7. Mary Jemison chose to stay with the tribe that kidnapped her and killed her family back in 1755
Mary Jeminson was born on a ship sailing between Ireland and America, was raised in the American frontier but then spent most of her adult life living with the native Seneca people. This is because, as a young girl, she was kidnapped during the French and Indian War. But, though she could have escaped later on, she chose to remain with her captors. Indeed, despite the fact that they killed her family and took her against her will, Jemison decided she preferred the Seneca culture rather than the British colonial culture of her peers.
Just a few years after the Jemison family had started to make a new life in the American frontier, the Seven Years’ War between England and France erupted. The conflict saw both countries make use of Native American allies to fight battles across America. One morning in 1755, a raiding party of French soldiers and Seneca horsemen attacked the settlement where the Jemisons had made their home. Just Mary, her two older brothers and another young boy from a different family were spared. Since she was 12-years-old, healthy and pretty, Mary was taken to a Seneca settlement where two women adopted her.
Far from fighting to regain her freedom, however, Mary slowly adapted to life with her kidnappers. She was given a Native American name. She also fell in love and at 17, she married Sheninjee. When the war ended, they feared that the captives would be set free, breaking their marriage apart. Sheninjee took Mary to his clan’s home in New York, though he died along the way. She married again, this time to another Seneca chief called Hiakatoo and gave him six children. In later life, she served as a go-between between the colonial settlers and the Seneca, and then she sold her story to a New York publisher. The book was a hit. Today, Jemison is remembered not just as the victim of a famous kidnapping but as the white woman who provided a key insight into the Native American way-of-life.