Native People in the Mills

Historians know very little about the presence of native people amongst the work force in Lowell's mills. Existing records do not provide enough information for historians to draw any conclusions. One account exists in the 1890 memoir of Harriet Hanson Robinson, who wrote about her early years as a mill girl in Lowell. She described fellow mill girl Betsey Chamberlain, who wrote for The Lowell Offering, as follows:

"Mrs. Chamberlain was a widow, and came to Lowell with three children from some community, where she had not been contented. She had inherited Indian blood and was proud of it. She had long, straight black hair, and walked very erect, with great freedom of movement."

Betsey wrote two stories about the cruel treatment native people faced at the hands of the English colonists for The Lowell Offering. We do not know if she heard similar stories growing up in New Hampshire, but one of her stories is loosely based on an actual event.

Although Betsey did not leave evidence of her native heritage in her own hand, her writings bear witness to the atrocities faced by native people at the hands of European colonists and the United States government.

Primary Document

"A huge fire was burning brightly on the old kitchen hearth, surrounded by a group of smiling boys and girls, with uncle David in their midst.

'Come, uncle David,' said Frank, 'tell us about burning the Miami Indians.'

'Well, Frank, I suppose I must tell you something about it,' said uncle David, 'but I would rather not, for the thoughts which the remembrance of that horrid massacre sets afloat, curdle the blood in my veins. I am glad the Indians were heathen -- had they been Christians, I should dread meeting their souls in another world. -- It was the 20th of August 1794, that our army [the U.S. Army] met the Indians on the banks of the Miami and gained a complete victory over them. We lost something like an hundred of our men, and to revenge our loss, we managed matters so adroitly that we surrounded their villages, set them on fire, and every Indian that tried to escape was driven with the point of the bayonet back into the flames, and burned up alive.'"