Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000 09:40:06 -0500
From: Vaughn Pedersen <Pedersen@foxvalley.net>
Subject: Blue Jacket Warrior of the Shawnees by John Sugden
To: bjexploration@swbell.net
Cc: Vntrz@graphtronics.net
Reply-to: Vaughn Pedersen <Pedersen@foxvalley.net>
Organization:
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300

Blue Jacket

Warrior of the Shawnees
John Sugden
144 pp. photographs, index
$29.95 cloth 0-8032-4288-3

Purchase this title

Also available on this subject:
The Shawnee Prophet

"A major contribution to the field of Indian history and biography, as well as to frontier history. John Sugden has produced a dramatic, authoritative biography that completely destroys the widely accepted fiction that Blue Jacket was a white captive. This volume should establish Blue Jacket with Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Geronimo, and Pontiac." Helen Hornbeck Tanner, coauthor of The Peopling of North America: The Visual Atlas of the Great Migrations into North America, from the Ice Age to Ellis Island and Beyond

Blue Jacket (ca. 1743 ca. 1808), or Waweyapiersenwaw, was the most influential Native American leader of his time. He was the galvanizing force behind an intertribal confederacy of unparalleled scope that fought a long and bloody war against white encroachments into their homeland in the Ohio River valley. Blue Jacket was an astute strategist and diplomat who, though courted by American and British leaders, remained a staunch defender of the Shawnees' independence and territory. He fielded large forces (his warriors inflicted greater losses upon the American army than those of Cochise, Geronimo, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull combined), won unprecedented military and diplomatic victories, and during his later years inspired and mentored the legendary Tecumseh. In this arresting and controversial account, John Sugden, the acclaimed biographer of Tecumseh, restores Blue Jacket to his rightful place of prominence in American history.

John Sugden is an independent scholar and a former associate editor of Oxford University Press's American National Biography project. His books include Tecumseh: A Life, winner of the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award.

University of Nebraska Press Online

 

Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 19:26:11 -0400
From: "Robert V.  Van Trees" <vntrz@graphtronics.net>
Subject: Steve Lucht WYSO broadcast
To: "Karel L.. Whyte" <kwhyte@mindspring.com>
Cc: Gaylord Carlyle Hinshaw < bjexploration@swbell.net>,
 James J Zehringer <JJZ@bright.net>, Barbara Meiring <bmeiring@yahoo.com>
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400

Oops, forgot to fill in that "cc" block
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert V. Van Trees
To: Vaughn Jr. Alan Pedersen
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2000 7:15 PM
Subject: Steve Lucht WYSO broadcast

Just finished hearing WYSO operations director Steve Lucht in Yellowsprings, Ohio, home of Antioch College, give a 15 minute disertation  re the Blue Jacket story.   He did interview me, Eckert, Barb Lehmann (Urbana, OH, personally, and  Bobby Bluejacket, Tulsa via telephone and broadcast some of the comments.  Eckert of course said : "Nothing has convinced me I have written anything wrong!"  So be it.  Bobby provided a very forceful declaration of his conviction he had "no white blood in his veins. "    My comments were along the same line I have always maintained.  Steve Lucht did indicate I "visited the site at Fort Recovery" vice an indication I was born and raised there but it was not significant.   Eckert talked about "old journals" which verified his writings....all I can say is WHAT JOURNALS?  If he has proof of his writings, why not share the
source with all of us.   Apparently Thomas Swearingen of Uniondale, IN expressed
his misgivings re my conclusions but he always has--he believed the story that he was
related to Chief Blue Jacket.  No problem.  There are probably hundreds who believe
the old saga and why not--it has been told and retold for a hundred years.  At the end
of the 15 minute broadcast Steve inserted a minute or so of the Blue Jacket drama
i.e.  "every blade of grass has been washed with the blood of my ancestors, etc."
Bull!  The publicity department of the Blue Jacket drama use that same old stuff
about "hear the wind,  listen to the water,  watch the trees ...they tell  you the story
about Blue Jacket,  a white man who turned Indian and became our leader!"   Now
you believe that and I have a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn I would like
you to think about buying!   Now it is time for my evening libation before I throw  up!

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