Kekewepelethy

rdf:langString Kekewepelethy

rdf:langString Kekewepelethy

rdf:langString Kekewepelethy

rdf:langString right

rdf:langString Kekewepelethy

rdf:langString c. 1808

rdf:langString Organizing Native resistance to U.S. expansion, refusing to sign the Treaty of Greenville

rdf:langString Captain Johnny, Great Hawk, Tame Hawk, King John

rdf:langString Today you demand hostages till your prisoners are returned. You next say you will divide the lands. I now tell you it is not the custom of the Shawnese to give hostages, our words are to be believed, when we say a thing we stand to it, we are Shawnese—and as to the lands, God gave us this country, we do not understand measuring out the lands, it is all ours. You say you have goods for our women and children; you may keep your goods, and give them to the other nations, we will have none of them. Brothers, you seem to grow proud, because you have thrown down the King of England…. We have never given hostages, and we will not comply with this demand.

rdf:langString Kekewepelethy (died c. 1808), also known as Captain Johnny, was the principal civil chief of the Shawnees in the Ohio Country during the Northwest Indian War (1786–1795). He first came to prominence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), in which he, like most of his fellow Mekoche Shawnees, initially sought to remain neutral. He joined the war against the United States around 1780, moving to Wakatomika, a Shawnee town known for its militant defense of the Ohio Country. Following the Revolutionary War, Kekewepelethy rejected the claims of U.S. officials that the Shawnees had been conquered and had lost their Ohio Country lands. He supported the formation of a confederation of Native people to resist U.S. expansion. In 1786, he succumbed to pressure to sign the Treaty of Fort Finney, which ceded lands in Ohio, although most Shawnees rejected the treaty. After Moluntha, the principal Shawnee chief, was murdered by an American soldier, Kekewepelethy emerged as his successor. Under Blue Jacket, the principal Shawnee war chief, the Native confederacy won early victories against the Americans in the Northwest Indian War, but were soundly defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. After the battle, some Shawnees leaders, including Blue Jacket, decided to make peace, signing the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, ceding what is now southern and eastern Ohio to the United States. Kekewepelethy refused to sign, and instead retreated to the Detroit region, then still under British control, where he unsuccessfully tried to revive the war effort. His final years were spent in obscurity, and he seems to have died in northern Ohio around 1808.

rdf:langString Captain Johnny, Great Hawk, Tame Hawk, King John