CHAPTER IX.

THE CAPTIVE GIRLS.

In Chapter V we left the girls as prisoners at Black Hawk’s Grove, Janesville, Wisconsin. Notwithstanding their night of disturbed sleep and great need for rest, the girls were awakened at daylight by the noise of the Indians around the tent.

Soon after the girls arose the squaws brought them their breakfast which consisted of dried sliced meat, coffee and porridge made of corn pounded and water, that was served in wooden bowls with wooden spoons. The little rest that the girls got through the night, revived them and gave them some appetite, so that they were able to eat part of the food, although they did not relish it.

Breakfast being finished, the Indians cleared off a piece of ground about ninety feet in circumference and erected in the center a pole about twenty-five feet high, around which they set up fifteen spears, on the points of which were placed the scalps of the murdered friends of the girls. To the horror of the girls, they recognized the scalps of their father, mother and Mrs. Pettigrew. Upon three separate spears the Indians placed three human hearts, which added greatly to the horror of the girls. Was one of the hearts their mother’s?

The Indians jabbered among themselves for awhile and then the squaws painted one side of the face of each of the girls red and the other side black. Then the girls were laid with their faces downward on blankets near the center, just leaving room for the Indians to pass between them and the pole. When these preliminaries were completed, the warriors, grasping in their hands their spears, which they occasionally struck into the ground, and yelling all the while as Indians only can, danced around the girls. Every moment while this was going on, the girls expected to be thrust through with the spears; but they had become so harrassed with dread of torture, that they almost wished to have death end their troubles. However, not one of the spears touched the girls, and outside of keeping them in terror, they were in nowise injured.

After the warriors had continued their dance for about half an hour, two old squaws (one of whom was the wife of Black Hawk) led the girls away to a wigwam where they washed off the paint as well as they could by scrubbing them unmercifully. The squaws had adopted the girls, and, as the children of chiefs, they were not required to work.

The Indians having finished their dance, struck their tents, and, after a good deal of bustle and confusion, the whole camp started in a northerly direction. When they reached a point beyond the grove, it seemed to the girls that the whole earth was alive with Indians. Probably not less than 4,000 warriors, squaws, and children constituted that army.

Tired and sore from their former long ride and greatly exhausted by their constant fears, it was an extraordinary ordeal for the girls to plunge still farther into the wilderness. During traveling hours the girls were separated and each was placed in charge of two squaws. Whenever the army halted the girls were brought together, but always kept under the surveillance of the four squaws.

Their march from Black Hawk’s Grove was very slow and over a broad prairie. Shortly before sundown the Indians pitched their tents at Cold Spring, about three miles southeast of Ft. Atkinson, near “Burnt Village,” the camp of Little Priest.[23]

[23] Hist. of Jefferson Co., 327.

As soon as the tents were erected everybody partook of some food, most of the Indians without any utensils, but the girls were supplied with the usual dishes: wooden plates, bowls and spoons. At this place maple-sugar seemed to be abundant and the girls were furnished all of it that they could eat. Also, the squaws seemed to appreciate the fact that the girls were suffering from exposure, and took great pains to make their quarters as comfortable as possible.

During their long tramp through the brush, the light working dresses that the girls had on at the time that they were captured had become badly torn, and the squaws brought Rachel a red and white calico dress with ruffles around the bottom, and Sylvia, a blue calico. The Indians requested the girls to throw away their shoes and put on moccasins, against which the latter strongly protested and refused to take off their shoes. No violence to take away their shoes was used, and the girls continued to wear them. An Indian threw away Rachel’s comb and she immediately went after it and kept it so that it could not be snatched away again without using force, to which the Indians did not resort.

As night set in the Indians retired and each of the girls had to sleep between two squaws, which they were compelled to do thereafter up to the time that they were turned over to the Winnebagoes.

Day after day the Indians changed the location of their camp, probably to evade the whites if they should pursue them. From Cold Spring by circuitous routes, through the beautiful lake country around Oconomowoc, they moved northward until they reached the rolling hills near Horicon Lake where they pitched their camp not far from the rapids, and southeast of the Indian village of Big Fox.[24]

[24] V. Wis. Hist. Col., 260; Black Hawk’s Autobiography, 106, 110, 160; “Waubun,” 320; Hist. of Dodge Co., by Hubbell, 67.

The girls had now traveled about 150 miles north from their home. It was the eighth day of their captivity, and to them the time was so long that every minute seemed almost a day; and since they last sat at dinner in the little cottage of William Davis at Indian Creek, although very vivid in their minds, seemed an age. Also, the unknown places at which they had camped being in such various directions from each other, the girls had no idea how far they had gone from Black Hawk’s Grove (Janesville). Everywhere they traveled Indian camps were numerous, because as soon as spring had opened the Indians divided into small camps to make maple sugar. Were the girls to put an estimate upon the number of Indians in that unknown region, it certainly would have reached high up into the thousands.

At every camp the dance around the pole with all its hideous surroundings, accompanied by the Indian yells and war-whoops, the rattling of gourds, and waving of weapons, was repeated.

Among the tribes east of the Mississippi River it was an honor principle that their female captives should not be tortured nor their chastity violated; but if white men were taken captives they were reduced to slavery and obliged to wait upon the white women after they had been adopted by the Indians.[25] Notwithstanding this unwritten law, these dances with the scalps on the spears harrassed the girls and caused them to sob and weep bitterly.

[25] 1, “Handbook of American Indians,” 203.

One morning after many repetitions of the dance around the pole, the program was varied by a party of warriors coming to the lodge where the girls were in the custody of the squaws, placing in their hands small red flags, and then the Indians with their captives marched around the encampment, stopping at each wigwam and waving their flags at the doors, accompanied by some recitation of a chief and the rattling of gourds, all of which was not understood by the girls and they were unable to comprehend the significance of what they were doing. As a matter of fact the performance was a religious ceremony in which the gourds took the place of bells used by several Christian denominations during their religious ceremonies.