Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) INDIAN CAPTIVITY OF WILLIAM BIGGS _Heartman's Historical Series Number 37_ NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY OF _WILLIAM BIGGS_ AMONG THE KICKAPOO INDIANS IN Illinois in 1788 Written By Himself Eighty-one Copies Re-Printed In Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-two. Number ... of 81 Copies Reprinted. Also Five Copies Issued on Japan Paper. NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY OF WILLIAM BIGGS AMONG THE KICKAPOO INDIANS IN ILLINOIS IN 1788 In the year 1788, March 28th, I was going from Bellfontain to Cahokia, in company with a young man named John Vallis, from the State of Maryland; he was born and raised near Baltimore. About 7 o'clock in the morning I heard two guns fired; by the report I thought they were to the right; I thought they were white men hunting; both shot at the same time. I looked but could not see any body; in a moment after I looked to the left and saw sixteen Indians, all upon their feet with their guns presented, about forty yards distant from me, just ready to draw trigger. I was riding between Vallis and the Indians in a slow trot, at the moment I saw them. I whipped my horse and leaned my breast on the horse's withers, and told Vallis to whip his horse, that they were Indians. That moment they all fired their guns in one platoon; you could scarcely distinguish the report of their guns one from another. They shot four bullets into my horse, one high up in his withers, one in the bulge of the ribs near my thigh, and two in his rump, and shot four or five through my great coat. The moment they fired their guns they ran towards us and yelled so frightfully, that the wounds and the yelling of the Indians scared my horse so that he jumped so suddenly to one side of the road, that my gun fell off my shoulder, and twisted out of my hand; I then bore all my weight on one stirrup, in order to catch my gun, but could not. I had a large bag of beaver fur, which prevented me from recovering my saddle, and having no girth nor crupper to my saddle, it turned and fell off my horse, and I fell with it, but caught on my feet and held the mane; I made several attempts to mount my horse again; but the Indians running up so close, and making such a frightful yelling, that my horse jumped and pranced so that it was impossible for me to mount him again, but I held fast to my horse's mane for twenty or thirty yards; then my hold broke and I fell on my hands and knees, and stumbled along about four or five steps before I could recover myself. By the time I got fairly on my feet, the Indians were about eight or ten yards from me--I saw then there was no other way for me to make my escape but by fast running, and I was determined to try it, and had but little hopes at first of my being able to escape. I ran about one hundred yards