Fanny Kelly’s account of her captivity among the Sioux offers a rare firsthand view of life inside a Native American village during the 1860s. Her book, Narrative of My Captivity Among the Sioux Indians, was published in 1871, several years after her rescue. It remains one of the best-known captivity narratives of the era.
Among the episodes Kelly recounts is the arrival of an Indian named Porcupine, who came to the village well dressed and mounted on a fine horse. He brought presents and valuables that ensured him a warm reception. After several days, he delivered a letter to Kelly from Captain Marshall of the 11th Ohio Cavalry.
The letter described unsuccessful attempts to rescue her. It stated that Porcupine, described as a friendly Indian, had undertaken to bring her back and would be rewarded. It added that he had already received a horse and provisions for the journey and had left his three wives and thirteen others at the fort as hostages.
Kelly’s feelings on reading the letter were indescribable. Her heart leaped with unaccustomed hope at the evidence of her white friends’ efforts on her behalf. But despair quickly followed, because she knew the messenger would not keep his promise. He had joined the Sioux soon after his arrival and fought in a battle against the whites.
Her fears proved well founded. Porcupine prepared to return to the fort without her, disregarding her earnest prayers and entreaties. The chief found her useful and was determined to keep her. He believed that a woman who had seen so much of the tribe’s deceitfulness and cruelty could do them injury at the fort and might prevent their receiving annuities.
Porcupine said he would report her as dead or impossible to find. He could not be persuaded to do otherwise. When reminded of the possible vengeance of the soldiers on his wives, whom they had threatened to kill if he did not bring Kelly back, he laughed.
“The white soldiers are cowards,” he replied. “They never kill women, and I will deceive them as I have done before.”
With that, he took his departure. The chief could not be induced to allow Kelly to send a written message to her friends or in any way assure them of her existence. All hope of rescue departed, and she turned again to the wearisome drudgery of her captive life.
The young betrothed bride of the old chief was sometimes gracious to Kelly. On one occasion she invited her to join her in a walk. The day was cool and the air inviting, and the girl pointed down to a deep ravine, saying it was cool and shady there.
Kelly looked in the direction indicated, then at the Indian girl, who became mysterious in her manner. The girl whispered that there were white people down there. Asked how far, she replied about fifty miles. She said they had great guns and men dressed in much buttons, and their wagons were drawn by horses with long ears.
Kelly thought of a fort, but remembering the treacherous nature of the people she was among, she repressed every sign of emotion and tried to look indifferent. The girl, whose name was Ego Secular Nycha, asked whether she would like to see them. Kelly said quietly that they were strangers to her and she did not know them.
The girl pressed on, asking whether Kelly was sorry to live with them. Kelly replied cautiously that she did not have such bread as she would like to eat. The girl asked whether she was dissatisfied with their home and noted that they had some meat now, better than at other camping grounds where there had been no food and Kelly had suffered. She observed that Kelly’s eyes were swollen and red, and asked whether she did not weep for bread.
These questions made Kelly suspicious, and she tried to evade the young squaw, but in vain. She affected not to hear and pointed out how green the wood was. The girl repeated her questions, asking whether Kelly would stay there always willingly. Kelly drew her companion toward the grove, saying to come and listen to the birds. She did not trust her and feared to utter a single word lest it be used against her with the chief.
Kelly was not mistaken in the girl’s design. When they returned to the lodge, she overheard Ego Secular Nycha telling the chief about the amusement she had enjoyed in lying to the white woman. The girl repeated what she had said about the fort and invented entreaties Kelly had supposedly used, urging the girl to allow her to fly to her white friends and leave the Indians forever.
Kelly instantly resolved to take advantage of the affair as a joke. Approaching the chief with respectful pleasantry, she begged to reverse the story. She said it was the girl who had implored her to go with her to the white man’s fort and find her a white warrior for a husband, but that Kelly, true to her faith with the Indians, had refused. The wily Ego Secular Nycha, finding her weapons turned against herself, appeared confused and suddenly left the tent. The old chief smiled grimly.
Kelly observed that slander coils itself among Indian women as it does in civilized society. When reality fails, invention is called in to supply the defect. They delight in scandal, she wrote, and prove it by their claim to some of the refined conventionalities of civilized life.
Porcupine had spread news abroad in the village that a large reward had been offered for the white woman. As a result, Kelly was sought for, with the motive being to gain the reward. One day an Indian she had seen in different places, and whose wife she had known, made signs intimating a desire to help her escape and return to her people.
