Fort Duquesne (present-day Pittsburgh), the Shawnee killed Mary's mother, father, and siblings, and ritually scalped them. Mary later learned that it was a Seneca custom, when one of their own was killed or taken prisoner in battle, to take an enemy as prisoner or to take their scalp in a mourning ritual. Two Seneca women had lost a brother in the French and Indian War a year before Mary's capture, and in this mourning raid, the Shawnee intended to capture a prisoner or obtain an enemy's scalp to compensate them. The 12-year-old Mary and the young boy were spared, likely because they were of suitable age for adoption. Once the party reached Fort Duquesne, Mary was given to the two Seneca women, who took her downriver to their settlement. After a short ceremony, a Seneca family adopted Mary, renaming her as Deh-he-wä-nis (other romanization variants include: Dehgewanus, Dehgewanus and Degiwanus, Dickewamis). She learned this meant "a pretty girl, a handsome girl, or a pleasant, good thing." When she came of age, Mary married a Delaware man named Sheninjee, who was living with the band. They had a son whom she named Thomas after her father. Sheninjee took her on a journey to the Sehgahunda Valley along the Genesee River in present-day Western New York state. Although Jemison and their son reached this destination, her husband did not. While hunting one day on their journey, he was taken ill and died. As a widow, Mary and her child were taken in by Sheninjee's clan relatives; she made her home at Little Beard's Town (where present-day Cuylerville, New York later developed). She married again, to a Seneca named Hiakatoo, and together they had six children: Nancy, Polly, Betsey, Jane, John, and Jesse. John had a troubled life. He killed his brother Thomas in 1811, then killed his brother Jesse in 1812, and was later also killed. During the American Revolutionary War, the Seneca allied with the British, hoping that a British victory would enable them to expel the encroaching colonists. Jemison's account of her life includes observations of this time. She and others in the Seneca town helped supply Joseph Brant (Mohawk) and his Iroquois warriors from various nations, who fought the rebel colonists. After the war, the British ceded their holdings east of the Mississippi River to the United States, without consulting their Native American allies. The Seneca were forced to