NORTHEAST CAPTIVITY STORIES

All along the frontier settlements in New England are fascinating accounts of pioneers being captured by Indians and taken to Canada. Some were eventually ransomed and returned to their communities. Some escaped from their captors in remarkable ways. Others chose to remain with their captives and became an integral part of their new family. The Tarball children were so respected by their new tribe that they eventually became Indian Chiefs!

Those captives who couldn't make the trek to Canada were usually brutally slain immediately or within the first few days, but those who survived were fed better than their captors. It's interesting to note that the credit for kindnesses received by these captives were never attributed to the Indians, but rather to God for hearing their prayers. In that way, they seemed to be able to preserve their biased beliefs that Indians were animalistic savages incapable of compassion.

There are other captivity stories that need to be included here, and I'm looking for those. Very little has been written about the Indians placed in captivity by the whites. They were Prisoners Of War just as much as were the white settlers captured by the Indians. Most of the Indian POW's froze or starved to death in their concentration camps, so they weren't here to tell their stories. Even if they survived, nobody cared about the suffering they endured, and nobody wrote down their accounts.

There are some wonderful pages on the internet with stories of the Deerfield captives. I will be gathering up those urls, along with urls to other interesting captivity stories I've seen on the net, and will put up a links page soon. If you know of any good stories or links, please let me know. footprints@rcn.com