Native people information by name

[mdenney]

Tenskwatawa,
The Prophet
Shawnee

A Shawnee chief and an American general sat on a bench at the end of a bitter and explosive council. The Indian kept edging down his length until the general reached the end. When he protested he was about to be shoved off, the Indian smiled grimly.
"That is what the white man is doing to the Indian," Tecumseh told General William Henry Harrison.

[...]

[Tecumseh's] younger brother was originally called Lalawethika (a rough Shawnee translation meaning a rattle or a similar instrument). He earlier chenged it to Ten-skwa-ta-wa-skwate (from the Shawnee skwate, a door, and thenui, to be opened).

[...]

Tecumseh refused to touch alcohol but his brother, Tenskwatawa, was a boasting, swaggering drunk. He had lost an eye as a child and wore a handkerchief over the empty socket, which gave him the appearance of a Corsican pirate. Suddenly in 1805, when a religious mania swept the frontier, he found religion and became a mystic.

The Prophet was transformed from a drunk into a wandering preacher and foe of the white man's poison water. He was a powerful orator, and the intensity of his message began to reach the tribes. But his words were those of Tecumseh: the Indians must abandon the life of the white man and return to the ways of their fathers

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/tenskwa.htm

[mdenney]

McIntosh
?-1825
Creek

McIntosh is linked to history not by his exploits in war but by his stand on the question of Indian removal, which both canonized and condemned him in the Creek nation.

The shadow of the land-hungry white man first fell over the Creek in 1802 when an agreement was signed by Georgia and the federal government, in which both sides stipulated that the "United States shall, at their own expense, extinguish, for the use of Georgia, as early as the same can be peaceably effected, on reasonable terms, the Indian title to the lands within the forks of the Oconnee and Oakmulgee Rivers...and that the United States shall...also extinguish the Indian title to all the other lands within the State of Georgia."

It was a deadly land grab, a contract that would eventually deprive the Creek of their ancestral land. Of course, they were not consulted.
From 1803 to 1821 many Indian delegations came to Washington to "extinguish"-the favorite euphemism of early nineteenth-century politicians for stealing land from the American Indians-the titles to their homes.

Year after year the acres disappeared. In one treaty council fifteen million acres of Indian land were signed away; the United States government paid $1,250,000 for the lands. The Creek became alarmed. In 1811, at the famous Broken Arrow council they passed a tribal law forbidding, under penalty of death, any Creek chief from selling the nation's land.

The State of Georgia became impatient and pressured Washington into calling more councils and forcing the Creek to give up more land. But after Broken Arrow the chiefs refused to meet.
[...]
The United States answered Georgia that it was doing all it could peaceably. As Colonel McKenney wrote at the time, the improvements for the Creek that Georgia complained so bitterly about was "only a continuation of the policy adopted by Washington...one would think [this policy] needed no defence before a civilised and Christian people...."

Under pressure-and obvious bribery-McIntosh and some lesser chiefs signed the treaty of Indian Springs on February 12, 1825, giving Georgia large tracts of Indian land.
[...]

The Creek, whom McKenney described as "greatly excited", sent out an execution squad searching for McIntosh who claimed protection promised by Georgia. On May 1, McIntosh was shot and killed with Etomie Tustennuggee, another chief. A half-breed, Sam Hawkins, was hanged and his brother Ben severely wounded.

McIntosh left behind him a divided tribe. One faction believed he had done right and followed his son, Chilly McIntosh, to the west after they had signed away their lands in Washington on January 24, 1826, for $100,000. The other faction soon gave up their lands to Georgia and crossed into Alabama. That state also demanded they be removed. At last "this wretched people," as McKenney called them, also followed Chilly McIntosh to the west. There was still no immediate peace; both factions fought until a bitter peace was finally hammered out.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/mcintos.htm

[mdenney]

Red Jacket
1756(?)-1830
Seneca, Iroquois

Red Jacket was no fabled warrior; his favourite weapon was his eloquence, never a musket. Colonel McKenney compared him to Cicero, a man who better understood how to lead his countrymen to war instead of leading them into battle.

[...]

