Captives among the Indians : $b first-hand narratives of Indian wars, customs, tortures, and habits of life in colonial timesRowlandson, Mary White
History
Captives among the Indians : $b first-hand narratives of Indian wars, customs, tortures, and habits of life in colonial times
Rowlandson, Mary White
Indian captivities -- Northeastern States
When I landed on the inhabited side of the river the people from the
fort came running out to see me. They took the child from me, and now
that I felt safe from all danger, I found myself unable to move or to
assist myself in any degree, whereupon the people took me and carried
me out of the boat to the house of Mr. Cortus.
Now that I felt secure from the cruelties of the barbarians, for the
first time since my captivity, my feelings returned in all their
poignancy and the tears flowed freely, imparting a happiness beyond
what I ever experienced. When I was taken into the house the heat of
the fire and the smell of victuals, of both of which I had so long been
deprived, caused me to faint. Some of the people attempted to restore
me and some to put clothes on me, but their kindness would have killed
me had it not been for the arrival of Major McCully, who then commanded
along the river. When he understood my situation, and saw the
provisions they were preparing for me, he was greatly alarmed; ordered
me out of the house, away from the heat and smell; prohibited me from
taking anything but a very little whey of buttermilk, which he
administered with his own hands. Through this judicious management I
was mercifully restored to my senses and gradually to health and
strength.
Two of the females, Sarah Carter and Mary Ann Crozier, then began to
take out the thorns from my feet and legs, which Mr. Felix Negley stood
by and counted to the number of one hundred and fifty, though they were
not all extracted at that time, for the next evening, at Pittsburgh,
there were many more taken out. The flesh was mangled dreadfully, and
the skin and flesh were hanging in pieces on my feet and legs. The
wounds were not healed for a considerable time. Some of the thorns went
through my feet and came out at the top. For two weeks I was unable to
put my feet to the ground to walk. The next morning a young man
employed by the magistrates of Pittsburgh came for me to go immediately
to town to give in my deposition, that it might be published to the
American people. Some of the men carried me into a canoe, and when I
arrived I gave my deposition. As the intelligence spread, Pittsburgh,
and the country for twenty miles around, was all in a state of
commotion. The same evening my husband came to see me, and soon after I
was taken back to Coe's Station. In the evening I gave an account of
the murder of my boy on the island, and the next morning a scout went
out and found the body and buried it, nine days after the murder.
THE END
OUTING ADVENTURE LIBRARY
_Edited by Horace Kephart_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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