Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This account can be quickly read and had interesting insights into the life and travelings of Native Americans of the time. A white boy stolen from his family and assimilated into another life is compelling. When he learns that he might have been abducted and was not truly Native American he feels the need to look for his white family. Given the approval of the chief he leaves behind a wife and 2 children in search of his people promising to return.
Knowing that Native American children were routinely and legally kidnapped from their families to be forcibly assimilated into white culture was in my mind all through the book.
He was traded from tribe to tribe and traveled the entire length of the continent and into the Arctic with them as he crossed tribal territories. He describes different traditions from tribe to tribe.
His story is told dispassionately in that clear but stilted turn of the century English and it reads like he is simply sitting there with you reciting the events.
Enjoyed the read.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Kidnapped and Sold By Indians -- True Story of a 7-Year-Old Settler Child (Annotated and Illustrated) (First_Hand Account Of Being Kidnapped By Indians)
' This newly revised edition includes annotations and content about another child kidnapped by Indians who went on to give birth to the last Comanche chief. ' It also includes 12 dynamic historical photographs from the National Archives depicting the numerous tribes Mathew Brayton lived among and fought with. This first-hand narrative of the life of Matthew Brayton, a seven-and-a-half year old white child of a settler who was kidnapped and sold many times by Native Americans in the beginning of the 19th century, probably doesn't share all the gory details of his abuse when initially captured, but you can read between the lines. Still, this first-hand account does shed much light on what it was really like to come under the charge of many different Indian tribes.Although Brayton's treatment was not entirely negative or positive, his frank and blunt story does much to dispel the romantic stories that have been perpetuated about young settlers' children who became Indian chattel. It does much to tell true history and dispel any deliberate or accidental revisions. In many cases the Indians treated Brayton well, but there can be no doubt that they stole from him and his family a life that would end up confused and stuck between two worlds. Although Brayton did finally unite with many of his natural family, he never stopped identifying with Native Americans, and he was forced to leave an Indian wife and child behind. In fact, when the War of Rebellion or Civil War broke out, Brayton enlisted and served in an American Indian brigade. Chet DembeckPublisher of One
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