Jonathan Alder
Jonathan Alder was so enamored of life among the natives who captured him as a child, that he joined them as a warrior to fight in battle against Anthony Wayne’s Legion during the Northwest Indian War. He was captured as a child during a raid in which his brother was killed and scalped – a neighbor woman and her child were also taken. Later, annoyed by the neighbor’s child’s cries, the Shawnee raiders killed and scalped the infant as well.
Alder was spared because of the jet-black color of his hair. An elderly Mingo chief and his wife had recently lost their young son, and had told the raiders to keep an eye out for a suitable replacement. The neighbor woman, whose name was Martin, was likewise spared to provide a replacement wife for a man in a nearby village.
Alder may or may not have been forced to run the gauntlet – again, differing sources debate this to modern day. As a youth of about eight years old, it is unlikely he ran a gauntlet manned by Mingo and Shawnee warriors. More likely, he was made to prove his worthiness against other youths of the village. By the late 1780s, he was for, all intents and purposes, a Shawnee, accompanying raiding parties attacking the Ohio Valley settlements. Once, he was offered to be exchanged for a Shawnee prisoner during negotiations with a white trader; he flatly refused.
He took part in the Northwest Indian War, fighting under Blue Jacket. When the Treaty of Greenville ended the war he decided to return to the white settlements, taking with him his recent Shawnee bride. He no longer could speak English beyond a few words, and he and his wife encountered hostility among the white communities where they attempted to reside, leading them to separate.
Through placing advertisements Alder learned of the survival of much of his family in Virginia, and was reunited with them. He remarried a woman he met while visiting his family in Virginia, eventually, they had twelve children together. Alder later served with the American militia during the War of 1812 and became a close friend of Simon Kenton after the war. They entertained each other by telling stories of the many battles in which they had fought on opposing sides.