Hugh Gibson | |
---|---|
Born | 1741 |
Died | 30 July 1826 84–85) | (aged
Known for | Captivity by Native Americans and escape |
Parent(s) | David Gibson and Mary McClelland |
Relatives | Israel (brother), Mary (sister) |
Hugh Gibson (1741 - 30 July 1826) (referred to by Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leninger as "Owen Gibson") [1] was an American pioneer and a Pennsylvania frontiersman. In 1756, when he was 14 years old, his farm was attacked by Lenape Indians and he was taken prisoner. He was adopted as a brother by Pisquetomen, a Lenape chief, and lived for three years with the Lenape, moving to several different communities. In 1759 he escaped, together with three other captives.
Gibson told a brief, first-person version of his captivity narrative to Archibald Loudoun, [2] : 558 who published it in 1811. [3] At age 85, he told a longer version of his story to Timothy Alden, who published it in 1837, after Gibson's death. [4] : 141
Hugh Gibson was born in 1741 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His father, David Gibson, came from Sixmilecross in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, in 1740. His mother's name was Mary McClelland. They bought land near Peach Bottom Ferry on the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County. David Gibson died when Hugh was an infant, and his mother took Hugh, his sister Mary, and his brother Israel to live with her brother William McClelland outside Robinson's Fort, [5] in "Shearman's Valley," now known as Shermans Dale, Pennsylvania. [6] : 350
Hugh Gibson was captured in July, 1756 by Delaware Indians. In his first-person account published in 1811, he states that he was living at the time outside Robinson's Fort, [5] "twenty miles above Carlisle," near present-day Southwest Madison Township, Pennsylvania. Due to recent attacks by Indians, most of the local population had taken refuge inside the fort, [7] : 16 but Gibson, his mother, and Elizabeth Henry, a neighbor, were outside the fort looking for lost cattle when they were attacked by the Indians. Gibson's mother was killed and he was taken captive by "a son of King Beaver." [4] : 142 Elizabeth Henry was also captured, but the two were separated and Gibson never saw her again. [8] [5] : 18
Gibson was brought to Kittanning, where he was adopted as a brother by Pisquetomen (whom Gibson refers to as "Bisquittam" or "Busqueetam" [3] ), and named "Munhuttakiswilluxissohpon," which was the name of a deceased brother of Pisquetomen and was translated to Gibson as "Big-rope-gut-hominy." Gibson was taken to the river to "wash away all his White blood, and make him an Indian." He was then painted and given Indian clothes. [4] : 143 Gibson reports that Pisquetomen spoke and understood English well. [4] : 145
Gibson and Pisquetomen were living in Kittanning on 8 September 1756, when it was attacked by Colonel John Armstrong's forces, and Gibson asked Pisquetomen what he should do. Pisquetomen told him to stay with the women, where he was guarded with several other white captives, including Simon Girty, Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger. [9] : 28–31 After the attack, he was forced to witness the torture of a woman who had attempted to escape with Armstrong's men, [10] : 402 and observed that one of the Indians was wearing his mother's scalp, "which hung as a trophy from his belt." Gibson was told that he had to witness the torture "to show him how they would deal with him, in case he should ever attempt to run away." [4] : 143
After the attack, Gibson was then taken to Fort Duquesne, and later to "Kuskuskin [Hog-Town] on the Mahoning." While there, Gibson one day remarked that "he had heard that the white people were coming against the Indians," which was overheard by Pisquetomen's brother and his wife, who said they would see Gibson burnt alive as soon as Pisquetomen returned from a visit to Shenango. Rather than have him killed, Pisquetomen instead took Gibson to live with him in a tent outside Kuskusky, although this may have been an effort to avoid further conflict with Pisquetomen's brother. [11] : 56–58 Gibson says that, by this time, he was "acquainted with their manners and customs, had learned their language, and was become a tolerable good hunter, was admitted to their dances, to their sacrifices, and religious ceremonies." [3] : 182–83
In the spring of 1757 Gibson and Pisquetomen moved to Saucunk where they lived for a year. Gibson says that at this time, Pisquetomen "took a Dutch captive for his wife." Although Gibson was theoretically Pisquetomen's adoptive brother, he lived much like a slave and was frequently threatened and abused. When Gibson refused an offer of marriage to a Lenape woman, Pisquetomen beat him with a hickory rod. On another occasion, Pisquetomen accused Gibson of being lazy, knocked him to the ground and trampled him underfoot. Gibson shamed Pisquetomen by calling him "brother," and meekly accepting the punishment. Remorseful, Pisquetomen treated Gibson kindly after this. [12] : 328
