Spoiler-free summary: Molly is a 12-year-old girl who lives with her family on a farm in colonial Pennsylvania. The family is taken captive by a group of Seneca warriors, forced to march quickly over a long distance away from their home, and is eventually separated, as Molly is adopted by a Seneca family. Based on a true story, Indian Captive has an odd narrative arc that is not pleasant to read.
Discussion: As I mentioned when I previewed this, Lois Lenski wrote one of my very least favorite Newbery winners, Strawberry Girl – my note on it was “Caddie Woodlawn but completely joyless.” Apparently Lenski had a series of deep-researched historical stories, but that doesn’t seem to translate into things I want to read. Indian Captive is about an actual girl, Mary Jemison (called Molly by family), who was actually captured by Seneca Indians, and she narrated an autobiography about it late in her life. Lenski does note that she mixed in other captive stories with Jemison’s for the book to provide a more complete picture of what it was like, but some stuff is made up completely. I’m not going to read through the autobiography for this blog post, but Dr. Debbie Reese at her blog did and points out some fabrications (apparently there’s no evidence she was blonde, which is a major character element in the book!).
So, it’s a dated adventure story with limited historic value, which summarizes a lot of books from this era. I did have the thought reading the early sections of this book that it paralleled an African slave story – Molly gets taken from her home, abused on a long journey, separated from her family, expected to work for her new family – which made me wonder whether this could make white kids better identify with black chattel slaves and the crimes against humanity done to them. I don’t think that was the intention at all, and it breaks down by the end, where Molly ends up loving and choosing to stay with her captors.
Even separate from the slave story connection, it’s hard to know what to make of that ending, and what the lesson to be learned is. It is true, Mary Jemison was given the option to leave the Senecas, although it seems like this happened much later in her life, when she already had a number of children. It’s just an odd arc – so much of the book had Molly wanting to escape, even doubling down after it seemed like she had settled in, and it’s only when she finds out her family is dead that she realizes she loves where she is. It’s so much the opposite of what you would expect from a story, where you’d assume finding out the Senecas killed her family would encourage her to escape even more. I don’t know, it’s a mess.
Next up is Ella Young’s The Wonder Smith and His Son, which I know absolutely nothing about, but I’m intrigued by the title.
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