Mrs. J.E. De Camp Sweet's Narrative of Her Captivity in the Sioux Outbreak of 1862 (ePub)

"A Tale of captivity and daring escape." -Swann Catalogue

"Jannette met up with Lucy Pettijohn and the two hatched an escape plan...while Indian runners were in the village looking for more ammunition, the women and children crept away...." -A Fate Worse Than Death (2007)

The stories of those pioneers who have survived captivity among tribes during hostile outbreaks along frontier settlements are full of harrowing interest. Of particular interest is that told by Jannette E. De Camp Sweet in her 1894 narrative, "Mrs. J.E. De Camp Sweet's Narrative of Her Captivity in the Sioux Outbreak of 1862."

In August 1862, the Sioux of the Minnesota plains went on the warpath against white pioneers in the Dakota War or Sioux Outbreak of 1862. A young Caucasian pioneer woman Jannette E. De Camp Sweet (1833-1920) and her three young sons were captured. Even though pregnant, Sweet was forced to endure a forced march but, with the help of a friendly Sioux, she and her children would attempt a harrowing escape through the marshes and rivers to safety.

In describing her first encounter with a renown chief, Sweet writes:

"Chief Wabasha was sitting on a large white horse, looking as if just out of one of Catlin's pictures. He was dressed in chief's costume, a head-dress of red flannel adorned with bullock horns and eagle feathers, wings of feathers over his shoulders and down his back, great strings of beads around his neck and a belt of wampum around his waist. His lower limbs were clad in fringed buckskin and he carried a beautiful rifle across his lap, with two pistols in their holsters. He had no other arms. Every detail seemed to strike me as if photographed. I can yet see him, sitting like a Centaur, haranguing his men, and, as he rode up, he dismounted. Drawing his pistols from their holsters he approached us...."

In describing the moment she attempted her daring escape, Sweet recalls that "we crept out of the tent on our hands and knees, I with my baby clasped close to my breast. The children showed remarkable presence of mind, and no noise was made in any way. I expected every moment to hear the shot fired that would end our lives, but I knew that death was behind if we stayed...."