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Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Colonel James Smith, James Smith
James Smith was a young American colonial soldier captured by a band of French-allied Iroquois at the beginning of the French and Indian War, about 1755. After being made to run the gauntlet and recovering from his wounds at Fort Duquesne, he was adopted by a native family in place of a deceased relative. (The initiation ceremony involved a sort of baptism as well as having nose and ears pierced and most of his hair pulled out.) He lived with them for four years, hunting and traveling from the shore of Lake Erie south to the Ohio River and as far west as Detroit. Smith’s captivity narrative, recommended by Francis Parkman in Montcalm and Wolfe, is a fascinating document not only for the unexpected view it provides of the war or for Smith’s tales of winter endurance, but…
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