During the war between
the French and English, she was taken captive with her parents, by a party
of Shawnee Indians. On the way, her father and mother were killed. The
mother anticipating, from tokens she had observed, what would be their
fate, advised her child not to attempt an escape from the Indians, as she
most likely would be taken again, and treated worse. But as a course
better adapted to promote her welfare, she was told to try and please her
captors, adding as her parting counsel,--"don't forget, my daughter, the
prayers I have taught you,--repeat them often; be a good child, and may
God bless you."
After this, under various trials she went with the party, until they came
to Fort Du Quesne. [Footnote: Afterwards called Fort Pitt, now the site of
Pittsburg.] Here she was given to two Indian women, who were of the Seneca
nation, and lived eighty miles below, on the Ohio river, at a place called
She-nan-jee. With the usual ceremony observed by the Indians on such
occasions, she was adopted into their family, and called De-ha-wa-mis. At
length under kind treatment she began to feel as one of them. In time she
was married to a young chief of the Delaware tribe, with whom she lived
happily for several years in the Shawnee country. She became devotedly
attached to her Indian husband, who treated her with marked tokens of
affection.
After a time she welcomed with the joy of a young mother's heart, the
appearance in her wigwam of a daughter, her first born.
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