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Indian Captive


I have decided to write about a book called the Indian captives written by Lios Lenski.I read this book few months ago during my leisure and I should say that it is one of the few books which really impressed and inspired me.Lios Lenski once again proved that she was the master in writing stories and it can be seen from the popularity of her book"The Strawberry girl" published in mid 1930's.The Indian Captives is related to the life of Mary Jemison also called as Molly and her struggle with the Seneca Red Indian tribes.Mary was a young girl(aged 15 yrs when she was captured)captured by Seneca Indians from her family’s farm in eastern Pennsylvania. After a long journey by foot with her kidnappers, Molly is sold to two sisters, Shining Star and Squirrel Woman, as a replacement for their brother who was killed in battle. The two women begin to introduce Seneca life to Molly, but she is broken-hearted in her new situation, and attempts to run away.

The two women begin to introduce Seneca life to Molly, but she is broken-hearted in her new situation, and attempts to run away. After a journey to Fort Duquesne in which Molly is almost reclaimed by the white settlers, Molly is taken on another long journey, this time to a Seneca village on the Genesee River. Molly is depressed and in ill health, so a kind Seneca woman named Earth Woman nurses her back to health and gives her hope for her future with the Senecas. Gradually Molly becomes friends with many of the Seneca and grows accustomed to their ways. After about two years with the Seneca, Molly learns that her family is dead, and she must make a choice to stay with the Indians or return to the world of white men. She chooses to stay with the Seneca, who have shown her much love and kindness, and whose ways she has grown to understand and respect.I really liked this story much as I was a bit emotional when I read the last part,where she expects her family to take her back .But unfotunately ,the seneca indians kill them when they captured Molly.Their culture used to be like they capture a white when any one in their community is killed or die so that the new captive will be a replacement for the person who died.I would like to appreciate the imagination of the author.She has done a perfect job here.Mary was captured by the seneca Indians in 1777.

About Writer:
Lois Lenski was born in 1893 in Springfield, Ohio, to a Lutheran minister and his wife.Though Lenski’s father wished for his daughter to become a teacher, Lenski instead moved to New York City to study art and soon began to make a living with her illustrations. In 1921, she married Arthur Covey, one of her former teachers. Lenski decided to write her own stories and illustrate them after several publishing companies told her that although they liked her drawings, they did not have suitable books for her to illustrate. In her long career, Lenski wrote and illustrated more than ninety books, including Strawberry Girl, a Newberry Medal winner, and Phebe
Fairchild: Her Book and Indian Captive, both of which were Newberry Honor books.Lenski died in 1974 at the age of eighty.

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