Page 214 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

CHAPT E R F I VE

These cases and similar stories of e male captivity were explained
f
away by assertions that these women had been too brutalized by the
Indians to f u nction in white society or that they were too ashamed to
f a ce their f a milies and f r iends. These arguments are not upheld by the
unpublished writings of f e male captives. 198 Some f e male captives
expressed f a vorable f e elings toward their captors. Sometimes these cases
were recorded secondhand. T e xan Harriet Bunyard, leaving her home
in 1868 fo r California, encountered a young woman captive who had
been recently ransomed from the Indians and who claimed that they
"were very kind to her."199 Another T e xas woman of the 1860s
recounted the story of an eleven-year-old f e male captive who insisted
that she had been well cared f o r by an Indian woman: "as long as I stayed
with the Indians she was my adopted mother, and always treated me as
her own child."2 00 A similar tale revolved around the Fletcher sisters,
captured in 1 8 65 in W y oming by Arapaho Indians. After Amanda Mary
was ransomed, she located her baby sister Lizzie. When she wrote to
General George Custer about obtaining Lizzie's release, she was told that
her sister was "in good health and was kindly cared f o r by the Indians
being considered a great f a vorite by them." When Amanda Mary pur­
sued the matter, she learned through an interpreter that Lizzie, now
fifteen years old, denied being white. Instead, Lizzie claimed she was an
Arapaho and refused to be ransomed away fr om "her" people.2 01
In addition to these tales of fe male captives who were treated well
by American Indians, a number of firsthand captivity accounts reiterate
this theme in more detail. In one of the earliest conflicts, that between
Indians and Dr. Marcus Whitman's mission in Oregon during the late
1 8 40s, the women involved told of "outrages and "depredations." They
also emphasized the aid and support given to them by "friendly" natives.
They commended the Nez Perces fo r saving settlers' lives, f o r treating
them with "decency and respect," and f o r bringing the responsible
Indians in f o r trial and execution.2 0 2
During the years fo llowing the Oregon turmoil, women fe lt
moved, as one said, "to weep & pray fo r those dark dying nations.''2 0 3
Rather than becoming disillusioned, they took a generous view of the
unfortunate events that transpired around the Whitman mission. On the
fiftieth anniversary of these events, some women commemorated them.

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