Gibson became good friends with another white captive, Hezekiah Wright, who wanted Gibson to escape with him, offering him forty dollars and promising to teach Gibson "the millwright's trade." In the fall of 1757 the two stole a horse, intending to cross the Ohio River, but Wright regretted the decision, afraid of being tortured if the Indians caught them. They then returned to the village before their escape had been discovered. Pisquetomen had noted that Gibson and Wright were frequently together, and accused Gibson of planning to escape. He then ordered him burned alive, and several men beat Gibson and gathered wood for a fire. Gibson then apologized, telling Pisquetomen that he and Wright had been planning to build a plough, with which they hoped to cultivate cornfields. Pisquetomen was appeased by this and ordered him released. [4] : 145–46
In late 1758, Gibson and Pisquetomen returned to Kuskusky, where the Lenape were preparing to go to war at Tulpehocken. Gibson volunteered to join the war party, thinking that it might offer him a chance to escape, but Pisquetomen would not permit him to go. Another warrior told Gibson "that he only wished to go to the war in order to have an opportunity to desert from the Indians." One of Pisquetomen's brothers, Buffalo Horn, promised to allow Gibson to accompany him to fight the Cherokees the following year, and employed Gibson as a servant in the meantime, sending him to Fort McIntosh in the company of a Black slave. [Note 1] In spite of fears and accusations that Gibson was planning to escape, he was sent alone, on foot, to deliver a message from Shingas to Kuskusky, a 36-mile journey. [4] : 148
Gibson later accompanied a group of warriors to Fort McIntosh, but they kept a close eye on him and he was unable to escape. Pisquetomen had warned them that if they allowed Gibson to escape, "he would make them pay him a thousand bucks, or return him another prisoner equally good." [4] : 147
Gibson reports that on one occasion, he went hunting with Shingas and killed a bear, which embarrassed Shingas, who failed to kill anything. Shingas treated Gibson with respect, however. Shingas hailed Gibson as a prophet when Gibson predicted a peace treaty between the Pennsylvania government and the Lenape, saying that he had dreamed about it, and a few days later Christian Frederick Post arrived to discuss such a treaty. [4] : 148
In October 1758, after French and Indian forces were defeated in an attack on the British outpost of Fort Ligonier, Pisquetomen and Gibson moved to Muskingum. There Gibson met Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger, two girls about 15 years of age, from Switzerland and Germany respectively, who had been captured during the Penn's Creek Massacre on 16 October 1755, and whom he had known at Kittanning and at Kuskusky. He also met David Brackenridge, a 21-year-old wagon-driver from Scotland who had been captured during the assault on Loyalhanna on 12 October 1758. [4] : 149
In March 1759, Barbara Leininger was informed that she was to marry a Lenape warrior, however she told Gibson that "she would sooner be shot than have him for her husband," and she and Le Roy begged Gibson and Brackenridge to escape with them. Barbara Leininger pretended to be ill (or possibly menstruating [16] : 322 ). They may have been exploiting the Lenape practice of requiring sick persons to live outside the community, as a form of quarantine to prevent the spread of contagious disease, or traditions related to the seclusion of girls at puberty, when Lenape custom required them to stay isolated in a menstruation hut. [17] : 202 Marie Le Roy volunteered to stay with her and care for her in a small camp about seven miles from the village. Gibson then asked Pisquetomen if he could go in search of Pisquetomen's horse, which had wandered off, and Pisquetomen agreed to allow Gibson to go after the horse. Gibson proposed that he also be allowed to do some hunting, and Pisquetomen provided Gibson with a rifle, powder and shot, as well as blankets and shirts and a deerskin for making moccasins. Pisquetomen mentioned that he planned to dig up hoppenies (peanuts) near Le Roy and Leininger's camp. [4] : 150
The next day (16 March 1759), [1] : 417 Gibson went to the girls' camp, where he also met David Brackenridge, and at sunset the four of them set out, passing close to the spot where Pisquetomen had been digging peanuts. [Note 2] They saw other Indians from the village, and passed close to several homes, but were not seen, and crossed the Muskingum River. They headed south to confuse anyone following their trail, then veered east the next day, traveling over a hundred miles in the first four days to reach the Ohio River. On the 250-mile journey to Fort Pitt, Leininger nearly drowned crossing Little Beaver Creek, Gibson was wounded by a bear he had shot, they ran out of provisions and Le Roy nearly drowned in the Ohio River. While crossing a river on a hastily constructed raft, Gibson lost his rifle [3] : 184 as well as his flint and steel, leaving them to spend the last four nights of their journey sleeping in the snow with no fire. [16] : 325
After fifteen days, all four made it to Fort Pitt safely on 31 March. [1] : 416 Soldiers at the fort were suspicious, as the four were dressed in Indian clothing, and asked them to provide evidence that they had been captured. Gibson mentioned the name of his brother Israel, who was known to some of the soldiers, and they were permitted to enter the fort. [4] : 150 [1] : 416
