Fanny Kelly

PREPARING THE CHI-CHA-CHA, OR KILLIKINNICK—ATTACK ON CAPTAIN FISK’S EMIGRANT TRAIN—FOURTEEN WHITES KILLED—A BIG HAUL OF WHISKY—A DRUNKEN DEBAUCH—I WRITE A LETTER TO CAPTAIN FISK UNDER DICTATION—POISONED INDIANS—THE TRAIN SAVED BY MY CLERICAL STRATEGY.

One of the occupations given me, while resting in the villages between war times, was to prepare the bark of a red willow called killikinnick, for smoking instead of tobacco.

They discovered that I could sing, and groups of idle warriors would gather around me before the tent, urging me to sing as I worked. A dreary, dreary task! chanting to please my savage companions while I rubbed and prepared the bark of willow, my heart ready to burst with grief.

On the 5th of September they went to battle, and surprised a portion of Captain Fisk’s men passing in escorting an emigrant train—fourteen of whom they killed, and captured two wagons loaded with whisky, wines, and valuable articles. There was a quantity of silver-ware and stationery also taken by them.

Among the articles captured and brought into camp were a number of pickles in glass jars, which the Indians tasted. The result was comical in the extreme, for there is nothing that an Indian abhors more than a strong acid. The faces they made can be imagined but not described. Thinking they might be improved by cooking, they placed the jars in the fire, when of course they exploded, very much to their disgust for the “white man’s kettles.”

I could hear the firing plainly, and when they returned that night in triumph, bringing with them the plundered stores, they committed every description of extravagant demonstration. In the wild orgies which followed, they mocked and groaned in imitation of the dying, and went through a horrid mimicry of the butchery they had perpetrated.

They determined to go out again, and capture a quantity of horses corralled in the neighborhood, and sweep the train and soldiers with wholesale massacre; but they feared the white man’s cannon, and deliberated on means of surprising by ambush, which is their only idea of warfare.

Indians are not truly brave, though they are vain of the name of courage. Cunning, stealth, strategy, and deceit are the weapons they use in attack.

They endure pain, because they are taught from infancy that it is cowardly to flinch, but they will never stand to fight if they can strike secretly and escape.

Fearing the cannon, yet impatient for the spoil almost within view, the Indians waited for three days for the train to move on and leave them free to attack.

For two days I implored and begged on my knees to be allowed to go with them, but to no avail. At last I succeeded in inducing them to allow me to write, as they knew I understood the nature of correspondence, and they procured for me the necessary appliances and dictated a letter to Captain Fisk, assuring him that the Indians were weary of fighting, and advising him to go on in peace and safety.

Knowing their malicious designs, I set myself to work to circumvent them; and although the wily chief counted every word dictated, and as they were marked on paper, I contrived, by joining them together, and condensing the information I gave, to warn the officer of the perfidious intentions of the savages, and tell him briefly of my helpless and unhappy captivity.

The letter was carefully examined by the chief, and the number of its apparent words recounted.

At length, appearing satisfied with its contents, he had it carried to a hill in sight of the soldier’s camp, and stuck on a pole.

In due time the reply arrived, and again my ingenuity was tasked to read the answer corresponding with the number of words, that would not condemn me.

The captain’s real statement was, that he distrusted all among the savages, and had great reason to.

On reading Captain Fisk’s words, that seemed to crush my already awakened hopes, my emotion overcame me.

Having told the Indians that the captain doubted their friendliness, and explained the contents of the letter as I thought best, the next day I was entrusted with the task of writing again, to solemnly assure the soldiers of the faith and friendship professed.

Again I managed to communicate with them, and this time begged them to use their field-glasses, and that I would find an excuse for standing on the hills in the afternoon, that they might see for themselves that I was what I represented myself to be—a white woman held in bondage.

The opportunity I desired was gained, and to my great delight, I had a chance of standing so as to be seen by the men of the soldier’s camp.

I had given my own name in every communication. As soon as the soldiers saw that it truly was a woman of their own race, and that I was in the power of their enemies, the excitement of their feelings became so great that they desired immediately to rush to my rescue.

A gentleman belonging to the train generously offered eight hundred dollars for my ransom, which was all the money he had, and the noble, manly feeling displayed in my behalf did honor to those who felt it. There was not a man in the train who was not willing to sacrifice all he had for my rescue.

Captain Fisk restrained all hasty demonstrations, and even went so far as to say that the first man who moved in the direction of the Indian camp should be shot immediately, his experience enabling him to know that a move of that kind would result fatally to them and to the captive.

The Indians found a box of crackers saturated with water, and, eating of them, sickened and died.

I afterward learned that some persons with the train who had suffered the loss of dear relatives and friends in the massacre of Minnesota, and who had lost their all, had poisoned the crackers with strychnine, and left them on one of their camping-grounds without the captain’s knowledge.

The Indians told me afterward that more had died from eating bad bread than from bullets during the whole summer campaign.

Captain Fisk deserves great credit for his daring and courage, with his meager supply of men, against so large an army of red men.

After assurance of my presence among them, Captain Fisk proceeded to treat quietly with the savages on the subject of a ransom, offering to deliver in their village three wagon loads of stores as a price for their prisoner.

To this the deceitful creatures pretended readily to agree, and the tortured captive, understanding their tongue, heard them making fun of the credulity of white soldiers who believed their promises.

I had the use of a field-glass from the Indians, and with it I saw my white friends, which almost made me wild with excited hope.

Knowing what the Indians had planned, and dreading lest the messengers should be killed, as I knew they would be if they came to the village, I wrote to Captain Fisk of the futility of ransoming me in that way, and warned him of the treachery intended against his messengers.[1]

No tongue can tell or pen describe those terrible days, when, seemingly lost to hope and surrounded by drunken Indians, my life was in constant danger.

Nights of horrible revelry passed, when, forlorn and despairing, I lay listening, only half consciously, to the savage mirth and wild exultation.

To no overtures would the Indians listen, declaring I could not be purchased at any price—they were determined not to part with me. Captain Fisk and his companions were sadly disappointed in not obtaining my release, and, after a hopeless attempt, he made known the fact of my being a prisoner, spreading the news far and wide.

His expeditions across the plains had always been successful, and the Indians, knowing him to be very brave, gave him the name of the “Great Chief, who knows no fear,” and he richly deserves the appellation, for the expeditions were attended with great danger. The reports of his various expeditious have been published by Government, and are very interesting, giving a description of the country.

In September the rains were very frequent, sometimes continuing for days.

This may not seem serious to those who have always been accustomed to a dwelling and a good bed, but to me, who had no shelter and whose shrinking form was exposed to the pitiless storm, and nought but the cold ground to lie upon, bringing the pains and distress of rheumatism, it was a calamity hard to bear, and I often prayed fervently to God to give me sweet release in a flight to the land where there are no storms.

Soon the winter would be upon us, and the cold, and sleet, and stormy weather would be more difficult to bear. Would I be so fortunate, would Heaven be so gracious as to place me in circumstances where the wintry winds could not chill or make me suffer! My heart seemed faint at the thought of what was before me, for hope was lessening as winter approached!