Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Gonannhatenha, Frances

GONANNHATENHA, Frances, Indian convert, b. in Onondaga, N. Y.; d. there in 1692. She had been converted by Father Fremin and became a model of piety and charity in the Caughnawaga village to which her husband belonged. Hearing one day that a hostile party was going in the direction of the place where her husband was hunting, she started in her canoe with two others to give him warning. She fell into the hands of the enemy, who, after torturing her, brought her to Onondaga and placed her in the custody of her sister, who surrendered her. On the scaffold she made a profession of her faith and of her happiness in dying for it. A relative used every entreaty to persuade her to renounce Christianity, and, maddened by his failure, tore her crucifix from her neck, and with his knife slashed a cross on her naked breast. “I thank you, brother,” she said; “it was possible to lose the cross you have taken from me, but you have given me one I only can lose with my life.” She then addressed those present with great force, exhorting them to embrace the faith. She was then tortured for three successive nights and barbarously put to death. The narrative of her martyrdom is taken from the accounts of Frenchmen who were prisoners among the Onondagas at the time.