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by James E. Seaver (Author), Mary Jemison (Author)
A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison is one of the most important early American captivity narratives, preserving the extraordinary life story of a woman taken captive during the French and Indian War and later adopted into Seneca society. Mary Jemison was born to a Scotch-Irish immigrant family on the Pennsylvania frontier. In 1758, as a young girl, she was captured during a raid in which most of her family was killed. Rather than returning to colonial society when later given opportunities, Jemison remained with the Seneca, married, raised children, and lived for decades within Haudenosaunee communities in what is now western New York.
First published in 1824, James E. Seaver's account is a significant document of frontier history, Native American history, women's biography, and early nineteenth-century American memory. Like many captivity narratives, it must be read with awareness of its period, mediation, and assumptions, but its value remains considerable: it records Jemison's recollections of war, displacement, adoption, family life, diplomacy, land loss, cultural crossing, and survival during an era of violent colonial expansion and profound Indigenous upheaval.
This Wilder Publications edition is suited to readers of early American history, women's autobiography, Native American history, frontier studies, captivity narratives, colonial and Revolutionary-era America, and documentary accounts of life between cultures. A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison remains a compelling and historically important record of endurance, identity, and the human cost of empire on the American frontier.
