Stomping Freedom

Not far from the Shawnee town of Chillicothe along the Little Miami River, we are introduced to our guide and interpreter, a maroon named Caesar.  We also meet the captive, Simon Kenton, who has been caught stealing Saawaanwa horses and spying on their town.  These two have origins in Virginia, and fate has brought them together, only now on Saawaanwa land, it is Simon who is helpless.  Luckily for him, Caesar is a man of integrity and values the life of another.  

Caesar reveals to us that he has critical news to the Ohio Tribal Nations and the man who is readying everyone for war, Blue Jacket.  Needing to remain guarding Simon, unable to go, the maroon asks us, "Who among you can I trust to take this letter onward?"

We deliver the letter to the next part, and into the hands of Nonhelema.  She is the sister of the late Chief Cornstalk, remarkably esteemed, and powerful in presence. 

Nonhelema sees a trail with the Americans as a way to assimilate, therefore she has taken a white husband who trades goods.  She has also found wealth in terms of money and capital with a cattle business, including the Virginian custom of owning enslaved Black servants.  

Chief Blackfish is on a different path.  He is the War Chief of the Shawnee who has just returned from an attack on Boone's Station south of the Ohio River.  Blackfish knows from decades of dedicating his life to the Saawaanooki, the Shawnee people,  he must continue to fight for victory against the American invasion.   

However, before we take the letter to Blue Jacket, the Shawnee on these two trails along the Little Miami River do agree on one thing...  They instruct us to make a stop... they want us to see their elder, Koko'ge, and receive her wisdom. 

The elder women have brought the Shawnee Tribe west, away from their old towns in the Scioto River valley.  Here along the Little Miami and Mad Rivers they have reestablished their cornfields, and have set up new winter hunting camps in a life-style that has been the same way for thousands of years, going back to the times of their ancestors who built earthen mounds.  This continuum of Ohio Indian history must continue to be protected by many likeminded decisions to move the Tribe when necessary.   In order to keep the young men from rushing into battle and getting killed, these decisions might not be popular.   So it is with worry that Koko'ge receives this news about rumors of war.  

She scolds the effort to deliver such news to Blue Jacket, and she reminds us that she will tell the council to move the Tribe over and over and over and over again, for as many times is necessary to protect the future generations... this is her job.  

Otherwise more commonly known as Blue Jacket,  Weyapiersenwah, The Whirlpool is born and raised Shawnee in Ohio, and at a young age, he has an immense ability to lead.   

During this time he has begun to assemble war chiefs from the Lenape, the Miami, and Wyandotte up the Mad River at Wapatomica to prepare for what he finds himself faced with now... the rumors of war and the spy.   

"The great Ohio waters have risen and grown angry.  The Shawnee will soon be sucked into those waters, into the war that is unavoidable, the war that overpowers everyone, dragging all down to the bottom of the swirling current where the weak become the past and the strong may do the same.  That is the nature of our war without justice."