Kelly listened to his plans. Although she knew her position in such a case to be one of great peril, she felt continually that her life was of so little value that any opportunity, however slight, was like a star in the distance. An escape should be attempted, even at a risk.
They conversed as well as they could several times, and finally arrangements were made. At night he was to make a slight scratching noise at the teepee where she was as a sign. The night came, but Kelly was singing to the people and could not get away. Another time they had visitors in the lodge and she would have been missed.
The next night she arose from her robe and went out into the darkness. Seeing her intended rescuer at a short distance, she approached and followed him. They ran hastily out of the village about a mile, where they were joined by the squaw who had helped make the arrangements and was favorable to the plan for her escape.
But the squaw was not there. White Tepee, as the Indian was named, looked hastily around, and seeing no one, darted suddenly away without a word of explanation. Why he acted thus Kelly never knew. It was a strange proceeding. Fear lent her wings, and she flew rather than ran back to her teepee.
Exhausted and discouraged, she dropped to the ground and feigned slumber, for the inmates were already aroused, having just discovered her absence. Finding her apparently asleep, they lifted her up, took her into the tent, and laid her upon her robe. The next evening White Tepee sent for her to come to his lodge to a feast, where she was well and hospitably entertained. Not a sign was given of the adventure of the previous night.
When the pipe was passed, he requested that it be touched to her lips, then offered it to the Great Spirit, signifying his friendship toward her. In the same month, the Indians captured a white man who was hunting on the prairie. They carried him far away from the haunts of other white men, tied him hand and foot after stripping him of all clothing, and left him there to starve. He was never heard of afterward.
There were twin children in one of the lodges. One sickened and died and was buried in the evening. The surviving child was placed upon the scaffold by the corpse and remained there all night, its crying and moaning almost breaking Kelly’s heart. When she inquired why they did this, the reply was that it was to cause the mate to mourn. The mother was on one of the neighboring hills, wailing and weeping as was the custom among them. Nearly every night there were women among the hills wailing for their dead.
About the first of October, the Indians were on the move as usual, and by some means Kelly became separated from the family she was with and was lost. She looked around for them, but their familiar faces were not to be seen. Strangers gazed upon her, and although she besought them to help her find the people of her own teepee, they paid no attention to her trouble and refused to do anything for her.
She never forgot the sadness she felt as evening approached and they encamped for the night in a lonely valley after a wearisome day’s journey. Along one side stood a strip of timber with a small stream beside it. Hungry, weary, and lost to her people, with no place to lay her head, she felt more desolate than ever after a fruitless search for the family.
Even Keoku, or Yellow Bird, the Indian girl who had been given to her, was not with her that day, making it still more lonely. Kelly sat down and held her pony. It was autumn, and the forests were in the last glory of their gorgeous coloring. Leaves already lay along the paths like a rich carpet of variegated colors. The winds caught a deeper, mournful tone, but the air was balmy and soft, and the sunlight lay warm and pleasant as in midsummer over the beautiful valley, now occupied by numberless camps of tentless Indians.
It seemed as if the soft autumn weather was unwilling to yield the last traces of beauty to the chill embraces of early winter. Kelly thought of the luxuries and comforts of her home. She looked back on the past with tears of sorrow and regret. Her heart was overburdened with grief, and she prayed to die. The future looked like a dark cloud approaching, and the dread of the desolation of winter was appalling to her.
While meditating on days past and contemplating the future, Keoku came suddenly upon her and was delighted to find the object of her search. They had been looking for Kelly and did not know where she had gone. They had been quite worried about her, the girl said, and she was glad she had found her. Kelly was as pleased as the girl and rejoiced to join them.
Kelly reflected that one has no idea of the extent of an Indian village or the number of its inhabitants. It would seem strange to some that she should ever get lost when among them, but like a large city, one may be separated from companions and in a few moments be lost. The Indians all knew the white woman, but she knew comparatively few, and consequently when among strangers she felt utterly friendless. The experience of those days of gloom and sadness seemed like a fearful dream now that her life was once again with civilized people, enjoying blessings she had been deprived of some twenty-five years earlier.
Kelly also recounted the story of a white woman in the village. Some twenty-five years before, an immigrant train bound for California arrived near the crossing of the North Platte River when cholera broke out among the travelers. Every one of them died except one little girl. An Indian named Black Bear, while hunting, came to the wagons, now a morgue, and found the girl’s father dying of cholera.
The dying parent begged Black Bear to carry his little one to his home in the East, assuring him of abundant reward by the child’s friends in addition to the gold he gave him. These facts Kelly gleaned from a letter given to Black Bear by the dying father, which had been carefully preserved by the daughter. Instead of doing as he was desired, Black Bear took the money, the child, and everything valuable in the train to his own home among the hills and there educated the little one in the habits of Indian life.
