Fanny Kelly: The Woman Who Survived The Sioux And Lived To Tell It

The true story of Fanny Kelly is worse than anything Hollywood ever put on screen. In 1864, a nineteen-year-old woman and her seven-year-old adopted daughter were taken captive by the Sioux after a wagon train attack in Wyoming Territory. What followed were five months of forced marches, starvation, betrayal, and survival through sheer intelligence. The men who were supposed to protect her family never came. The government that created the crisis made her beg for compensation. This is the full story. SOURCES AND FURTHER READING 1. Fanny Kelly, "Narrative of My Captivity Among the Sioux Indians" (1871) — Full text available free at Project Gutenberg 2. Gregory F. Michno and Susan J. Michno, "A Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities 1830–1885" (Caxton Press, 2007) 3. Stanley Vestal, "Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux: A Biography" (University of Oklahoma Press, 1932/1989) 4. Mari Sandoz, "Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglalas" (University of Nebraska Press, 1942) 5. Sarah Larimer, "The Capture and Escape; or, Life Among the Sioux" (1870) 6. HistoryNet — "Fort Dilts and Fanny Kelly's Bid for Freedom" 7. Prairie Public Broadcasting — "The Captivity of Fanny Kelly" and "The Ransom of Fanny Kelly" (2018) 8. National Park Service, Theodore Roosevelt National Park — "The US Army and the Sioux, Part 2" 9. Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office — Kelly–Larimer Massacre Site and the Mary Hurley Grave 10. Kansas Historical Society — Fanny Kelly Collection This channel is built to educate and inform. Every video is designed to widen your understanding of the real American frontier and the people who lived through it, beyond what textbooks and Hollywood have told you. Every script on this channel is written by a human writer using primary sources and peer-reviewed histories. All visuals and storyboarding are developed internally by our production team. We take accuracy seriously because you deserve content that respects your intelligence and your time.