Blue Jacket was born in the 1840s. There is some controversy
about whether Blue Jacket was Euro-American or Native American.
Immediately after
the Revolutionary War settlers started streaming into
Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. More than
45,000 people moved into Ohio in the next 20 years. A
coalition of Native people attempted to maintain their
hunting grounds
and raided settlements taking the lives of as many as
1,500 settlers. The new American government was upset
about these
losses. Washington sent Gen. Josiah Harmer to present-day
Cincinnati with 1,500 troops. He was soundly defeated
by Little Turtle, chief of the Western Alliance. This
period
of time and series of skirmishes became known as Little
Turtle’s War. Washington sent “Mad Anthony” Wayne
to do take care of the "Indian problem."
The Western Alliance
suffered its first defeat under Mad Anthony. Little
Turtle believed that there were so many
American troops now living in Ohio that further resistance
was futile. Blue Jacket was handed leadership of the
coalition of about 1,500 warriors. In the area west of
Lake Erie,
the Natives prepared for battle by performing the rites
of fasting and prayer. Wayne intentionally waited to
attack until the Indians were “half-starved” and
many had gone in search of food. The warriors fell back
to Fort
Miami hoping that their British allies would help, but
the help never came. They locked the door to the Fort
and many hundreds of Natives died. “So ended the Battle
of Fallen Timbers, the last major clash of what history
remembers as Little Turtle’s War.” (Through
Indian Eyes New York: The Reader’s Digest Association,
Inc. 1995 p. 178)
The following summer,
1,130 chiefs and warriors gathered at Fort Greenville,
Ohio. The Greenville Treaty was signed
opening Ohio to white settlement. He died about 1810,
possibly near Detroit, Michigan.
Resources
Blue Jacket
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=43
