"Madam Sacho: How One Iroquois Woman Survived the" Topic

…American Revolution

"The land, though very recently bustling with Indians, was eerily abandoned. Kettles had been left in a hurry by the hearth, books had been thrown aside, and tall corn stalks stood untouched, ready for harvest, in the field. Those who had evacuated perhaps imagined they would be returning to their homes soon. It was not to be. Sullivan and his men burned houses, fields, and whole towns down to the ground.

Madam Sacho must have emerged from the smoke like a ghost: startling, uncanny, and with a tale to tell. It was about war, conflict, and flight. There were many such narratives from the American Revolution. For the soldiers at the time and for modern audiences, though, Madam Sacho is a surprise. Soldiers expected whooping warriors with tomahawks raised. Some modern readers probably imagine the same, or else they envision tidy lines of redcoats firing against minutemen. But Sullivan's Campaign was no Lexington and Concord, nor was it Yorktown. It was another kind of battle, with fewer casualties and yet profoundly destructive all the same…"

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