Frances Slocum Biography

Frances Slocum

Frances Slocum was the daughter of Jonathan and Ruth Tripp Slocum, Quakers who had settled near Wilkes-Barre, Pa. In Sept. 1778, at the age of five, she was kidnapped by Delaware Indians during a raiding party. Although her family continued to search for her, it wasn't until 1837, nearly 60 years later, that two of her brothers finally found her, living in a Miami Indian village near present-day Peru, Ind. In the years since her captivity, Slocum had completely adopted the Indian way of life, taking the Indian name Ma-con-a-qua and marrying a Miami chief named Shep-o-con-nah (died 1833). Their children included two adult daughters and two sons who died in childhood.

Although Slocum's brothers tried to persuade her to return to Pennsylvania with them, she preferred to remain in the Miami Indian village. Her white relatives helped her secure a grant of land for her daughters, so that even after most of the Miamis were forced to move west to Indian Territory, Slocum and her descendants continued to live in Indiana. After her death, she was buried next to her husband and sons in the Indian cemetery near her home. In 1900 the cemetery was renamed the Frances Slocum Cemetery, and a monument was erected there in her memory.