Historic Adventures: Tales from American HistoryHolland, Rupert Sargent
History
Historic Adventures: Tales from American History
Holland, Rupert Sargent
United States -- History -- Anecdotes
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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