In March 1792, Red Jacket led fifty Iroquois chiefs into Philadelphia as guests of Washington and his cabinet. General St.Clair had been routed in a bloody defeat in the previous fall, a bitter reverse to the hopes of the young Republic. It was feared that the British might again arm the still powerful Iroquois Confederacy and its warrior would fall on the feeble settlements of the Niagara frontier and again leave the Mohawk in flames. Red Jacket was the principal speaker at this lengthy council in which the Iroquois chiefs finally, reluctantly, agreed to act as mediators between the United States and the warring tribes of the west.

[...]

"We stand a small island in the bosom of the greats waters. We are encircled-we are encompassed. The evil spirits ride upon the blasts and the waters are disturbed. They rise, they press upon us and the waves will settle over us and we shall disappear forever. Who then lives to mourn us, white man ? None. What marks our extermination ? Nothing. We are mingled with the common elements."

[...]

"Brother: You think us ignorant and uninformed. Go then and teach the whites. Select for example the people of Buffalo. We will be the spectator and remain silent. Improve their morals and refine their habits. Make them less disposed to cheat the Indians. Make the whites less inclined to make the Indian drunk and to take away their lands. Let us know the tree by the blossoms and the blossoms by the fruit. When this shall be made clear to our minds we may be more willing to listen to you. I have spoken."

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/rjacket.htm

[mdenney]

Cornplanter
1736(?)-1836
Seneca, Iroquois

A batch of white prisoners, men, women, and children, were being herded together when one of the men spoke quietly to a Seneca guard in his own tongue and asked what they intended to do with them. The surprised guard summoned Brant who stared hard at the tall, sinewy man of about fifty-five with a weather-beaten face. The Mohawk knew him to be John O'Bail (also spelled in colonial documents O'Beal, O'Ball, and Abeel), and they talked for a few moments. In his youth O'Bail had lived with the Indians and at one time had a Seneca wife. After she died he had returned to the Mohawk and made a haphazard living as farmer, trapper, Indian interpreter, and scout. Brant hurried to find Cornplanter.

Before they left the valley, Cornplanter came up to the prisoners and studied O'Bail closely.
"Are you the white man called John O'Bail?" he asked at last.
"I am John O'Bail," the settler replied.
"Did you have a wife in the Seneca Castle?" Cornplanter asked.
"I had a Seneca woman, but that was a long time ago," was the reply.
The Seneca war captain, his face streaked with red and black paint, put his hand on O'Bail's shoulder.

"That woman was my mother, I am your son." He took O'Bail aside and told him "If you now choose to follow me and live with my people I will promise to cherish your old age with plenty of venison and you shall live easy. But if it is your choice to return to your people and live with your white children I will send a party of my young men to escort you to safety."

"I am a white man. I have a wife and children. I will return to my own people," O'Bail said.
Cornplanter nodded. "I respect you, my father." Before they left the Mohawk, Cornplanter assigned several young warriors as an escort for O'Bail, his wife, and children.

Red Jacket, Brant, and Cornplanter comprised the great triumvirate of Iroquois chiefs who led their people in the trying postwar period of the Revolution. In later years Cornplanter became a religious zealot and a bitter enemy of Red Jacket. In the winter of 1801-1802, he traveled to Washington as the guest of Jefferson who became his frequent corrispondent. He died February 18, 1836, "aged about 100 years" on a reservation over nine hundred acres in Pennsylvania.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/cornpl.htm

[mdenney]

Nesouaquoit
Sauk and Fox

Nesouaquoit's reputation came not from his courage in war, his diplomacy, or his skill in hunting, but from his violent hatred of alcohol and tobacco. Colonel McKenney described him as the only Indian of whom it can be said-he never tasted a drop of spirituous liquor or smoked a pipe!"

Nesouaquoit had seen what the whiskey peddlers had done to not only Sauk and Fox but other nations on the frontier, and was determined they would not destroy his people. He would beat in the head of the barrels, pour the stupifying traders' whiskey or high wines on the ground, then, using the barrel staves, would drive the peddlers from his villages.

[...]

In 1815, a treaty was entered into by the government and the Sauk and Fox, in which an annual annuity was to be paid to Chemakasee [Nesouaquoit's father] and his people.

They proved to be the most patient Indians in history. One, two, three years passed and no money or trade goods came from Washington. Chemakasee grew older and his son Nesouaquoit took his place as chief. Finally, twenty years passed and Nesouaquoit told his warriors and subchiefs that he had decided to go to Washington to see the Great Father and collect their annuity.