She forgot her own language, her name, and everything about her past life, but she knew that she was white. Her infancy and girlhood were passed in utter ignorance of the modes of life of her own people, and she remained among them contented and happy, verifying the old adage that habit is second nature. When she was of marriageable age, Black Bear took her for his wife, and they had a child, a boy.
Kelly became acquainted with this white woman shortly after she went into the village, and they were sincere friends, though not confidants, as Kelly dared not trust her. It was natural and pleasant to know her, as she was white, and although she was an Indian in tastes and habits, she was Kelly’s sister and belonged to her people. There was a sympathetic cord between them, and it was a relief to be with her.
On the occasion of Kelly’s first visit, Black Bear suggested that white women always drink tea together, so she made them a cup of herb tea, which they drank in company. Kelly endeavored to enlighten her and do her all the good she could, telling her of the white people and of their kindness and Christianity, which the woman listened to with great interest. Kelly was the only white woman she had seen, for whenever they neared any fort she was always kept out of sight. She seemed to enjoy painting herself and dressing for the dances as well as the squaws, and she was happy and contented with Indian surroundings, for she knew no difference.
A little boy fourteen years old named Charles Sylvester, belonging to Quincy, Illinois, who had been stolen when seven years of age, was also in the village. One day Kelly saw him playing with the Indian boys and discovered immediately that he was white. She flew to his side and tried to clasp him in her arms, exclaiming with joy that she knew he was a white boy and asking him to speak to her and tell her who he was and where he came from.
He also had forgotten his name and parentage but knew that he was white. When Kelly spoke to him, the boys began to plague and tease him, and he refused to speak to her anymore, running away every time she approached him. One year later, when this boy was out hunting, he killed a comrade by accident and dared not return to the village. He then escaped on his pony to the white people.
On his way to the states, he called at a house where they knew what Indians he belonged to, and they questioned him whether he had seen a white woman in the village. He replied in the affirmative, and a bundle of pictures being given him, he picked Kelly’s out from among them, saying that was the white woman he had seen. After a while, being discontented with his own people, he returned to his adopted friends on the North Platte River and became an interpreter and traitor, and still remained there doing business at various posts.
When the Indians went to obtain their annuities, they transferred Kelly to the Unkpapas, leaving her in their charge. There was a young couple and an old Indian who had four wives. He had been very brave, it was said, for he had endured the trial that proves a successful warrior. He was one of those who looked at the sun without failing in heart or strength.
This custom was as follows. The one who undergoes the operation is nearly naked and is suspended from the upper end of a pole by a cord tied to splints that run through the flesh of both breasts. The weight of his body hangs from it, while his feet still rest upon the ground, helping support it only a little. In his left hand he holds his favorite bow, and in his right, with a firm hold, his medicine bag.
A great crowd usually looks on, sympathizing with and encouraging him, but he continues to hang and look at the sun without paying the least attention to anyone about him. The Mystery Men beat their drums and shake their rattles and sing as loud as they can yell to strengthen his heart to look at the sun from its rising until its setting. At that time, if his heart and strength have not failed him, he is cut down and receives a liberal donation of presents piled before him during the day, along with the name and style of a doctor or medicine man, which lasts him and ensures him respect through life. It is considered a test of bravery.
Kelly observed that superstition seemed to have full sway among the Indians, just as much as in heathen lands beyond the sea, where the Burmese mother casts her child to the crocodile to appease the great spirit. Many of these Indians were from Minnesota and were of the number that escaped justice two years before after committing an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children.
One day Kelly was sent for by one of them, and when she was seated in his lodge, he gave her a letter to read. It purported to have been written by General Sibley. The letter stated that the Indian, after taking part in the present outbreak against white settlers and missionaries, being sick and not able to keep up with his friends in their flight, was being given offerings of friendship, food, and clothing. It said he was in their power but they would not harm him, and told him to go to his people and gladden their hearts, lay down his weapons, and fight the white men no more. It promised to do him good and not evil, and told him to take the letter, depart in peace, and evermore be a friend to the white people, and he would be more happy. It was signed H.H. Sibley, Brigadier General commanding Expedition.
Instinctively Kelly looked up at his face after reading it and said, “You intend to keep your promise.” He laughed derisively at the idea of an Indian brave abandoning his profession. He told of many instances of outrageous cruelties by his bands in their marauding and murderous attacks on traveling parties and frontier settlers. Further to assure her of his bravery, he showed her a puzzle or game he had made from the finger bones of some of the victims who had fallen beneath his own tomahawk. The bones had been freed from the flesh by boiling, and being placed upon a string, were used for playing some kind of Indian game.
