Kitty Dye

Frances Slocum was abducted from her family home near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by three Delaware Indians on November 2, 1778. She was five years old, one of the youngest of 10 children of her Quaker parents. Her story is legend in the Wyoming Valley of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and in her eventual home in Indiana. Far from being mistreated, the child was adopted by one of her captors and his wife, who had lost their own daughter some time before. She "turned into an Indian", as the author puts it, and almost completely forgot her white family over time. Her original family did not forget her, however, and sporadically attempted to find her over the years. They eventually succeeded, when Frances, now known as Maconaquah, was an old woman. An affectionate relationship apparently developed between Maconaquah and her brother Joseph Slocum (a judge), and between her daughters and his. Not surprisingly, however, she refused their entreaties to leave her home and the graves of her husband and sons in Indiana to return to Pennsylvania with the Slocums. Joseph arranged to have her portrait painted by the artist George Winter, and persuaded her to sit for it, although her people were uneasy about having their likenesses, or even their words, recorded in any way.

This is a heck of a good story, but it isn't told well in this book. I recommend you skip it, and Google "Mocanaquah" or "Frances Slocum" instead; you'll find better versions of her story on multiple websites and blogs. There are so many things wrong with it, not the least of which is that the title is the ONLY place where an apostrophe is used appropriately. Awkward sentence structure rules the day, despite the author's acknowledgement of the aid of an editor who "cleaned and polished my sentences so expertly". I caught the appearance of two non-words: "penchance" and "irregardless". The author never seemed to be able to decide whether her Indians' speech should be translated into stiff and awkward English or Hollywood-savage talk. "The Chief of the Long Knives says the land belongs to the Indians, but still he allows his people to come. I cannot believe that white man, who speaks with such a forked tongue. No, little daughter, I will not help such a people. Instead, we join the white people whose chief is across the great water, to fight our common enemy." vs. "No talk. Kill." In fairness, all the dialog is wretched; the white people don't speak 19th century English either. The book has that tone often used in historical accounts intended for "young readers", and that other patronizing tone that comes of trying too hard to be politically correct in describing the customs and behavior of the Other. The illustrations are nice, and the hand-drawn maps are decent. My final gripe is this: along the Susquehanna River near where my husband grew up, and not far from the site of Frances' abduction, is a little town called Mocanaqua. Kitty Dye reels off a list of all the places in Indiana and Pennsylvania named for poor little Frances Slocum, but fails to mention the one named for the proud woman she became.
Review written in October, 2012… (más)