I think I've mentioned that I used to follow Big Ten basketball. It was one of the sports I watched with my father to keep him company on Saturday afternoons and something we could discuss over Sunday dinner. Being a Hoosier, it was one of the few sports I actually enjoyed watching and I had a handful of favorite college teams and coaches that I followed avidly.
When Dad died, I stopped watching basketball.
I mention this because it's NCAA Tourney time and they have the games on prime time night after night and I can't watch my regularly scheduled shows. So I happened to catch the new PBS series The Legend Seekers and the preview episode, The Lively Family Massacre. It's a true story about a family that was massacred by the Indians except for one little girl, Jane.
According to the family history, Jane survived because a few weeks before the massacre her parents had given her to a passing family that had recently lost a child. It's not known why she was given away. Maybe the mother had a premonition, maybe she felt sorry for the grieving family. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Why would a family donate an 8 year old girl to strangers? Presumably "a passing family" was someone they'd known only a few days and would probably never see again. What were they thinking?
Did they say, "Oh, you lost a child? You poor things! Here have one of ours. We have plenty."
Were they thinking, "Thank goodness we got rid of that prissy little brat. She was worthless for farming. Now lets raise some good sturdy boys that will help cut down the timber and plow the field and shoot some bears."
What must the little girl have felt as she marched away with her new family. Was she crying, sobbing, reaching out for her parents, begging them not to make her go? Was she glad to leave? Was she loved by either family? Is it too late to care?
2 comments:
Well it turns out (to my surprize too) that that practice wasn't all that uncommon back then.
The practice of being "Indentured" where a son was given to a neighboring farm to live and work for years(to settle a debt or earn extra money)happened all the time. Young children were put on steamships from europe alone to travel to a different country. And in these times people trusted one another a whole lot more. Families with too many young mouths to feed especially females (who didn't farm and do chores as well)might just exactly do this. Lastly, to your question of whether she was glad to leave perhaps can be answered by the fact that she survived and that there are scores of living decendants of her that are pretty happy about it too.
In those times, this family probably knew that there was a likely chance that trouble was coming. A little girl had no chance if they were attacked. The boys could wield a weapon. If she were not killed, her life would have been hell (as they probably knew or thought.) Life on the frontier was very hard. I can see the Mother choosing to give her daughter a better life.
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