In writing the story of our ancestors, I’m now at the point
in where Jakob and his sons are being carried away from their home by the
Indians who killed their family members and burned their farm. According to the
account Jacob gave the British after he escaped from the village where he was
held captive for seven months, quoted in Our
Flesh and Blood by Beth Hostetler Mark, they were taken on a 21-day journey
from his home near present-day Shartlesville, Pennsylvania, to the French stronghold Fort Presque
Isle on the shore of Lake Erie.
The following vivid account of the ordeals Indian captives suffered is taken from The Descendents of Jacob Hochstetler.
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A Captive's Ordeal |
Prisoners were always subject to many abuses on arriving at
Indian Villages: every old squaw or young Indian would hit them with switches
and sometimes clubs and tomahawks. This was known to Hochstetler, who had saved
some of the peaches from his home. He now with his sons approached the chief
and those near him and presented them some peaches. This so pleased the chief
that he immediately ordered the abuses stopped. It also saved them from what is
called running the gauntlet, which was as follows: All Indians in the village
or camp, both sexes, young and old, would stand in two rows facing each other,
armed with switches, sticks and sometimes tomahawks or other implements and the
unfortunate captive was made to pass through between the two columns, every one
striking and some endeavoring to impede their progress by throwing sand or dust
into their eyes, and woe unto one that was slow in running; such a one was
beaten unmercifully. At the end of the row stood the guardhouse, where the
prisoner for the time was free; but some indeed never reached it.
The details gleaned from recent research all indicate that
our ancestor Jacob must have been a strong, intelligent, resourceful, and
persistent man to have endured what he did, found a way to escape and return
home, and then pursue efforts to locate until finally his sons were returned to
him. More important is the faith he demonstrated throughout his ordeal that
serves as an example to us all.
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