In St.Louis General Clark agreed he had a just complaint, but informed him that there were no government funds available to send him on that long trip.
Nesouaquoit then visited a French moneylender in St.Louis who agreed to finance the round trip with "three boxes and a half of silver"-equivalent to about $3,500. But before the money would be turned over them, the Fox had to gather enough pelts to put up as collateral.

All that winter Nesouaquoit's hunters filled their lodges with skins. In the spring with Clark's approval the loan was completed, and Nesouaquoit received his box of silver, and the moneylenders his furs.

The Fox chief presented his petition to the President and the secretary of war the following year "in a firm and decided manner. The authorities recognised his claim and he was assured that the provision of the treaty... should be scrupulously fulfilled, and respected in future."

Nesouaquoit's warriors could have saved their furs and the St.Louis moneylender his boxes of silver, for nothing was ever done. Year after year the Sauk and Fox chiefs pleaded with Washington but as one chief angrily told Clark it was clear that the Great Father had two sets of ears, one for the whites and the other for the Indians.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/nesouaq.htm

[mdenney]

Wabishkeepenas,
or White Pigeon
Chippewa

[...]Colonel McKenney was writing a report for Secretary of War James Barbour when he suddenly became aware of an Indian standing in the doorway.

He later recalled how shocked he was at the brave's gaunt dark face, sunken cheeks, and eyes glittering with fever. The Indian studied McKenney for a long moment in silence, then slowly raised a bony arm and whispered in Chippewa.

McKenney summoned his interpreter, but before he could appear the Indian had vanished into the forest.

The face of the obviously ill man haunted McKinney, and he ordered the interpreter to find him. On the eve of the opening ceremonies of the council the interpreter appeared with the Chippewa and told his story to McKenney.

Six years before, Governor Lewis Cass and Henry R. Schoolcraft, the early explorer, ethnologist, and one of McKenney's agents, had made a tour of the Upper Lakes region. One of their mission was to find the legendary copper boulder-later known as the Ontonagon copper boulder-and White Pigeon was selected as their guide.

The Chippewa were uneasy; the copper boulder was regarded as a manito, a holy place that guided their destiny, and it was considered a sacrilege for a white man to visit this spot.

White Pigeon was aware of his people's feelings and led Cass and Schoolcraft in a bizarre, round-about fashion that finally left them miles from the boulder.

Cass selected a new guide and White Pigeon returned to his village. A council was held and the ironic conclusion was reached that White Pigeon had not only offended Cass, the representative of the Great Father, but had been led away from the place by angry gods. The unfortunate warrior was then banished from the village.

Bad luck clung to him; arrows he shot at game missed their mark. His rifle backfired and split the barrel. His family refused to recognize him. His horse vanished. And in his village the people said that they knew it all the time-White Pigeon was a doomed man. For six years he had wandered through the forest living on small game and roots. McKenney wrote:
"Bereft of his usual activity and courage, destitute of confidence and self-respect, he seemed to have scarcely retained the desire or ability to provide himself with food from day to day."

After he heard White Pigeon's story McKenney advised Cass and Schoolcraft who were disturbed to learn that they were the cause of the Chippewa's miserable existence. McKinney recalled years later:
"They determined to restore him to the standing from which he had fallen, and having loaded him with presents...his offence was forgiven, and his luck changed."

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/wpigeon.htm

[mdenney]

Joseph Brant
?-1807
Mohawk, Iroquois

He refused to bend his knee to King George but galliantly kissed the hand of his queen. He had his portrait painted by the famous English painter George Romney. He was at ease drinking tea from fragile china cups, but could hurl a tomahawk with deadly accuracy. He was a graduate of the Indian school that later became Darmouth College, and he translated the Bible into the Mohawk language, yet he could leave the Mohawk a blazing ruin from Fort Stanwix, near Rome, to the very outskirts of Schenectady. He was one of the greatest of Americans Indians; had he given his support to the struggling Continental army the course of American history would certainly have been changed.

[...]

His decision to side with the British was tragic for the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations as it was called. That ancient confederation bound together by wisdom, skill at war, and diplomacy became helplessly divided when it was agreed that each nation should go on its own way. In the past a declaration of war had to be voted unanimously. Some nations like the Oneida went with the Americans, others tried to stay neutral, or like Briant's Mohawk fought for the British.

