The Fort Dearborn Massacre: Written in 1814 by Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, One of the Survivors, with Letters and Narratives of Contemporary InterestHelm, Linai T. (Linai Taliaferro)
History
The Fort Dearborn Massacre: Written in 1814 by Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, One of the Survivors, with Letters and Narratives of Contemporary Interest
Helm, Linai T. (Linai Taliaferro)
Fort Dearborn Massacre, Chicago, Ill., 1812; Massacre survivors -- Illinois -- Chicago
On raising her head to reply, the little girl saw a pair of eyes
peeping through a crevice in the lodge, fixed upon her with a peculiar
and significant expression. With the quick perception due partly to
instinct and partly to her intercourse with the red people, she replied
faintly, "Set it down, my sister. When this fit of the fever has passed,
I will drink your medicine."
The squaw, too cautious to importune, busied herself about the lodge for
a short time; then withdrew to another near at hand. Meantime the bright
eyes continued to peer through the opening until they had watched the
object of their gaze fairly out of sight. Then a low voice, the voice of
a young friend and playfellow, spoke: "Do not drink that which your
brother's wife has brought you. She hates you, and is only waiting an
opportunity to rid herself of you. I have watched her all the morning,
and have seen her gathering the most deadly roots and herbs. I knew for
whom they were intended, and came hither to warn you."
"Take the bowl," said the little invalid, "and carry it to my mother's
lodge."
This was accordingly done. The contents of the bowl were found to
consist principally of a decoction of the root of the May-apple, the
most deadly poison known among the Indians.
It is not in the power of language to describe the indignation that
pervaded the little community when this discovery was made known. The
squaws ran to and fro, as is their custom when excited, each vying with
the other in heaping invectives upon the culprit. For the present,
however, no further punishment was inflicted upon her, and, the first
burst of rage over, she was treated with silent abhorrence.
The little patient was removed to the lodge of the Old Queen and
strictly guarded, while her enemy was left to wander in silence and
solitude about the fields and woods, until the return of her husband
should determine her punishment.
In a few days, the excursion being over, the Big White Man and his party
returned to the village. Contrary to the custom of savages, he did not,
in his first passion at learning the attempt on the life of his little
sister, take summary vengeance on the offender. Instead, he contented
himself with banishing the squaw from his lodge, never to return, and in
condemning her to hoe corn in a distant part of the large field or
inclosure which served the whole community for a garden.
Although thereafter she would still show her vindictiveness toward the
little girl by striking at her with her hoe, or by some other spiteful
action whenever, by chance, Eleanor and her companions wandered into
that vicinity, yet she was either too well watched or stood too much in
awe of her former husband to repeat the attempt upon his sister's life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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