Mary Jamison: In 1753, fifteen year old Mary Jemison was captured by Indians along the Pennsylvania frontier during the Seven Years’ War between the French, English, and Indian peoples of North America. She was adopted and incorporated into the Senecas, a familiar practice among Iroquois and other Indian peoples seeking to replace a lost sibling or spouse. Mary married and raised a family in the decades before and after the American Revolution; many captives, once adopted and integrated into an Indian community, refused the opportunity to return home, finding life in Indian society more rewarding. In 1823 Mary Jemison related her life story to James Seaver, a doctor who lived near her home in western New York. Seaver’s story of “the white woman of the Genessee,” as she became known, sold over 100,000 copies in 1824.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5794/
also Herman Lehmann has an autobiography of being raised by Indians Lehmann, Herman. (1927) Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879
Cynthia Ann Parker was the daughter of White settlers on the Texas frontier in the early 1800s. Her family had built a fort in Central Texas, where the Comanches had massacred them. I think most of the Whites were killed. She was taken hostage as an eleven year old girl in 1836.
When the Comanches took her in, she was treated with about as much respect as a foreign invading hostage could possibly have. She was raised as a daughter by the couple she was given to, and when she grew up she became the wife of Peta Nocona, one of the more powerful war leaders. She pretty much lost all of her original White culture and very much became assimilated as a Comanche. For years, decades, the Texans were trying to find her.
Eventually after Peta's death in the Battle of Pease River she was recaptured (as an adult) by the Texas Rangers, where she was returned to her birth family, her uncle Isaac Parker. She did not adjust well at all and several times tried to flee back to the wilderness. Eventually she went on a hunger strike and died in the 1870s. Her son Quanah Parker became very well known and has a small town in North Texas named after him (Quanah, TX).
Ninja edit: Empire of the Summer Moon, by S.C. Gwynne goes into much detail about her, as well as the general story of Texas and the Comanches during that time period. Great book, I recommend it.
Check out The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos (2011). It's a really smart read about a Puritan family that were captured in a raid on Deerfield, MA, in 1704. The father was a well known preacher named John Williams, so there was a lot of politicking to get him back, but it was a greater struggle to retrieve some of the surviving members of his family, in particular, his young daughter Eunice. Demos does a brilliant job patching together her story, from the persistent prayers of the Massachusetts Puritans for her safe return to her eventual decision to "go native" and—gasp!—become a Roman Catholic. It's a vivid portrait of early American life seen from a number of different perspectives, and it's an all-around great read. Highly recommended!
Most definitely. Mary Jemison was mentioned already, but there are a few others. During the British colonial era of America, there were a number of traders and hunters that acted as Indian agents for the government. Some like Andrew Montour were half-Indian themselves, others were European immigrants like Christopher Gist and Conrad Weiser. The latter two never considered themselves a part of any tribe though, and merely saw it as a duty to fulfill. Weiser in some of this entries described how he didn't really care much for the natives. Traders however, especially those that did a lot of dealings with Indians, did marry into Indian tribes. George Croghan and Alexander McKee were notable traders with Indian ties. McKee's own mother had been captured and adopted into a Shawnee family.
Capture and assimilation really varied on the individual. Very young children would consider themselves a part of the tribe, but if one were captured at adolescence is seems to go one way or another. Some stayed, some ran away when they got the chance. Simon Girty and his siblings were captured by Seneca when he was young, became assimilated, but did return to the "white sphere" of colonial life after some time. He still retained sympathies for his Indian friends/family as well as their culture, which made his neighbors a bit wary at times. You could see it as he was a bit "tainted" to their eyes, that he was more Indian than white. When James Smith, who had been captured by Delaware during Braddock's expedition, returned to his hometown in Pennsylvania, people made remarks that we walked more like a "savage" and that showed, as he and several other men formed a vigilante (sorta) group called the "Black Boys." They painted their faces black and wore Indian garb, but ironically, they protected against Indian attacks as well as harassed some British traders and even a British fort.
There was a bit of mistrust cast towards the "white Indians" by other whites. To their perspective, they couldn't quite tell where their loyalties were. During the French and Indian War, Andrew Montour acted as an agent and liaison between Pennsylvania and the local tribes. However, there were a few times where it seemed like he walked some of the white settlers into an ambush. Then add the fact that the man wore a blend of European and Indian clothing, complete with earrings and feathers. To the "white" world, those that had any dealings of any degree with Indians might have been seen as an outcast. They wouldn't outright hate them or try to kill them, as they were often useful as necessary, but they could never truly be part of their world again.
You can actually read James Smith's account here. For some books, I'd definitely check out James Merrill's Into the American Woods, as this shows how Indian agents, half-Indians, and sometimes "white Indians" how they straddle the border of the white and Indian worlds. Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country and Peter Silver's Our Savage Neighbors are also recommended.
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