The
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography published an interesting
article/research on Transculturation of the Anglo-American and American
Indian that went in both directions. The influence and adoption of
food, cooking, farming, and building. The below is an excerpt, the full
publication can be read by following the link below.
The Pennsylvania Magazine
Of History and Biography
Pennsylvania Captives among the Ohio Indians, 1755- 1765
THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY Vol. CXXV, No. 3 July 2001
...Pennsylvania captives were fully integrated into Indian
society. Most captives were adopted to replace deceased family members and even
acquired their social status. Peter Lewney, for instance, was adopted by a
Detroit headman to replace a deceased relative and was soon fully integrated
into his new family. He was regarded as a respected warrior and encouraged to
attend important diplomatic meetings with the French. Several captives even
rose to positions of influence in their new homes. George Brown became "one
of the chief Men among the Shawnese" and Joshua Renick a Miami headman.
Hugh Gibson was adopted to replace a brother of Pisquetomen, an influential
Delaware headman.
Their central place in the families of the Ohio Indians
meant that they were able to acculturate their families into Anglo-American
practices. Although captivity accounts arc often very vague on the routine of
the captives' daily lives, it appears that on a day-to-day level they
repeatedly influenced the lives of their captors.35Captives were used in a wide
variety of tasks, particularly around the home where they were in close contact
with their captors. Mary Jemison reported that she was "employed in
nursing the children, and doing light work about the house."36 Marie Le
Roy and Barbara Leininger were similarly employed planting crops and
washing and cooking. Captives also served as teachers of English to their new
families. Indeed, by the 1760s many Ohio Indians appear to have mastered the
English language with a reasonable degree of fluency. On occasion, the Ohio
Indians also took advantage of their ability to read. Robert Rutherford, for
instance, a British soldier captured during Pontiac's War, was ordered to
translate British documents for his captors. Taken individually these instances
may not amount to a dramatic cultural transformation of the lives of Ohio in
clans. However, when compounded hundreds of times, with captives present in the
majority of Ohio villages, and when
added to the flow of captured household goods, captives served to introduce
European customs into the Ohio Valley. In Mary Jemi son's case, for instance,
this might have amounted to no more than showing her adopted family how to use
a fork seized from a colonist's plantation.
The skills of captives were important because the war
brought so many new items to the Ohio Valley. Raiders bought back with them
household utensils, clothing, agricultural implements, almost anything that
they, or the horses they seized, could any. Captives played an important role
in showing the Ohio villagers bow to use their new booty. Before the war,
domesticated cattle had been very uncommon in the Ohio Valley. The Moravian
missionary David Zeisberger commented that in general the Ohio Indians "do
not care to keep c-.itd e, for in that case they must remain at home to look
after it [sic] and are prevented from going into the forest. 38 However,
captives such as Susanna Johnson, captured by the Iroquois, who reported how
she spent much
of her time
tending cows, may
have played an important role in informing the Ohio
Indians about the core of such animals.39 By the early l 760s James Kenny was
able to report how one Delaware headman living on the Ohio River had even
constructed "several Stables & Cow houses under one Root" and
had become widely
known for his skill in making
butter. By the late 1760s Anglo-American travelers to the region where
commenting on the numerous cattle and pigs that roamed the Ohio woods, and even on the Ohio Indians'
skill in producing butter and cheese."°
Captives may also have facilitated an even more fundamental
cultural transformation. James Kenny related how in 1761 he came across a
village of houses with "Stone Chimneys &several frame Buildings,_,,.
Captives like Hugh Gibson, who was employed in producing clapboards, may have
played a crucial role in teaching the Ohio Indians these new construction
skills. By the late eighteenth century, many Ohio Indians had abandoned
traditional building techniques and were living in clapboard houses of European
style. Thomas Cape told how some Shawnees even sowed the wheat that they had
obtained during raids on the backcountry and attempted to produce their own
wheat and bread.42 By the 1760s David Zeisberger reported that the Ohio Indians
had even begun to forge their own iron and make hatchets and axes. The adoption
of European housing, forging, and agricultural techniques represents a fundamental
acculturation of the Ohio Indians. Indeed, Alden T. Vaughan and Daniel K.
Richter have argued that" adoption of English-style housing seems to have
been one of the last steps in transculturation."43
THE P ENNSYLVANIAMACAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOCRAPMY Vol. CXXV, No. 3 July 2001
Piqua Shawnee