In May, Le Roy and Leininger were taken to Philadelphia. [1] : 417 David Brackenridge returned to his home in Chester County, Pennsylvania only to find that his family had believed him dead and all his belongings had been auctioned off, however the buyers gladly returned them when they learned that he was alive. [4] : 153
Gibson was sent to live with his uncle William McClelland and his sister Mary in Tyrone Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania. [18] [6] : 351 On 14 June 1762, he married Mary White [19] and returned to his mother's farm near the place outside Robinson's fort where he had been captured, but moved to Lancaster County in 1763 after hearing that the Lenape were planning to capture him again. In 1794 he moved to Plum Creek near present-day Verona, Pennsylvania, and in 1797 to Wayne Township, Crawford County, Pennsylvania. He died there on 30 July 1826. [4] : 141
Gibson dictated his story to Archibald Loudoun, a childhood friend, [2] : 558 who published it in 1811 in A Selection of Some of the Most Interesting Narratives, of Outrages, Committed by the Indians, in Their Wars with the White People. [3] At age 85, he told his story to Timothy Alden, who published it in 1837, after Gibson's death. [4] : 141 Gibson is referred to as "Owen Gibson" in Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger's account of their captivity and escape, The Narrative of Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger, for Three Years Captives Among the Indians, published in 1905. [1]
Kittanning was an 18th-century Native American village in the Ohio Country, located on the Allegheny River at present-day Kittanning, Pennsylvania. The village was at the western terminus of the Kittanning Path, an Indian trail that provided a route across the Alleghenies between the Ohio and Susquehanna river basins.
The Kittanning Expedition, also known as the Armstrong Expedition or the Battle of Kittanning, was a raid during the French and Indian War that led to the destruction of the American Indian village of Kittanning, which had served as a staging point for attacks by Lenape warriors against colonists in the British Province of Pennsylvania. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Armstrong Sr., this raid deep into hostile territory was the only major expedition carried out by Pennsylvanian provincial troops during a brutal backcountry war. Early on September 8, 1756, they launched a surprise attack on the Indian village.
Shingas was a Lenape chief and warrior who participated in military activities in Ohio Country during the French and Indian War. Allied with the French, Shingas led numerous raids on Anglo-American settlements during the war, for which he was nicknamed "Shingas the Terrible" by the settlers. The colonial governments of Pennsylvania and Virginia responded to these raids by placing a bounty on Shingas.
Captivity narratives are usually stories of people captured by enemies whom they consider uncivilized, or whose beliefs and customs they oppose. The best-known captivity narratives in North America are those concerning Europeans and Americans taken as captives and held by the indigenous peoples of North America. These narratives have had an enduring place in literature, history, ethnography, and the study of Native peoples.
Jane Frazier was a Virginia pioneer captured by Native Americans in the 18th century. The wife of Scottish frontiersman John Fraser, she was taken prisoner by Miami Indians and held in a Miami village in Ohio for 13 months before escaping and traveling through the wilderness to return home. Her story was transcribed from her diary and later published.
Captain Pipe (Lenape), called Konieschquanoheel and also known as Hopocan in Lenape, was an 18th-century Head Peace chief of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape (Delaware) and War Chief 1778+. He succeeded his maternal uncle Custaloga as chief by 1773. Likely born in present-day Pennsylvania, he later migrated with his people into eastern Ohio.
Tewea, better known by his English name Captain Jacobs, was a Lenape chief during the French and Indian War. Jacobs received his English name from a Pennsylvanian settler named Arthur Buchanan, who thought the chief resembled a "burly German in Cumberland County."
The Battle of Sideling Hill was an engagement in April 1756, between Pennsylvania Colonial Militia and a band of Lenape warriors who had attacked Fort McCord and taken a number of colonial settlers captive. The warriors were taking their captives back to their base at Kittanning when they were ambushed by the militia, but with the help of reinforcements, the Lenape fought off the militia and escaped. The battle is significant because it was the first engagement involving Pennsylvania Militia after Braddock's defeat.
Alone yet Not Alone: Their Faith Became Their Freedom is a 2013 American Christian captivity narrative historical drama film directed by Ray Bengston, co-directed by George D. Escobar, and starring Kelly Greyson, Jenn Gotzon, and Clay Walker. Adapted from Tracy Leininger Craven's namesake novel, the film gets its title from the German hymn "Allein, und doch nicht ganz allein." It dramatizes the true story of three preteen girls, Barbara and Regina Leininger and Marie LeRoy, whom the Lenape forcibly seized in the 1755 Penn's Creek massacre.