[...]

For six years he led his Indian raiders into the Mohawk, again and again leaving the beautiful valley a sea of flames while the alarm bells in the tiny forts clanged frantically.

[...]

He died in his fine home on Grand River, Ontario, November 24, 1807, whispering with his last breath: "Have pity on the poor Indians."

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/jbrant.htm

[mdenney]

Waapashaw
Sioux

This son of a famous Sioux chief was celebrated as an outstanding Indian diplomat. He was known to the French as La Feuille (The Leaf), but various translations and the twisted versions of Indian names in the logbooks of explorers, especially Pike and Long, finally resulted in the name of Waapashaw or the more popuplar Wabasha. There were three chiefs of the same name, father, son, and grandson. The original Wabasha held a balance of power in the West during the last years of the Revolution when British agents tried to incite an Indian border war to divert some of Washington's troops. Wabasha successfully juggled both sides until peace arrived, then calmy claimed presents from the British and Americans for not declaring war. The chief was described by General Henry Whiting in 1820 as a small man with a patch over one eye, but who walked about with the air of an ancient king.

[...]

Wabasha's importance is underscored by the number one position of his name above all the twenty-six chiefs at the signing of the Prairie du Chien treaty. He was also first on behalf of the "Sioux of the Mississippi" of another treaty made at Prairie du Chien.

[...]

At the Prairie du Chien council the Winnebago made secret plans to massacre the United States commissioner. When Wabasha heard about it he summoned the Winnebago.

In the council house the warriors formed a wide circle about their chiefs as Wabasha entered. He stared down at them in silence, then plucked a hair from his long scalp lock and held it up.

"Winnebagoes! do you see this hair? Look at it. You threaten to massacre the white people at the Prairie. They are your friends and mine. You wish to drink their blood. Is that your purpose?"
His voice rose, cold and grim.
"Dare to lay a finger upon one of them, and I will blow you from the face of the earth, as I now"-he blew the hair from his fingers-blow this hair with my breath, where none can find it."

[...]The next morning not a single Winnebago was left in camp.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/waapa.htm

[mdenney]

Shingaba W'Ossin
Chippewa

Shingaba W'Ossin, or Image Stone, was one of the most influential chiefs of the Chippewa nation during the years Colonel McKenney was in office. He was a famed war captain, a powerful orator, and a statesman admired by both red and white men.

Frontiersmen and army officers recalled the Chippewa chief as a tall with a nose thin and sharp as an ax blade and a deep-set penetrating eyes. He had an air of command, almost aloofness, and was a member of the ancient Crane clan. He became a legend for his exploits in the great war between the Chippewa and the Fox, which finally ended the feud between those two nations.

Like his friend, Tecumseh, the Chippewa feared the white man's civilization. When John Johnston, the celebrated Indian trader, asked to marry his daughter O-shaw-ous-go- day-way-gua, Shingaba W'Ossin told the "accomplished Irish gentleman" to go back to Montreal and think seriously over what he had proposed.

"White man, I have noticed your behaviour," he said,"it has been correct. But... your colour is deceitful. Of you, may I expect better things?...If you return I shall be satisfied of your sincerity, and will give you my daughter."

Johnston took the chief's advice and returned to Montreal. In a year he was back and Shingaba W'Ossin kept his word. Johnston and the chief's daughter were married and had several children.[...]

Shingaba W'Ossin constantly urged his nation to seek peace with the white man. As he told them at one council: "If my hunters will not take the game, but will leave the chase and join the war party, our women and children must suffer. If the game is not trapped, where will be our packs of furs? And if we have no furs, how shall we get blankets? Then when winter comes again we shall perish! It is time enough to fight when the war drum sounds near you-when your enemies approach-then it is I shall expect to see you painted for war, and to hear your whoops resound in the mountains; and then you will see me at your head with my arm bared-."

He signed all the treaties drawn between his nation and the United States in the councils held between 1825 and 1827 at Prairie du Chien, Fond du Lac, and Butte des Morts. He also informed McKenney that the thousand dollar annuity that the government agreed to pay the Chippewa nation should go toward starting an Indian school at Sault Sainte Marie on the northern Michigan peninsula.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/shingab.htm

[mdenney]

Sharitarish
Pawnee

A large delegation of Pawnee, Omaha, Kansa, Oto, and Missouri arrived in Washington on that stormy Wednesday and Thursday, November 28-29, 1821, it was reported by the National Intelligencer with the observation that the Indians' mission "is to visit their Great Father and learn something of that civilization of which they hitherto remained in total ignorance."

