Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/105

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Part Taken by Women in American History

from the Creeks. Mrs. Brown's experiences were full of horror and agony, a prisoner with a knowledge of her three children captives among the savages, not knowing what their fate was to be. She was driven forward on foot many days and nights over these terrible roads and through this wild country, arriving at the town of her captors to find herself their slave doomed to work for a savage mistress, and, to add to her distress, her little son and daughter were taken to different towns and she was left alone. At this time Alexander McGillivray, a half-breed Creek of Scotch descent, was chief of the Muscogee Indians, and assumed the title of commander-in-chief of the upper and lower Creeks and the Seminoles, being also the recognized military leader and civil governor of all the Indians of Florida, Alabama and lower Georgia. He combined the shrewdness of the savage with the learning of the civilized man. Mrs. Brown fortunately was taken to a town in which lived the sister of McGillivray, who was the wife of a French trader by the name of Durant. She pitied Mrs. Brown, and told her her brother, the chief of the Creeks, did not approve of his people making slaves of white women, and advised Mrs. Brown to go to him. She offered her a horse and saddle, but told her that she must take them herself. Mrs. Brown being ignorant of the country, an aged Indian was chosen to act as her guide. At an appointed hour, Mrs. Brown mounted her friend's horse, and started in pursuit of her Indian guide, whose demeanor was that of entire ignorance of her existence. As Mrs. Durant had told Mrs. Brown, her brother showed the kindest interest in her story and offered her every protection under his roof. In a few days her savage master appeared and demanded her return. Colonel McGillivray informed him she was in his house and he would protect her. He threatened to kill Mrs. Brown, but McGillivray persuaded him that a dead woman could do no work, and finally offered a rifle, powder and lead, some beads