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Kuskusky, also known as the Kuskuskies Towns, Kuskuskie Towns, or Kuskuskies' Indian Town, with a wide variety of other spellings, were several Native American communities inhabited near New Castle, Mahoning, and Edinburg, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, during the mid-18th century. It was not one town, but three or four contiguous towns of the Mingoes, Lenape, and Seneca, located along the Beaver River, at and above the junction of its east and west branches, the Mahoning River and the Shenango River. It is usually referred to in the plural.
Muskingum was a Wyandot village in southeastern Ohio from 1747 to 1755. It was an important trade center in the early 1750s, until it was devastated by smallpox in the winter of 1752. The town was repopulated for a short time afterwards, then abandoned again as a new community was established by Netawatwees a few miles to the east at Gekelukpechink. The city of Coshocton, Ohio was founded close to the site of the village in 1802.
Sassoonan or Allumapees was a Lenape chief who lived in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania in the late 17th and early 18th century. He was known for his negotiations with the provincial government of Pennsylvania in several land purchases. He was a respected leader until political intrigue and migration of the Lenape into the Ohio Country diminished his influence. During his final years he became dependent on alcohol and died in Shamokin in 1747. After his death the Lenape were without a chief until 1752, when the Iroquois half-king Tanacharison appointed Shingas to represent them at the Logstown Treaty conference. He was a son of Tamanend, also known as "Tammany," a well-respected Lenape sachem known as a lover of peace and friendship.
Saucunk or Sawcunk was a town established by the Lenape and Shawnees. It was the site of a Catholic mission and was visited by Conrad Weiser, Christian Frederick Post and George Croghan. The Lenape chiefs Tamaqua, Pisquetomen, Captain Jacobs and Shingas all lived there temporarily. Saucunk was abandoned after the Battle of Bushy Run in 1763.
Pisquetomen was a Lenape chief who acted as interpreter and negotiator for the Lenape in dealings with the Provincial government of Pennsylvania during the mid-eighteenth century. After being rejected in his bid to succeed his uncle Sassoonan as Lenape chief, Pisquetomen joined Shingas and Captain Jacobs in a series of deadly attacks on Pennsylvania settlements at the beginning of the French and Indian War. He eventually participated in peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Easton in 1758, and is believed to have died in 1762.
Tamaqua or Tamaque, also known as The Beaver and King Beaver, was a leading man of the Unalachtigo (Turkey) phratry of the Lenape people. Although the Haudenosaunee in 1752 had appointed Shingas chief of the Lenape at the Treaty of Logstown, after the French and Indian War Tamaqua rose in prominence through his active role as peace negotiator, and was acknowledged by many Lenape as their "king" or chief spokesman. He was among the first to hand over English captives at the end of the French and Indian War and was active in peace negotiations at the conclusion of Pontiac's War. By 1758, he was recognized as one of three principal leaders of the Lenape, being the primary spokesman for the western Lenape in the Ohio Country. He founded the town of Tuscarawas, Ohio, in 1756 and died there in 1769 or 1771.
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Keekyuscung aka Kickyuscung, Kaquehuston, Kikyuskung, Ketiuscund, Kekeuscund, or Ketiushund, was a Delaware (Lenape) chief. In the 1750s he took part in peace negotiations to end Lenape participation in the French and Indian War. In 1754 he briefly engaged in some spying and smuggled some letters into and out of Fort Duquesne for George Washington. He was sympathetic to the British for many years, but in 1763 he and his son Wolf sided with the French after a failed assassination attempt by Colonel Henry Bouquet. He is known for being one of the Native American leaders that attacked Colonel Bouquet's forces at the Battle of Bushy Run, where Keekyuscung was killed.
Fort Lyttleton, also known as Fort Littleton, was a militia stockade located in the colonial Province of Pennsylvania. Its site was about a mile from Fort Littleton, Pennsylvania, near Dublin Township, in what is now Fulton County, Pennsylvania. Active from 1755 until 1763, the stockade was initially garrisoned by 75 Pennsylvania troops but at times had as many as 225. It was in use until 1759, then abandoned and reoccupied briefly in 1763 during Pontiac's War.
The Great Cove massacre was an attack by Shawnee and Lenape warriors led by Shingas, on the community of Great Cove, Pennsylvania on 1 November 1755, in which about 50 settlers were killed or captured. Following the attack, settlers returned to the community to rebuild, and the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania began constructing a chain of forts and blockhouses to protect settlers and fend off further raids. These forts provided an important defense during the French and Indian War.