[...]

One of the chiefs in that famous delegation was Sharitarish, of the Grand Pawnee nation. Colonel McKenney, who escorted the delegation to the White House, recalled him as "a chief of noble form and fine bearing; he was six feet tall, and well proportioned; and when mounted on the fiery steed of the prairie, was a graceful and very imposing personage. His people looked upon him as a great brave, and the young men especially regarded him as a person who was designed to great distinction."

[...]

W. Faux, an Englishman touring the United States, stopped off in Washington during the time the Indian delegation was in the capital. In his Memorable Days in America, published two years later, he recalled how Sharitarish and the other braves performed a wild war dance "in front of the President's house" before six thousand cheering spectators. The Indians, Faux wrote, "were in a state of perfect nudity, except a piece of red flannel round the waist and passing between the legs...."

Faux described the Indians as "men of large stature, very muscular, having fine countenances, with the real Roman nose, dignified in their manners, and peaceful and quiet in their habits...."
Their portraits, he said, were painted by "Mr King in their native costume, buffalo skins, with the hair inside, turned back at the neck and breast, which looked very handsome, like fur collars...."
King, he said, copied and kept for himself eight of the Indian portraits, including the one he had done of Sharitarish (Angry Chief). He added:
"He [King] received 400 dollars from Uncle Sam" for painting the series of portraits commissioned by McKenney to start his famous gallery.

One of the Indians Faux called "the Otta half-chief" [probably Shaumonekusse, or L'Ietan, who was among the delegation] "and his squaw have taken tea.... She was a very good-natured, mild woman, and he showed great readiness in acquiring our language."

Tarecawawaho [Sharitarish's elder brother] came to regret that he had refused [to visit the Great Father in Washington]. Sharitarish returned home on such a wave of popularity that his brother became bitterly jealous. However, before a feud could break out the older brother died and Sharitarish became chief of the Grand Pawnee nation. His reign was brief; in a few months he also died, probably from cholera.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/sharita.htm

[mdenney]

Ahyouwaighs
1749-1821 (or 1822)
Mohawk, Iroquois

Visitors to the home of John Brant, chief of the Six Nations, found him a charming host who spoke perfect English and dressed in the latest London fashion, except for beaded moccasins. James Buchanan, British consul general in New York, who expected to find a family of painted savages sitting about a cook fire in their wigwam, was astonished, as he wrote, to discover Brant and his sisters ready to enter any English drawing room.

[...]

The mother of John Brant was Catherine, widow Joseph Brant the famous Thayendanegea, war captain and chief of the Iroquois Confederacy, or Six Nations, during the Revolution. Catherine, eldest daughter of the head of the Turtle clan, the first in rank in the Mohawk nation, had the honor of selecting one of her sons to be chief. She picked John, her fourth and youngest, who had been born on September 24, 1794.

Like his father, John had strong loyalty to the Crown and led his warriors against the United States in the War of 1812. He later lived with his sister Elizabeth in grand English style on Lake Ontario. Ironically, his mother had returned to her native village "and resumed the customs of her fathers."

In 1821, young Brant, following in the footsteps of his famous father, traveled to London to argue the authenticity of his land claims before Parliament. His strongest supporter was the Duke of Northumberland. Their ties were traditional; when Joseph Brant had visited London to see King George in 1776 the elder duke had been his friend and sponsor before the royal court.

During his visit to England John wrote to Thomas Campbell, the nineteenth-century poet, asking him to correct his celebrated "Gertrude of Wyoming," which calumnized Thayendanegea as a blood-thirsty slayer of innocents at the massacre of Wyoming. Historical evidence had proved Brant was not present at the tragedy.

Campbell later admitted in a magazine article that he had been mistaken and lamely described his Brant as a fictional character. Chief Justice John Marshall, however, refused to correct the second edition of his The Life of George Washington, published in 1834, despite John Brant's letters and pleas.

In 1821, Brant was elected as a member of the Canadian provincial parliament for the county of Haldimand, which included many Mohawk. Landowners contested the election on the grounds that the Indians were not actually landowners and the seat was vacated. During the campaign to regain the seat, both Brant and his political opponent died of cholera.

