I haven’t had access to fast internet the past few days, so I’ve been spending a little more time reading. This morning I was reading “A history of Jonathan Alder : His captivity and life with the Indians” by Henry Clay Alder, edited by Larry L. Nelson (2002).

Which brings me to this monument in Zanesfield, Ohio. It was the final destination of a bike ride on September 2. It’s a monument to Simon Kenton and Isaac Zane.

Until today I hadn’t really known anything about Isaac Zane, even though I came across his name several times while on last year’s Ohio bike rides. Today I was looking for a photo to go with a post I wanted to write about Jonathan Alder. Alder told of having spent time at the present site of Zanesfield when he was living as an Indian among Shawnee and Mingo people, so I pulled up my Zanesfield photos from September 2, and learned that Isaac Zane had a life story somewhat like Alder’s.

Alder and Zane were contemporaries and both lived in this part of Ohio. They had both been captured by Ohio Indians when young and lived as Indians for many years. Both were caught between two cultures. Alder, though, eventually went back to live as a white farmer. (Here is a local history page a about the two. As a bonus, it has links to the work of Hal Sherman, who has commented in this blog a few times.)

As a historical tourist, I’ve often wondered about the young Indian men who travel led great distances to take part in wars. They didn’t have the benefit of paved roads and bicycles, but it was impressive the way they got around. IIRC, during the French and Indian War, Potawatomi men from Michigan took part not only in the defeat of Gen. Braddock near modern Pittsburg, but in the fighting around Lake Champlaign.

So what induced them to go so far from home? Certainly the desire to protect one’s family and friends played a role, as well as the desire to impress the young women with their war exploits. But was a part of it a desire to see the country, to be tourists of a sort? It’s a motivation I could certainly understand.

I thought I found a sort-of confirmation in Alder’s book where he tells of the time when he was Indian. In 1790 he went along on a raiding party to Kentucky. In one of the versions of his story it is told like this (on page 81):

I had never owned a horse, but was very desirous of doing so, and did not reflect upon the mode proposed to obtain them. To me, nothing seemed wrong so far as the whites were concerned. We had suffered so much at their hands that all seemed to be fair. I was assured the whites would steal our horses, or anything we had, if they had a chance to do so. They had several times taken or destroyed all we had, whereby we were almost reduced to a state of starvation. Hence, I felt somewhat like retaliating if I should have the opportunity. I knew I would like the trip, even if we failed in getting horses….

It was that last sentence that struck me as confirming that there was a bit of the adventuring tourist in these young men: “I knew I would like the trip, even if we failed in getting horses.”

And that first raid into Kentucky was not the only one for Alder. It sounds like it took a lot of planning and resources to undertake these raids. But Alder’s Indian father and mother were pleased with his efforts:

My Indian father and mother were greatly elated over my success. I had to give them a full history of all the little particulars that took place. They thought it was a great thing swimming the Ohio River. They seemed to be overjoyed that I had made the trip so safely and so successfully. They also seemed to set great store to the horses, not because they were so valuable, but because they had a son that could venture out and be so successful, and they were proud of this.

So it wasn’t quite like the social situation described in the song that went, “How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Paris?” For Alder, you might substitute Kentucky for Paris. But his parents’ reaction might help us understand Benjamin Franklin’s famous lament about white children who were brought up among Indians, in a letter written in 1753 :

When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return, and that this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.

Not that Franklin was completely on the mark. He was right that a lot of whites came to prefer life among the Indians but that it hardly ever worked the other way around. But he seemed to think the attraction was a life that was easy and carefree. But John Tanner certainly didn’t think life as an Indian was easier. Far from it. And I haven’t got that impression from any other of the captivity stories. I would think that the attraction was partly in the more adventurous lifestyle, and partly in the interpersonal relationships, both of which are illustrated by Alder’s story.

I’ll be interested to hear what Alder has to say about the relative ease and comfort, though. So far I haven’t got to the part of his story where he went back to living as a white farmer.