Shawnee Captive: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles - Softcover

Furbee, Mary R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1891852299 ISBN 13: 9781891852299

Publisher: Quarrier Press, 2021

Synopsis

n 1745, Mary Draper moved with her parents to Draper's Meadow in the Shenandoah Valley. Here they hoped to finally have rich farmland and the freedom to worship freely - far from the greedy landlords of their native Ireland and the partisan rules of Quaker Pennsylvania. Mary and her family were industrious and strong, quickly learning skills to survive on the frontier. In 1750, at the age of seventeen, Mary Draper married twenty-year old Will Ingles, the first wedding of two white settlers in the region. As more Europeans moved into the area, tension between the settlers and the Native Americans increased. Raids and killings by both sides became common. One day while the men were at harvest, a band of Shawnee warriors stormed Draper's Meadow, killing some settlers and burning the settlement to the ground. Taken captive were Mary, pregnant with her third child, her two young sons, and her injured sister-in-law. Through intuition and courage Mary impressed her kidnappers almost immediately. The captives were marched 800 miles over mountains to a Shawnee village on the Ohio River, presumably to spend the rest of their lives among the Shawnee tribe. But Mary vowed to escape and return to her husband and her people. The story of this remarkable woman's harrowing and courageous trip home places Mary Ingles at the pinnacle of American frontier heroes.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Gr 5-8-In 1755, Mary Draper Ingles, her two sons, and her sister-in-law were taken from their Shenandoah Valley home by a band of Shawnee Indians. Ingles was expecting her third child at the time of her capture. Her mother and her sister-in-law's baby were murdered in the raid. Furbee begins with the Draper family's move to this largely unsettled area. Some of the hardships and setbacks endured over time, Mary's eventual marriage to Will Ingles, and the political climate that helped shape their experience are described. Then comes the raid that led to her capture, her time in captivity, her daring escape, and her 800-mile journey back home. Some of the reasons for the conflicts between the Native Americans and the white settlers are also presented. The workmanlike text tries hard to avoid biased language, although Furbee does not shrink from reflecting the attitudes toward Native Americans held by Ingles, her family, and friends. Fairly gruesome events are described, but they are neither sensationalized nor glossed over. The narrative does present the subject's feelings and thoughts from time to time, but conversations are held to a minimum and the effect is to lend texture to what might have otherwise been a rather dry text. The result is both a readable biography of a daring frontier woman and a snapshot of life in pre-Revolutionary America. It's not an essential purchase, but collections needing biographies of women pioneers or stories of Colonial America might consider it.

Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York City

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Gr. 5-8. Mary's Scotch-Irish family heads to western Virginia in 1745, looking for opportunity. Skirmishes with Native Americans erupt as more and more settlers push west, and the thought of violence is never far from the family as it struggles to build a new life in the wilderness. Tragedy strikes when Mary is a young mother, pregnant with her third child. Shawnee creep into the homestead, murder Mary's mother and infant niece, and haul off the survivors into captivity. Terrified for herself and small sons, Mary grimly endures the ordeal, which takes her hundreds of miles from home. In a moment of desperation while living with the Shawnee, after being separated from her sons, Mary slips away. She leaves her newborn daughter behind and begins, with another woman captive, the agonizing journey home. The travelers nearly starve during the trek but, amazingly, reach their destination alive. Furbee liberally assigns motives to the captors at times, but the lively narrative of this high-action true tale flows from page one and will capture interest. Illustrated with black-and-white sketches and maps; a bibliography is appended. Anne O'Malley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Quarrier Press
• Publication date: 2021
• ISBN 10: 1891852299
• ISBN 13: 9781891852299
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112