Woman Scalped by Indians

Few people survived being scalped by native American. This woman did,

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75 Horrifying Tales of Torture and Murders on the American Frontier

Scalped by Native Americans

Scalped by Native Americans

     The trophy prized above all others by American Indians was the scalp. Those made in later days by the Sioux consist of a small disk of skin from the head, with the attached hair. It was cut and torn from the head of wounded or dead enemies. It was carefully cleaned and stretched on a hoop; this was mounted on a stick for carrying. The skin was painted red on the inside, and the hair arranged naturally. If the dead man was a brave wearing war feather, these were mounted on the hoop with the scalp.

     It is said that the Sioux anciently took a much larger piece from the head, as the Pueblos always did. Among the latter, the whole haired skin, including the ears, was torn from the head. At Cochiti might be seen, until lately, ancient scalps with the ears, and in these, there still remained the green turquoise ornaments

Apache and Sioux Scalps.

While enemies were generally slain outright, such was not always the case. When prisoners, one of three other fates might await them: they might be adopted by some member of the tribe, in place of a dead brother or son; they might be made to run the gauntlet as a last and desperate chance of life. This was a severe test of agility, strength, and endurance. A man, given this chance, was obliged to run between two lines of Indians, all more or less armed, who struck at him as he passed. Usually, the poor wretch fell, covered with wounds, long before he reached the end of the lines; if he passed through, however, his life was spared. Lastly, prisoners might be tortured to death, and dreadful accounts exist of such tortures among Iroquois, Algonkin and others. One of the least terrible was as follows: the unfortunate prisoner was bound to the stake, and the men and women picked open the flesh all over the body with knives; splinters of pine were then driven into the wounds and set on fire. The prisoner died in dreadful agony

57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Cases of Murder Among the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians

     It may be said, this is not true; it is a mistake. We have known several cases of murders among the Ottawas and Chippewas. I admit it to be true, that there have been cases of murders among the Ottawas and Chippewas since the white people knew them. But these cases of murders occurred sometime after they came in contact with the white races in their country; but I am speaking now of the primitive condition of Indians, particularly of the Ottawas and Chippewas, and I believe most of those cases of murders were brought on through the bad influence of white men, by introducing into the tribes this great destroyer of mankind, soul and body, intoxicating liquors! Yet, during sixty years of my existence among the Ottawas and Chippewas, I have never witnessed one case of the murder of this kind, but I heard there were a few cases in other parts of the country, when in their fury from the influence of intoxicating liquors.

57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Cruel Treatment of Native Americans by the Spanish

Native Americans being devoured by dogs as Spanish soldiers look on

Moreover, the Spaniards found their first American conquests too easy,
and the rewards of these too great. This prevented all thought of
developing the country through industry, concentrating expectation
solely upon waiting fortunes, to be had from the natives by the sword or
through forced labor in mines, Their treatment of the aborigines was
nothing short of diabolical. Well has it been said: "The Spaniards had
sown desolation, havoc, and misery in and around their track. They had
depopulated some of the best peopled of the islands and renewed them
with victims deported from others. They had inflicted upon hundreds of
thousands of the natives all the forms and agonies of fiendish cruelty,
driving them to self-starvation and suicide, as a way of mercy and
release from an utterly wretched existence. They had come to be viewed
by their victims as fiends of hate, malignity, and all dark and cruel
desperation and mercilessness in passion. The hell which they denounced
upon their victims was shorn of its worst terror by the assurance that
these tormentors were not to be there. Las Casas, the noble missionary, 
 true soldier of the cross, and the few priests and monks who
sympathized with him, in vain protested against these cruelties."

57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Being Captured by Native Americans

