John Tanner (narrator)

John Tanner (c. 1780 – c. 1846) was captured by Ojibwa Indians as a child after his family had homesteaded on the Ohio River in present-day Kentucky. He grew up with the Ojibwa nation, becoming fully acculturated and learning the Saulteaux language. He married an Indian woman, served as a guide for European fur traders, and worked as an interpreter. His story of life with the American Indians was published in 1830. Titled A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner..., it was a popular success and remains an important historical record.

John Tanner was born about 1780. His father, also named John Tanner, was a former preacher from Virginia. The boy’s mother died when he was two and in 1789 the family settled on the Ohio River in Kentucky near the confluence with the Great Miami River. It was considered dangerous country as settlers competed for territory with the local Shawnee Indians who fought to defend their lands.

In 1789 at the age of nine, Tanner was kidnapped by two Ojibwa men and carried north into the Michigan Territory. He was badly mistreated during the first two years of captivity but then was sold to Netnokwa, an Ottawa woman who adopted Tanner and treated him more kindly. She helped him gain the skills he needed to survive and encouraged him in rites of passage such as killing a bear and participating in his first war party. From 1790 to about 1820 Tanner lived with the Ojibwa and Saulteaux in the Great Lakes and Red River regions.

When Tanner lived among these Indians, their traditional life-style as hunters and trappers in the northern forests was beginning to change. The fur trade was drawing the tribes away from subsistence hunting and encouraging fur trapping for profit. Deceitful traders, a shortage of game, and the introduction of firearms and alcohol all had a negative impact on tribes in the region.

In 1800, when he was 20, Tanner married an Ojibwa woman, Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa, the niece of Michigan fur trader, Madeleine LaFramboise. In 1801 he met a fur trader, Daniel Harmon, who noted in his diary that Tanner spoke only Saulteaux, was regarded as a chief by his people, and was like an Indian in every way except color. Around 1807 his first wife left him and he remarried in 1810 to an Indian woman known as Therezia. During both marriages he quarreled with his in-laws and was threatened with violence. By 1812 he was considering a return to his family in Kentucky but the War of 1812 made travel impossible.

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