[The following is an account of being captured by Native Americans. In it, Fanny Kelly’s family was part of a wagon train traveling along the Platte route from Kansas to Idaho, during 1863 and 1864. This part of the excerpt takes place after Fanny had been taken back to the Native American encampment.]
She says, the night before they went to the fort, she heard the chief make the following speech:
Friends and sons, listen to my words. You are a great and powerful band of our people. The inferior race, who have encroached on our rights and territories, justly deserve hatred and destruction. These intruders came among us, and we took them by the hand. We believed them to be friends and true speakers; they have shown us how false and cruel they can be.
They build forts to live in and shoot from with their big guns. Our people fall before them. Our game is chased from the hills. Our women are taken from us or won to forsake our lodges [sic.] and wronged and deceived.
It has only been four or five moons since they drove us to desperation, killed our brothers and burned our tepees. The Indian cries for vengeance! There is no truth or friendship in the white man. Deceit and bitterness are in his words. Meet them with equal cunning. Show them no mercy. They are but few, we are many. Whet your knives and string your bows - sharpen the tomahawk and load the rifle!
Let the wretches die, who have stolen our lands, and we will be free to roam over the soil that was our fathers'! We will come home bravely from battle. Our songs shall rise among the hills and every tepee shall be hung with the scalp locks of our foes.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Victims of History.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 171. Print.
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