Some myths I ran across as I researched:
Native Americans (“Indians”)
were all brutal, ignorant heathens. Research has revealed that while their
code of honor was different from ours, and seemingly random brutality often took place alongside seemingly random kindness, a sense of
honor and high standard of behavior did indeed exist among native peoples.
Native Americans were
all honorable, noble people whom whites of the time greatly misunderstood.
Plenty of misunderstanding happened from both sides, but make no mistake, the
code of honor and morality among native tribes clashed with Christian
sensibilities in many ways. Greed, pride, pettiness, abuse, and all other human
vices flourished among native peoples as surely as they did among European
settlers.
White (or other)
captives were always treated badly. Eyewitness accounts prove otherwise.
When natives took captives intended for adoption, they treated said captives
with remarkable kindness. Captives intended for slavery or sacrifice were a
different matter entirely. The contradiction inherent in the kindness extended
one or more captives in a group while brutality was dealt others still boggles
the modern mind, but it happened often. One account I read told of a woman
taken captive, heavy with child and a toddler in tow, after her older children
had been killed and scalped before her eyes. While on the journey back to her
captors’ home, the toddler was considered a liability at some point and also
killed, but when the woman went into labor, accommodations were made for her
delivery and recovery. Jonathan Alder witnessed the death of his older brother,
but he himself was spared and eventually adopted by a Shawnee and Mingo couple.
Jemima Boone (daughter of Daniel Boone) and her friend spoke after their
recovery of the kindness of their captors, as well, which leads me to the next
myth ...
Indians always rape
female captives. Patently untrue. I’m sure there were exceptions, but in nearly
all accounts I’ve read, there were strict rules about how and when native men
took white captive women as their wives, in a culture where courtship and
marriage seemed to be handled much more casually than in ours.
A couple of facts I learned:
While native peoples
seemed to consider the killing of an enemy a light matter indeed, when they
chose to adopt a captive, they usually accepted that one into their tribe and
family with a whole heart. Once the adoption ceremony was complete—which often
involved a protracted scrubbing-down and change of clothing—the captive was
considered family, with no difference between him and a blood-born child.
Some captives returned
to their old lives, but some did not, and were happy in that choice. (Whether such behavior constitutes Stockholm Syndrome, as some would suggest, is up for debate, and I won't get into that here. I'm only recording observations.) Alder
lived some 20 years with the native peoples, after his capture at age 9. He did
eventually return to white society, in a process that can only be described as
a slow drift, for reasons that he never fully explains. His Indian wife grew
unhappy with the changes and eventually left him, and a few years later he courted
and married a white woman, and raised a family with her.
I’ve only scratched the surface here, but I’d love to hear
more myths and facts as you think of them!
~*~*~*~
A pair of sources I've found helpful and/or interesting:
http://sites.rootsweb.com/~varussel/indian/index.html (Emory
L. Hamilton’s unpublished manuscript Indian
Atrocities Along The Clinch, Powell and Holston Rivers of Southwest Virginia,
1773-1794)
A History of JonathanAlder: His Captivity and Life with the Indians, edited by Larry L. Nelson, which I drew heavily from while researching for my upcoming release, The Cumberland Bride.
