Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees

by John Sugden

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 account, John Sugden depicts the most influential Native American leader of his time.

Genres: Biography, Native American, History, Nonfiction

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2000

About the author

An independent scholar and a former associate editor of Oxford University Press's American National Biography project, John Sugden holds degrees from the Universities of Leeds, Lancaster and Sheffield.

Reviews

[Lynn Leatherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very fascinating read for me and one of those ones that truly opened my eyes to the climate of the “War for The Ohio Country.” My heart breaks for the way that the Americans would help themselves to land that they had agreed would be set aside for Native Americans. Blue Jackets vision of a Pan-Indian Confederacy would ultimately fail but be tried again and again over history. As someone who was born and raised in Northwest Ohio Near the Maumee River Valley, I was very well acquainted with the areas mentioned from the war and it feels surreal to walk the same ground as these people. Will be pursing more characters from this story for a fuller analysis. Blue Jacket should definitely be remembered more

[Zach Eiting · Rating 1 out of 5]

Prior to Tecumseh, Blue Jacket was the most influential warrior and chief of the Shawnee Indians. This book was informative in following Blue Jacket’s career as a chief, but I was surprised at how little factual information was captured. I know historical records weren’t kept as well back then as they are now, but there seemed to be a lot of surmising and guessing of Blue Jacket’s whereabouts and his activities. It was also a little confusing to follow the host of Indian tribes, chiefs, Americans, and British military personnel that seemed to randomly populate only to never get mentioned again in the book. This book is probably the best source of information you can get on Blue Jacket’s based on the thoroughness of research, but it reads as more of a text book than a story.

[Todd Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work definitively rewrites the revisionist history that had been told about Blue Jacket for over 100 years. Sugden’s historical analysis is important in reclaiming the rightful story of this extremely influential historical figure. For any student of early American history, this is an absolute must-read.

[Laurie Neighbors]

Full disclosure, I'm a proud Blue Jacket descendant. It'll get five stars.

[Miroslav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ďalšia zo série kníh, ktorá dopodrobna mapuje severoamerický konflikt indiánskych kmeňov oblasti Ohio, Illinois a Michigan, tentoraz s rodiacimi sa spojenými štátmi v r.1783-1795.
Blue Jacket (Shawnee) nadväzuje na Pontiacov pokus o jednotu kmeňov v oblasti a vďaka nim a ich náčelníkom ako Little Turtle (Miami), Le Gris (Miami), Captain Johnny (Shawnee), Black Snake (Shawnee), Buckongahelas (Lenape), Tetapachksit (Lenape), Egushaway (Ottawa), Little Otter (Ottawa) a ďalšími z kmeňov Wyandot, Ojibwe, či Mingo a Cherokee, udržuje celé desaťročie kolonistov mimo územia Ohio a všetky americké pokusy o prienik skončili pre americké milície veľmi tragicky.
I keď sa vojna indiánskeho Napoleona skončila porážkou, kde Indiáni stratili dve tretiny územia Ohio, aj v pokročilom veku (63 r.) r.1806 stojí na začiatku posledného, no o to väčšieho pokusu o zjednotenie východných kmeňov pod vedením veľkého náčelníka Tecumseha.

[Walter Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of what I have credited to Tecumseh for establishing, or trying to establish, a pan-Indian confederacy actually happened under Blue Jacket. He is virtually unknown among Indian leaders, and the status of those that followed can be traced back to his actions. Mr. Sugden states that "Blue Jacket's followers accounted for more American enemies in serious battle than the forces of Cochise, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo put together..." His vision of tribal unity was clear and he found an apt listener in a young warrior named Tecumseh.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Should you read this book on Blue Jacket? Here are two questions you should ask yourself. Do I have a high school term paper due on Blue Jacket on Monday and do I have another book on Blue Jacket to read? I partially ask these questions in jest, but this book is barely about Blue Jacket at all, and more about the events that occurred around fights for Indian lands in the Ohio Valley with the focus more on Blue Jacket than any other figure.

Part of the motivation for writing this book was obviously the theory that Blue Jacket was actually a white man being shot down. Sugden addressed this in his introduction. What he doesn't address is why this rumor got started in the first place. Blue Jacket became a mythical figure in early American history and was celebrated as a brilliant tactician as well as an intelligent diplomatic. So of course racist white people had to make him white. There was no other recourse for them other than to accept a man who all these stories were told about was actually a Shawnee.

You could write a pretty good book delving into this subject but Sugden doesn't bother, instead writing a fairly dry account. One of the problems is that we know so little about Blue Jacket's early life that most of what he says about him in the first half are stories he himself says probably aren't true.