Frances Slocum was the daughter of Jonathan and Ruth Tripp Slocum, a Quaker family. She was from Wilkes-Barre, Wyoming Valley, Luzerne Co., PA. when she was taken from her home by Delaware Indians at the age of five years old in 1778. She was given the Indian name 'Maconaquah' and raised in the Indian culture. In 1790 Maconaquah married a young Delaware brave named Little Turtle, (not to be confused with Little Turtle, Chief of the Miami's) but due to domestic abuse, she divorced him and moved back home with her foster parents. Please see: "Biography of Frances Slocum, the Lost Sister of Wyoming: A Complete Narrative of Her Captivity and Wanderings Among the Indians by John Franklin Meginness 1891". Proof on page 78: States that she was married to a Delaware Indian by name of Little Turtle & that he was NOT the great chief of that name. Before her father's death, she was given to Shepoconah for his wife. He later became Chief of the Miami Indians in the Peru area. Maconaquah gave birth to two girls, Kekesequah and Osawshequah. She also had two boys who died at a young age. Maconaquah lived the rest of her life in this area. In Jan 1835 Col. George W. Ewing, a white man and visiting fur trader, happened upon her village and learned of her abduction as a child. Telling her story when he went back east her family was located and they went to visit her in May of 1838. They wanted her to return with them, but she refused, not wanting leave the people who had been her family for over 60 years. Frances Slocum was a significant historical figure because of her life as a white woman living in an Indian culture and being accepted by them. A treaty made in 1840 with the United States Government stated that the Miami Indians had to leave their home along the Wabash River within five years. Frances's brothers helped her appeal to Congress asking to be exempted from the treaty so that she and her descendants be allowed to reside on the reservation in Indiana. A petition was drawn up and signed by 21 of her relatives on January 17, 1845. Frances was allowed to stay and not be subjected to what became known as the Trail of Tears that her fellow Miami Indians endured. She died of pneumonia two years after the petition. In memory of her life and the contributions she made, many things bear her name in the Indiana area.
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When she was grown to womanhood both her Indian parents died, and she soon afterward married a young chief of the nation Chief Ke-ke-se-quah " Cut Fnger", and removed to the Ohio country. *** Her husband died, and, her people having joined the Miamies, she went with them and married one of that tribe, Chief Me-she-kin-o-quah "Little Turtle". The last husband was dead, and she had been a widow many years