Kelly described this as but one of the heathenish acts of these Indians. She noted that they are fond of recounting their exploits and dwell with much satisfaction upon the number of scalps they have taken from their white foes. They would be greatly amused at the shuddering horror she manifested when, to annoy her, they would tauntingly portray the dying agonies of white men, women, and children who had fallen into their hands. Their descriptions of the murder of little Mary especially afforded them satisfaction. Kelly felt she must have been convinced of the child’s death, yet she could not help hoping that she had escaped.
These exploits and incidents were generally related by the Indians when they were in camp and had nothing to do. The “great lazy brutes,” as Kelly called them, would sit by the hour making caricatures of white soldiers, representing them in various ways and always as cowards and inferior beings. Sometimes they showed them in combat, but always at their mercy.
This was frequently done apparently to annoy Kelly. One day, losing patience, she snatched a rude drawing from the hands of an Indian who was holding it up to her view and tore it in two. Clasping the part that represented the white soldier to her heart, she threw the other in the fire. Then, looking up, she told them the white soldiers were dear to her and were her friends, and that she loved them. She said they were friends to the Indians and did not want to harm them. She expressed herself in the strongest manner by words and signs.
Never did she see a more enraged set of men. They assailed her with burning firebrands, burning her severely. They heeded the points of arrows and burned and threatened her sorely. Kelly told them she meant no harm, that it was ridiculous for them to get angry at her for burning a piece of paper. She promised she would make them some more, and that they should have pictures of her drawing. At last that pacified them.
She observed that they were much like children in this respect, easily offended but very difficult to please. She was constantly annoyed, worried, and terrified by their strange conduct and their transition from laughing and fun to anger and even rage. She knew not how to get along with them. One moment they would seem friendly and kind; the next, if any act of hers displeased them, their faces were instantly changed and they displayed hatred or anger in unmeasured words or conduct. They were children one hour and fiends the next. Kelly always tried to please them and was as cheerful as she could be under the circumstances, for her own sake.
One day she was called to see a man who lay in his teepee in great suffering. His wasted face was darkened by fever, and his brilliantly restless eyes rolled anxiously as if in search of relief from pain. He was reduced to a skeleton and had endured torture from the separation of an old wound in the knee. He greeted her with the “how, how” of Indian politeness. In answer to her inquiry why he came to suffer so, he replied that he went to fight the white man, who took away land and chased game away, then took away their squaws and took away his best wife. Here his voice choked and he displayed much emotion.
Pitying his misery, Kelly endeavored to aid him and rendered him all the assistance in her power, but death was then upon him. The medicine man was with him also, practicing his incantations. They were so constantly traveling that it wearied her beyond expression. The day after this Indian’s burial, they were again on the move.
By the fall of 1864, after a train was captured in July, Kelly had another failed escape attempt. She got lost in the Sioux village and was burned by angry warriors after she reacted to their taunting. In the next part of her story, she would be transferred to the Unkpapas.
Kelly’s narrative also overlaps in places with the book of Sarah Larimer, The Capture and Escape, published one year earlier in 1870. In particular, the stories about Black Bear’s wife and the young boy captive from Illinois named Charles Sylvester appear in both books. The more recent book A Fate Worse Than Death by Gregory and Susan Michno provides details on the contention and animosity that grew between Fanny Kelly and Sarah Larimer many years after they were both rescued.
In October 1870, Fanny Kelly commenced a lawsuit against Sarah Larimer. Apparently the two had made an agreement in 1865 to prepare a joint memoir of their experiences, with both names appearing as co-authors. In May 1869, Sarah took the manuscript to Philadelphia, where it was published in her name only and as her own work. Clearly almost all of the Indian captivity experiences were Fanny’s.
At the first trial, Kelly recovered a judgment of five thousand dollars. Two more appeals followed. The last one finally declared that the payment should only be one half of the value of the manuscript when Sarah Larimer took it. Kelly was awarded only $285.50. The case was bitterly contested, with the last hearings dragging on until 1876, and the women became enemies.
Kelly felt that Sarah Larimer had tried to publish the book they had both worked on as her own work. Although much in Fanny Kelly’s narrative is not included in Sarah Larimer’s book, the stories about Black Bear’s wife and Charles Sylvester may have been ones that Fanny Kelly heard and that Sarah Larimer included in her book.