It was their custom to carry off the women and children. If the children were hindered the march of their mothers, or if they cried and endangered or annoyed their captors, they were tomahawked, or their brains were dashed out against the trees. But if they were well grown, and strong enough to keep up with the rest, they were hurried sometimes hundreds of miles into the wilderness. There the fate of all prisoners was decided in solemn council of the tribe. If any men had been taken, especially such as had made a hard fight for their freedom and had given proof of their courage, they were commonly tortured to death by fire in celebration of the victory won over them; though it sometimes happened that young men who had caught the fancy or affection of the Indians were adopted by the fathers of sons lately lost in battle. The older women became the slaves and drudges of the squaws and the boys and girls were parted from their mothers and scattered among the savage families. The boys grew up hunters and trappers, like the Indian boys, and the girls grew up like the Indian girls, and did the hard work which the warriors always left to the women. The captives became as fond of their wild, free life as the savages themselves, and they found wives and husbands among the youths and maidens of their tribe. If they were given up to their own people, as might happen in the brief intervals of peace, they pined for the wilderness, which called to their homesick hearts, and sometimes they stole back to it. They seem rarely to have been held for ransom, as the captives of the Indians of the Western plains were in our time. It was a tie of real love that bound them and their savage friends together, and it was sometimes stronger than the tie of blood. But this made their fate all the crueler to their kindred; for whether they lived or whether they died, they were lost to the fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters whom they had been torn from; and it was little consolation to these that they had found human mercy and tenderness in the breasts of savages who in all else were like ravening beasts. It was rather an agony added to what they had already suffered to know that somewhere in the trackless forests to the westward there was growing up a child who must forget them. The time came when something must be done to end all this and to put a stop to the Indian attacks on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The jealous colonies united with the jealous mother country, and a little army of British regulars and American recruits was sent into Ohio under the lead of Colonel Henry Bouquet to force the savages to give up their captives.

57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

The Cold Blooded Murder of John Van Meters Wife, Infant and Fifteen Year old Daughter

“A blood curdling and harrowing incident which occurred during this year, 1782, was the cold blooded murder of the wife, the infant child and a daughter fifteen years of age, all of the family of John Van Meter. The wife and child were butchered in the door of their dwelling. The savages were probably aware of the absence of the husband and father at a house-raising. The girl was engaged in washing clothes at a spring a little distance from the house, and had on a subbonnet, which prevented her from seeing the approach of the stealthy savage who tomahawked her while she was in the act of bending over the spring. When the Indians gathered around her prostate form lying there in the rigidity of death, and gazed upon her mute but lovely countenance, even their stern hearts relented and lamented the sad result, saying, “ She would have made a pretty squaw.” History Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia 1902

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Over 100 Hundred Real Stories of Pioneer Terror

Henry Hudson and His First Encounter with Indians off of Staten Island, New York

Henry Hudson's First Encounter With Indians off of Staten Island, New York

How easy it is in the light of the present day to smile at the 
unavailing enthusiasm of Hudson and the folly of his scheme ! 
But whatever the motives that led to it the momentous conse- 
quences of that exploration are sufficient to provoke our pro- 
foundest gratitude. After several unsuccessful attempts to find 
such an opening in the land as would indicate what he desired 
to see, he entered the Lower bay and anchored inside of Sandy 
Hook on the 3d day of September, 1609. Though not the first 
to behold, Hudson was the first to penetrate the mysteries of 
the land and water which extended to an unknown distance 
before him. In one boat he visited "Coney Island," and sent an- 
other, containing live men, on an exploring expedition north- 
ward. These men passed through the Narrows, coasted along 
Staten Island, and penetrated some distance into the kills. On 
their return they suddenly encountered two large canoes, con- 
taining twenty-six Indians, who, in their alarm, discharged a 
shower of arrows at the strangers and killed one man, an Eng- 
lishman, named John Coleman, by shooting him in the neck. 
Both parties became frightened, and pulled away from each 
other with all their strength. Coleman's body was taken to 
Sandy Hook and there interred, and the place was called " Cole- 
man's Point." 

Notwithstanding the mishap, as the death of Coleman was 
regarded, the natives proved to be friendly, and freely bartered 
with the strangers such articles as they had to dispose of, 
as tobacco, maize, wild fruits, etc. Hudson remained at anchor 
until the eleventh, when he sailed through the Narrows and 
anchored in the mouth of the great river which now bears his 
name. On the thirteenth he again weighed anchor, and pro- 
ceeded to explore the beautiful stream upon whose bosom he 
was floating; he was eleven days in ascending as far as the site 
of Albany, and as many more in descending. Before starling 
he had had considerable intercourse with the natives, but had al- 
ways prudently kept himself and his men prepared for auv 
emergency, and though the natives frequently came on board 
armed they made no hostile demonstrations; Hudson, however, 
detained two of the Staten Island Indians as hostages, and took 
them with him on the voyage up the river, as far as the site of 
West Point, where they escaped by jumping overboard and 
swimming to the shore. On his way he encountered many of 
the Indians, who, though they manifested a friendly disposi- 
tion, were nevertheless suspected of entertaining hostile inten- 
tions, and it was supposed that the dread with which they 
regarded the arms of their visitors alone restrained them.