for his generosity.
Since the commencement of the revolutionary war, Hiokatoo has been in
seventeen campaigns, four of which were in the Cherokee war. He was
so great an enemy to the Cherokees, and so fully determined upon their
subjugation, that on his march to their country, he raised his own army
for those four campaigns, and commanded it; and also superintended its
subsistence. In one of those campaigns, which continued two whole years
without intermission, he attacked his enemies on the Mobile, drove them
to the country of the Creek Nation, where he continued to harrass them,
till being tired of war, he returned to his family. He brought home
a great number of scalps, which he had taken from the enemy, and ever
seemed to possess an unconquerable will that the Cherokees might be
utterly destroyed. Towards the close of his last fighting in that
country, he took two squaws, whom he sold on his way home for money to
defray the expense of his journey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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