The Project Gutenberg EBook of Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs
among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788, by William Biggs

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Title: Narrative of the Captivity of William Biggs among the Kickapoo Indians in Illinois in 1788

Author: William Biggs

Release Date: October 7, 2008 [EBook #26799]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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INDIAN CAPTIVITY

OF WILLIAM BIGGS

_Heartman's Historical Series Number 37_

NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY OF _WILLIAM BIGGS_

AMONG THE KICKAPOO INDIANS IN Illinois in 1788

Written By Himself

Eighty-one Copies Re-Printed In Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-two.

Number ... of 81 Copies Reprinted.

Also Five Copies Issued on Japan Paper.

NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY OF WILLIAM BIGGS
AMONG THE KICKAPOO INDIANS IN ILLINOIS IN 1788

In the year 1788, March 28th, I was going from Bellfontain to Cahokia,
in company with a young man named John Vallis, from the State of
Maryland; he was born and raised near Baltimore. About 7 o'clock in the
morning I heard two guns fired; by the report I thought they were to the
right; I thought they were white men hunting; both shot at the same
time. I looked but could not see any body; in a moment after I looked to
the left and saw sixteen Indians, all upon their feet with their guns
presented, about forty yards distant from me, just ready to draw
trigger. I was riding between Vallis and the Indians in a slow trot, at
the moment I saw them. I whipped my horse and leaned my breast on the
horse's withers, and told Vallis to whip his horse, that they were
Indians. That moment they all fired their guns in one platoon; you could
scarcely distinguish the report of their guns one from another. They
shot four bullets into my horse, one high up in his withers, one in the
bulge of the ribs near my thigh, and two in his rump, and shot four or
five through my great coat. The moment