Native American Stories

A plethora of material awaits those who enjoy reading. There is much to learn about our nation’s native American heritage. True human drama is often fun, sometimes more fun than fiction. Below are a few of my favorite true stories, characters and sources.

Romance:
Tecumseh and Rebecca Galloway: Who would have thought that the fierce Shawnee leader, the mighty warrior who allied the nations of the mid-west against the European tide of expansion, once fell in love with and nearly married a white woman, the young Rebecca Galloway.

William Clark and Sacajawea: Lewis and Clark received resourceful guidance on their two year trek to the Pacific from this brave, young pregnant woman, daughter of the chief of the Shoshoni nation. Captain William Clark, a married man and Sacajawea, the widow of a scurrilous French trapper, developed a deep respect and profound affection for one another though Clark remained faithful to his wife.

Adventure
Simon Kenton: Born in Fauquier County, Virginia on the western side of Bull Run Mountain, Simon Kenton nearly murdered a man over the love of a woman. He fled to Kentucky where he became a renowned frontiersman, a friend of Daniel Boone and the legendary Cut-ta-ho-tha, feared friend/enemy of the Shawnee.

Blue Jacket: Young Marmaduke van Swearingen pledged to his younger brother Charles that when he became a man he would leave the white world and become an Indian warrior. In 1771 the Shawnees adopted him. They named him Weh-yah-pih-her-sehn-wah or Blue Jacket. He matured into a respected Shawnee leader who fought valiantly in many battles.

George Rogers Clark: Clark, the older brother of William Clark above, and a native of Caroline County, Virginia, is the forgotten hero of the Revolutionary War. Clark and a small band of men single-handedly defeated the British on the western frontier, subduing territory from the eastern edge of Pennsylvania west to Iowa and south to Tennessee while making alliances with countless Indian nations.

Mary Draper Ingels: The pregnant Ingels, captured by the Shawnee, made her daring escape and miraculous journey home through five hundred miles of wooded and unexplored frontier.

Tragedy
Incident at Gnadenhutten: Late in the winter of 1782, ninety-six Delaware Indians, Christians of the Moravian faith, were deceived into capture by soldiers under the command of Colonel David Williamson. Within two days, men, women and children were systematically and brutally murdered, bludgeoned to death with a mallet to the head.

Check out these books. They are some of my favorites:

• The Frontiersman by Allan Eckert
• Follow the River by James Alexander Thom
• Long Knife by James Alexander Thom
• From Sea to Shining Sea by James Alexander Thom
• Sacajawea by Ann Lee Waldo