Blue Jacket: War Chief of the Shawnees

In the year 1771, a white boy named Marmaduke Van Swearingen was captured by Shawnee Indians in what is now West Virginia, but was then the edge of the American frontier. Impressed with his bravery, he was not killed but instead was taken to Ohio where he was adopted into the tribe and given the name Blue Jacket, from the blue shirt he was wearing at the time of his capture. The boy grew to excel as a warrior and leader and became the only white to be made war chief of the Shawnee Nation. And the name Blue Jacket became famous throughout the Northwest Territory. The characters in this book were real people who lived the life and did the things herein recounted. Much of the dialogue is taken directly from historical records.
Allan W. Eckert, author of The Frontiersmen and 39 other notable books, has taken all of the known facts of Blue Jacket's life and has woven them into a narrative of compelling interest, with a very different perspective on the way America was settled. Eckert has written extensively on this theme, particularly in his highly-acclaimed Winning of America series. Blue Jacket was an Indian in every way save that of birth and was dedicated to preserving the Indian lands and their way of life from the encroaching whites. In this book, the reader learns what life was really like on the dangerous frontier wilderness that was West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio before the Revolutionary War. Among Eckert's many literary awards are seven Pulitzer Prize nominations and an ALA Book award for his Wild Season.


Genre: Children's Fiction