page_title: Mary Draper Ingles
section_title: Captivity
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Draper Ingles / Biography / Captivity
caption_attribution_description: English: Native American activity. From p. 76
context_page_description: Mary Draper Ingles, also known in records as Mary Inglis or Mary English, was an American pioneer and early settler of western Virginia. In the summer of 1755, she and her two young sons were among several captives taken by Shawnee after the Draper's Meadow Massacre during the French and Indian War. They were taken to Lower Shawneetown at the Ohio and Scioto rivers. Ingles escaped with another woman after two and a half months and trekked 500 to 600 miles, crossing numerous rivers, creeks, and the Appalachian Mountains to return home.
  Two somewhat different accounts of Mary Draper Ingles' capture and escape, one written by her son John Ingles, and the other by Letitia Preston Floyd, an acquaintance, are the two primary sources from which the story is known.
  The story became well-known following the 1855 publication of William Henry Foote's account in Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical, based on Mary's son's manuscript. It was further publicized in 1886 with the publication of an embellished version in John P. Hale's Trans-Allegheny pioneers: historical sketches of the first white settlements west of the Alleghenies.
context_section_description: The Indians took their captives, along with several horses loaded with items taken from the settlers' homes, northwest along the New River, then along the Ohio River. They traveled for a month to Lower Shawneetown, located at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio rivers. Upon arrival at the town, the prisoners were made to undergo the ritual of running the gauntlet although, according to her son, Mary was not required to do this. Mary was separated from her sons, who were adopted by Shawnee families. According to John P. Hale, Mary's oldest son Thomas was taken to Detroit, her sister-in-law Bettie was taken to what is now Chillicothe, Ohio, and her youngest son George was taken to an unknown location and died soon afterward. One source states that another captive, Mary's neighbor Henry Leonard, later escaped, although no details are given.
  Letitia Preston Floyd and other sources state that, soon after being taken prisoner, Mary gave birth to a daughter although there is evidence to the contrary. As a prisoner, Mary sewed shirts using cloth traded to the Indians by French traders and was paid in goods for her work. In October 1755, about three weeks after reaching Lower Shawneetown, she was taken to the Big Bone salt lick to make salt for the Indians by boiling brine. A contemporary newspaper account states that Mary was also assigned "to attend [the Indians] as Servant, to dress their Victuals, and stretch the Skins they might procure."
caption: A captive runs the gauntlet between Shawnee warriors.
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