Mary Jemison

Mary Jemison was a British woman that was taken captive by the French and the Shawnee during the French and Indian War. She spent the remainder of her life living as an Indian.

While emigrating with her family from Londonderry, Ireland to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jemison was born aboard the ship William and Mary on the Atlantic Ocean. In 1758, Mary Jemison was living with her family in western Pennsylvania. A group of Shawnee Indians and French soldiers captured her during the French and Indian War. Jemison was fifteen years old at the time of her capture. Her parents and three of her younger siblings were killed. A group of Seneca Indians purchased Jemison and took her with them to the Ohio Country. A Seneca family adopted the teenager and gave her the name Dehgewanus, meaning "Two Fallen Voices, symbolizing the end of mourning by the family's two sisters whose brother had died at the hands of Cherokee warriors.

Dehgewanus learned the ways of the Seneca and married Sheninjee, a member of the Delaware Indians. They had two children, but only one survived. Soon after the second child was born, Dehgewanus and Sheninjee began a trip to Sheninjee's homeland along the Genesee River in New York. Sheninjee died in warfare against the Cherokee, but Dehgewanus continued on the trip. The New York Senecas made a home for her at Little Beard's Town. Dehgewanus married again, this time to a Seneca named Hagido:wa, which translates to English as he/spear point/large, and had seven more children. She had become a member of the Seneca and remained in New York for the rest of her life. Dehgewanus died at the Buffalo Creek Reservation on September 19, 1833 at the age of ninety.

Like many other Indian captives, Mary Jemison preferred life with Native Americans rather than a return to her previous lifestyle.