Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees

by John Sugden

Book Overview

Blue Jacket (ca. 1743-ca. 1808), or Waweyapiersenwaw, was the galvanizing force behind an intertribal confederacy of unparalleled scope that fought a long and bloody war against white encroachments into the Shawnees' homeland in the Ohio River Valley. Blue Jacket was an astute strategist and diplomat who, though courted by American and British leaders, remained a staunch defender of the Shawnees' independence and territory. In this arresting and controversial...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803242883
• ISBN13: 9780803242883
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Chief Bluejacket A TRUE STORY - A REAL SHAWNEE

THIS NEW BOOK BY JOHN SUGDEN IS A TRUE STORY OF THE OLD CHIEF BLUEJACKET. HE IS A SHAWNEE INDIAN AND NOT A WHITE MAN. THE BOOK ALSO PROVES THAT THE CHIEF WAS AN NATIVE AMERICAN, FROM THE SHAWNEE TRIBE, HIS CLAN RABBIT AND A POIQUA. jOHN GATHERED NEW INFORMATION ONF BLUEJACKET FROM OLD CANADIAN AND ENGLISH RECORDS. THIS BOOK TELL HIS STORY FROM BIRTH TO HIS GREATEST BATTLES, A ONLINE FAMILY SITE [...] IS HANDLED BY THE BLUEJACKET FAMILY AND RECOMMENDS THE BOOK. ALSO 2 NEW DNA STUDYS HAVE VALIDATED THAT HE ORGINATOR OF THE BLUJACKET FAMILY. THANK YOU GENE PARK SHAWNEE ELDER

An exciting, authoritative Native American biography.

Blue Jacket is an exciting authoritative biography of a Shawnee war chief of great military, diplomatic, strategic and political achievements. Compared with other Native American leaders such as Red Cloud, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, Blue Jacket, or Waweyapiersenwaw is portrayed as a Shawnee patriot and defender of his tribe's Ohio River territory.Unafraid to utilize white and mixed blood connections(he married two wives of white or mixed Native American/white blood), Blue Jacket provided inspiration and a role model for the famous Tecumseh in his later years. Covering an estimated lifespan from 1743 to 1808, the biography details a fully human portrait of Blue Jacket with fine details drawn from a variety of close sources.Many examples of Blue Jacket's skill and astuteness are given. The precarious position of the Shawnees, between the British, the French, and enemy tribes is well documented. A reputation for handling disagreements among allies also is characteristic of Blue Jacket. Respected by Native Americans and Europeans alike, Blue Jacket's conduct throughout his life was characterized by a balance of abilities, traditional religion, warring and hunting skills, and also an ability to prosper from the additions of white culture. An example of an attempt to analyze Blue Jacket's political support of Tecumseh and the Prophet is quoted: "And so in the early days of the movement of Tecumseh and the Prophet, Blue Jacket illustrated its capacity to attract differently minded men and women, people who saw advantages in one way or another.Blue Jacket probably saw the sense in much of what the Prophet said, but we cannot suppose that these arguments were sufficient inducements for the most sophisticated of all Shawnees. We can, however, only guess at his motives. We know he was ambitious; he always had been. We know, too, that he was isolated, living apart from the center of Shawnee affairs in Ohio and seldom attending their tribal council. The most likely explanation of his interest in the Prophet is that he saw in him a way to recover influence and power. It was his final attempt to challenge the supremacy of Black Hoof and other old Meckoche rivals (pp. 241-242)."The history of the Shawnee and other Native American tribes in the East is riddled with blood and lost ground. However, this biography of Blue Jacket testifies to a man who straddled cultures and achieved a level of both success and bitterness. Most interesting of all is the legacy of blood that he fathered, traced in meticulous detail by authentic sources by author Sugden. Although it may suffer from the loss of a Native American voice, Blue Jacket presents a piecing together of a lost portrait, powerful and sure. It provides a missing piece of history. "Today, most people's perception of American Indian armed resistance, itself only part of a complicated history, is extremely limited. It is the warriors of another age who are remembered - men of the la