After her brother's death Elizabeth Brant married William Johnson Kerr, a grandson of Sir William, and for a time it seemed that the great colonial dynasty that began with Molly Brant, Joseph's sister, and Johnson, the great Empire Builder, would continue. The last survivor of the Brant children, Catherine B. Johnson, died in 1867.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/ahyouw.htm

[mdenney]

Catahecassa
ca 1740-1831
Shawnee

This distinguished Shawnee chief was not only present when his warriors annihilated Braddock's expedition in 1755 but also fought in every border conflict until peace was declared in 1795. Like Tecumseh, he hated and feared the white man.

After General Wayne's victory over the Ohio tribes at Fallen Timbers, Black Hoof signed a peace treaty with the American general who admired the Shawnee's military skill. Once he had signed, Black Hoof promised Wayne that he would never again lift his tomahawk against the United States; it was a promise he never broke.

When Tecumseh began his tour of the Indian nations to form an Indian confederacy and make war on the white man, Black Hoof, while agreeing with the famous Shawnee's political philosophy, disagreed with his intense desire for war. Both Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, held many meetings with Black Hoof in an attempt to get him to join their forces. British agents came to his village with gifts and whiskey, but the Shawnee smashed their kegs and drove them into the forest.

Black Hoof also gained a singular reputation for his faithfulness to one woman. When he was a young warrior he wooed and finally won the daughter of a chief. He lived with her for forty years and raised a large family. Colonel McKenney, accostumed to chiefs with as many as five wives, was astounded when Black Hoof told him he had lived with one woman all his life.

Black Hoof signed the famous Greenville, Ohio, treaty with general Wayne on August 3, 1795; another at Fort Wayne, June 7, 1803, and a whole series of treaties up to the final one in September 1818.

Althogh McKenney included the chief's portrait in his Indian Gallery, there is no evidence Black Hoof visited Washington. McKenney claimed that when he died in 1831 at Wapakoneta, Ohio, he was one hundred and twelve years old. This appears to be exaggerated; ninety would be more accurate. He was born about 1740.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/bhoof.htm

[mdenney]

Paddy Carr
Creek

At the age of nineteen, Paddy Carr was principal interpreter for the Creek chiefs when they visited President John Quincy Adams in 1826 to protest bitterly the infamous Indian Springs treaty. Colonel McKenney, who later witnessed the new treaty with Secretary of War James Barbour, found the young half-breed to have "a quick perception of the human character, which enabled him to manage and control the Indians with more success than many who were his seniors...in rapidly interpreting the speeches the Indian orators...he often gave it additional vigor and clearness.... He possessed the entire confidence of the whole delegation, who regarded him as a youth of superior talents".

It was clear that Paddy Carr, son of an Irish trader and a Creek woman, did not intend to remain an interpreter for occasional traders, horse dealers, and infrequent Indian commissioners who only appeared when the government wanted to buy more land. Shortly after his return from Washington he wooed and married the pretty daughter of a wealthy half-breed farmer, who presented his new son-in-law with a generous dowry. In ten years Paddy owned considerable land, herds of horses and cattle, and seventy to eighty slaves-many more than a Virginia aristocrat.

In 1826, he defied his neighbors and became interpreter for General Thomas Sidney Jesup in the Creek country. Later he served as second in command of a large force of Creek warriors who fought as mercenaries against the Seminole.

Racehorses became his passion, and in later years the former Indian interpreter owned a large stable of blooded ponies. McKenney wrote that "when he has a trial of speed...he cannot suit himself with a rider, he rides his own horse".

Paddy Carr was now one of the lords of his valley and the chief source of employment for many poor Creek families. McKenney called him a man of "a liberal and generous disposition, hospitable to strangers, and kind to the poor."

Evidently the handsome half-breed not only had a fine eye for blooded horses but also for pretty women. In the 1830s he had three wives, all described as attractive.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/paddy.htm

[mdenney]

Moukaushka
?-1837
Sioux

A single reckless act raised Trembling Earth (or Earthquake) from a lowly horseholder to a warrior of distinction who represented his people before the Great Father in Washington.

