Blue Jacket
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- For other meanings, see Bluejacket.
Who was Blue Jacket?
Blue Jacket was a legendary Shawnee war chief. Since 1877, decades after his death, a famous story about him has circulated and been made popular by authors such as Allan Eckert, but also caused widespread debate.Little is actually known of Blue Jacket's early life, which may be why there is so much confusion about his identity. According to the legend, a young man named Marmaduke Van Swearingen, wearing a blue coat, was captured and adopted by the Shawnee around the time of the American Revolutionary War. His younger brother, Charles, watched him being taken but was not taken himself. The legend also claims that years later, after earning the trust of the Shawnee and rising to the position of war chief, the white man, now viewing himself as an Indian, killed his brother in battle.
Despite the persistence of this tale, many questioned its authenticity. Academic historians such as Blue Jacket biographer John Sugden and the late Francis Jennings considered Eckert's books, which are billed as history, to be works of fiction. In 2000, DNA testing of the descendants of Blue Jacket and Van Swearingen gave additional support to the argument that Blue Jacket was not Van Swearingen. According to Sugden, nothing in the contemporary historical record indicated that Blue Jacket was anything other than a Shawnee Indian by birth.
In the early months of 2006, a DNA test, using more modern equipment and techniques then the previous test, was completed by researchers based at Wright State University and Technical Associates Inc. According to them, the story is "without merit." The researchers tested DNA samples from four men descended from Charles Swearingen, Blue Jacket's supposed brother, and six who are descended from Blue Jacket himself. They concluded that the DNA "argues strongly against the idea that living individuals with those surnames share a common male ancestor in recent history." In May of 2006, the results will be opened to a group of Ohio scientists, and a scientific paper will be published in September 2006. There is one complication, however, in the tests. All of the DNA came from descendants of George, the chief's only known son. If Blue Jacket was not George's actual father, however, all of the work is useless.
The legend of Blue Jacket remains well-known in Ohio, where an outdoor drama named after the war chief is performed in Xenia, Ohio. The drama, which has remained virtually unchanged for 25 years, includes Blue Jacket being portrayed as a white man. One of the central scenes includes him killing his white brother. But Lorrie Sparrow, the show's executive director, said that new evidence could eventually bring changes in the show, which she stated was built around Blue Jacket killing his brother.
Struggle for the Old Northwest
Blue Jacket participated in Dunmore's War and the American Revolutionary War (allied with the British), always attempting to maintain Shawnee land rights. With the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War, the Shawnee lost valuable assistance in defending the Ohio Country. The struggle continued as white settlement in Ohio escalated, and Blue Jacket was a prominent leader of the resistance.
On November 3, 1791, a pan-tribal Indian army led by Blue Jacket and Miami Chief Little Turtle (Michikinikwa) defeated an American expedition led by Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory. The battle, known as St. Clair's Defeat, was the crowning achievement of Blue Jacket's military career, and the most severe defeat ever inflicted upon the United States by Native Americans. Traditional accounts of the battle tend to give most of the credit for the victory to Little Turtle. John Sugden argues that Little Turtle's prominence is due in large measure to Little Turtle's self-promotion in later years.
Blue Jacket's triumph was short-lived. The Americans were alarmed by St. Clair's Defeat, and raised a new professional army, commanded by General Anthony Wayne. On August 20, 1794, Blue Jacket's confederacy clashed with Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, just south of present-day Toledo, Ohio. Blue Jacket's army was defeated, and he was compelled to sign the Treaty of Greenville on August 3, 1795, ceding much of present-day Ohio to the United States. In 1805, Blue Jacket also signed the Treaty of Fort Industry, relinquishing even more of Ohio. In Blue Jacket's final years, he saw the rise to prominence of Tecumseh, who would take up the banner and make the final attempts to reclaim Shawnee lands in the Ohio Country.
Blue Jacket has Shawnee descendants to the present day.
There are many white descendants of Bluejacket as well, due in large part to the fact that Bluejacket never married a Native American woman; both of his wives were white.
References
- Sugden, John. Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees. University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
- Sloat, Bill (Apr. 13, 2006).["Blue Jacket was Indian, not white, DNA shows"].
External links
- [Shawnee Blue Jacket Web Site]
- [Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online]
- [The Blue Jacket outdoor drama]
- [Newspaper article about Blue Jacket and his grandson, Rev. Charles Bluejacket]
- [A series of newspaper articles about the controversy over Blue Jacket's identity]
- [Ohio History Central on his identity]
- [Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society on his identity and war leadership]
- [Ohio Indian Wars Message Board]
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