In this 1839 piece, Frances Slocum sits at the center — the once Pennsylvania Quaker girl who was captured years earlier on November 2, 1778, when a Lenape raiding party seized her at her family’s cabin near Wilkes‑Barre when she was only 5-years-old. Her family searched for her for nearly sixty years never knowing she had become Maconaquah, “Little Bear,” a respected elder of the Miami Nation in Indiana.
By the 1810s–1830s, as U.S. officials pressed to remove the Miami westward, Frances stepped forward. She had no political power, no legal standing, and no reason to believe anyone would listen — yet she quietly pleaded for the people who had sheltered, raised, and loved her. Her testimony helped secure a rare exemption that allowed a small Miami community to remain on their land.
A child stolen in war became the woman who saved an entire village from exile.
Beside her are her two daughters: Kekenakushwa (Cut Finger) (1800–1847) and Ozahshinquah (Yellow Leaf) (ca. 1809–1877). When artist George Winter arrived to sketch the family, Frances initially refused to face him, wary of a likeness being captured on paper. While her daughters ultimately convinced her to sit, Ozahshinquah—deep in mourning for her late husband—turned her back to the viewer, creating a powerful, culturally grounded portrait of a family that had already given so much to history.