Customer Reviews

Captured By The Indians: 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750-1870

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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An amazing amount of material on the wildlife of North America and, the "wild" lives of American Indians and captured settlers.

The book includes firsthand accounts of Indian life, gruesome conflicts, brutal torture, spectacular escapes, and spirited pursuits. The Indians killed, tortured, and sometimes adopted white settlers. Some were made into slaves, some fully adopted as family members, and other slated for, and escaped sure death.

I was particularly facinated by descriptions of the wildlife. The size and age of trees. The abundance of wild animals--particularly the bears.

I've read this book twice and found every story interesting.

Not often do we get glimses of the past through ordinary people, placed in extra-ordinary situations. Many of these people could not read or write but told their stories which were dutifully recorded. The feeling of authenticity of the stories is strong.

Everyone should read this book to fully understand the capabilites of humans, both in brutality and in kindness and understanding.

An unforgettable book.

This was definitely a good read, no doubt about it. I'm sort of surprised that other people say it gives insight into the daily lives of the indians though, because I didn't get that at all. More what I got was insights into the way indians generally treated their captives (the ones who ran away and told their stories) and the way things were seen and the life of the settlers maybe (only by how they told the story). The book is all firsthand accounts from escaped captives and is sometimes gruesome but always very interesting. People back then knew how to tell stories.

This is a short collection of some of the most famous Indian captivity narratives written during the late 18th and 19th centuries when warfare raged between white settlers and the native Indian inhabitants of North America. These narratives are not only interesting and entertaining as drama, but are invaluable to historians and ethnographers as they provide some of the best first-hand accounts of life among the native tribes of the United States at a time when they were being wiped out by white expansion.

These narratives show what life was like as an Indian, including all the blood and horror as well as the genuine kindness and devotion inherent in any human society. You will note that many captivity accounts were in many ways positive experiences for the captives who were adopted into a tribe and treated with the love and respect they would accord any of their own people. Such is the case with men like James Smith who spent five years living with the Ohio Indians along Lake Erie. These tales were popular in their own time for providing an entertaining escape for people who were both fearful yet fascinated by the Indians and their "savage" ways. From these accounts we learn much about Indian lifeways, food, culture, and religion. We also learn of the cruel barbarities that the Indians could inflict on their enemies, as we see in the tale of Dr. John Knight who witnessed the horrific torture and death of Col. William Crawford in 1782, or the daring escape of John Slover, who had spent many years among the Shawnee and Wyandot as a captive and who later escaped and returned to wage war against his former captors, only to be retaken after the Battle of Sandusky. A slow and terrible death awaited any escaped captive who fell back into Indian hands. But what is really interesting is the number of captives who spent many years living, happily in many cases, with the Indians, showing that they were not the totally savage heathens protrayed in many boosk and movies, but a society of human beings who could love and hate as equally as any other.

This is a valuble introduction to a fascinating genere of litereature and is an important part of history that should not be overlooked. To anyone interested in delving deeper into this subject I would also recommend checking out Archibald Loudon's "Indian Narratives" as well as "A History of Jonathan Alder".

This is a fantastic read - hard to put down. These actual accounts of people taken hostage by Indians provides a rare glimps into indian culture. It brilliantly illustrates the curious mixture of sophistication, honor, order, and savagery of ancient Native American culture. These accounts span several generations and several different tribes, yet we see clear similaries among all American Indians.

I concur with most of the reviews below. These accounts are interesting & varied, both from timescale & geography of captures. I often felt myself brought into the sufferings of the unfortunates concerned. Suffering being the overriding theme of the book. Whilst some captives eventually receive more decent treatment & even adoption into the tribe, all have to deal with initial ill-treatment & most, a series of torture, deprivation & cruelty. Not sure whether this is a tribute to the author, or the original story-teller, but the accounts are direct, unfussy & immediate. This is a great way to find out more about the Native American psyche & it's also a great read!

I really liked this book for the information that it presented that I have never seen in any other sources. The stories are real and interesting accounts of what Indian life was like and what Indians were like. It gives the Indian back his identity as each one being an individual person making their own decisions not bound to their instinctual behavior. These authentic account allow someone to be immersed into a very different culture in a very different time.

The Marquis of Queensbury's famous RULES didn't apply on America's frontier. There were times when no rules seemed to apply, but still the frontier moved west and America's unique character, if such exists, was formed in the process according to Frederick Jackson Turner and his students.

Defined by Turner as "the meeting place between savagery and civilization," the frontier had a dark, bloody edge which can be glimpsed on the pages of CAPTURED BY THE INDIANS: 15 FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS, 1750-1870. Edited by Frederick Drimmer, this book demonstrates how brutal things could get on America's frontier.

Drimmer's book was first published in 1961 and it is well worth reading if you are interested in America's pioneer experience. Gregory and Susan Michno's more recent A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH: INDIAN CAPTIVITIES IN THE WEST, 1830-1885, would make a good companion.

Captivity narratives are controversial and some of them bad fiction parading as truth. The value of Drimmer's work is that he took the time to carefully sort out the wheat from the chaff earning five stars in the process.

Only reason it's not a five is they are a little hard to read. All stories were written in the 17 or 1800's and as the saying goes, "them there folk talks funny....." They say things like, "I would prevail upon you, kind sir, to remain silent," when what they really mean is "Shut up" . This is a good book to read in between other books because all accounts are 10 to 30 pages and each is a story unto itself, so when you finish one, the next one is like reading a whole new book, so putting it down to read something else doesn't interfere with the story.

This book should be manditory reading for all high school kids. It is probably the most revealing book regarding the everyday life of the various tribes across the North American Continent ever written. From the earliest days of discovery to the times of the western expansion. If you want to know the truth about the way it was in indian tribes like the Mohawk of the East or the Apache of the West , then this is the book to read. No fiction or make believe. This is the real thing. You get an insight into the mind of the native indian and what they actually did on a day to day basis. If you think that living like a native indian was idealistic, then getting up in the morning and hunting for food day in and day out is the life for you. You will learn in this book that life was difficult for the indian. It will leave you with a better appreciation of those things that are taken for granted and which seem like luxuries compared to the hardships suffered by indian life.

This book is such a find!

Each 'chapter' in this book is an actual real-life historical narrative of someone that was captured by Indians and returned to 'civilization' to tell their tale.

It's interesting to read that quite a few of the stories paint the 'savages' in actually a sympathetic, even likeable light. Goes to show that one man's savage is another man's hero, doesn't it?

At any rate, if you're a fan of historical drama, even if you don't normally read non-fiction, I still recommend picking up this book. It's a fascinating look into history.