As Colonel McKenney heard the story, the series of events that affected the young brave's life began when a party of voyager on their way to a trading post met a band of warriors from Trembling Earth's village. When a Frenchman refused to share his horse he was murdered by one of the Indians. The rest of the trappers fled to the Yankton village to inform the chiefs and demand the killer be executed.

The ancient code of the Sioux permitted a victim's relative to seek revenge; if no relative was willing, a friend was allowed to take his place.

The tribe laughed when Trembling Earth publicly announced that he would satisfy the honor of the unknown white man, but the boy who had never been on a war party silenced them when he returned with the warrior's scalp.

McKenney claimed that the motivation for Trembling Earth was not pity for the white man he never knew nor to wipe out the stain of dishonor on the village, but simply ambition. The young warrior, he wrote, "grasped at an opportunity, thus fortuitously presented, to emancipate himself from his humble condition."

Evidently, the chiefs were not concerned with Trembling Earth's motivation; not only had a murderer who had endangered their village been executed but more important, the white men were satisfied and the Dragoons from Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis did not appear.

The former horseholder now became "a good warrior" who was sent to Washington in 1837 as a member of the delegation that signed a treaty with their Great Father.

Trembling Earth was stricken in the capital with what McKenney called "a fever," but he refused to cancel the appointment to have his portrait painted. As McKenney wrote, the Sioux was "suffering under the influence of fever" when he sat for the artist. It was finished three days before his death in October 1837.

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xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/moukau.htm

[mdenney]

Sequoyah
?-1843
Cherokee

Sequoyah was an authentic Indian genius who gave his people their greatest gift - communication.
Without books, letters, or newspapers, he invented the Cherokee alphabet while living in the deep woods surrounded by Indians and whites, most of whom were as illiterate as himself.

Sequoyah, or George Guess, as he was commonly called on the frontier, was the son of an itinerant white farmer named Gist and a half-breed mother.

McKenney, who knew Sequoyah, described him as a dreamer, a moody boy who disliked the favorite game of all Indian youths-war. Instead, he took long walks in the woods and built ingenious toy houses of sticks and mud.

[...]

Charles Hicks, a Moravian and part Cherokee who years later would become an influential chief, scrawled "George Guess" on a scrap of paper, and Sequoyah laboriously copied his name on a die, then stamped it on all his silverwork. It was probably the first Indian trademark.

Art came next. He sketched from early morning to late at night by the fireplace, in between plowing a field, rounding up the cows, breaking horses, or designing a new piece of silverwork. Up to his time he had never seen an engraving or painting.

In 1820, Sequoyah visited some relatives in a Cherokee village on the Tennessee River. During the afternoon the subject of the white man's skill of writing was discussed. One brave insisted that only the Great Spirit could have given them the magical gift that enabled one man to put down his thoughts on paper so they could be read by another man many miles away. There was a general shaking of heads over the ingenuity of the white man. Guess startled everyone by scoffing at the idea that it was a gift of God. Rather he said, it was an art, and he was sure that he could invent some kind of a written tongue so the Cherokee could express their thoughts and wishes on paper for one another, even though they were separated by great distances.

The next day Sequoyah begged some scraps of paper, which he fashioned into a book and began making "characters." As McKenney described the method:
"His reflections on the subject had led him to the conclusion that the letters used in writing represented certain words or ideas, and being uniform, would always convey to the reader the same idea intended by the writer-provided the system of characters which had been taught to each was the same."

He polished his work in 1821. That same year he began teaching the alphabet to others. After the Cherokee language could be read and written he toured Arkansas teaching his alphabet to the Cherokee who had been removed to that territory.

In 1823, he left Alabama with the Cherokee who had accepted the government's offer to move them west of the Mississippi. He carried with him a silver medal presented by his people. The inscription read:

"Presented to George Gist, by the General Council of the Cherokee nation, for his ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee alphabet." One side was in English, the other in Cherokee.

Sequoyah spent his last years investigating the possibility of inventing a general alphabet for all Indian nations and searching for a legendary tribe of Cherokee "living somewhere toward the western mountains." He died in 1843 near the village of San Fernando. Sequoyah district of the Cherokee nation was named in his honor along with the great trees of California, the Sequoia gigantea. Had the Indian territory been admitted into the Union as a state indipendent of Oklahoma, there is little doubt that it would have borne Sequoyah's name.

link below-

xoomer.alice.it/vminerva/sequoya.htm