Nonhelema biography sample

Nonhelema was born around into the Chillicothe division of the Swanee nation, an Algonquin-speaking group indigenous to the Ohio Valley region. She spent much of her childhood in Pennsylvania. She married her first husband, a Chillicothe chief, in Nonhelema was both a chieftess and the head of the tribe's peace council, a group made up of women who were required to approve all formal battles.

They had formed an alliance with the British following the French and Indian War, but problems with land boundary agreements continued to cause conflict. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix extended the boundary for European settlement westward into what is now West Virginia and Kentucky, but the Swanee did not agree to these terms.

The treaty had been negotiated by the Iroquois Confederacy, who claimed jurisdiction over the area, despite the fact that other tribes used the land for hunting and seasonal settlement. In the end, Hokoleskwa and the Shawnee were forced to recognize the borders set by the Stanwix Treaty, albeit reluctantly. Once the Revolutionary War began to spread to the western frontier, the British appealed to the indigenous groups for military support, successfully courting most of the Swanee nation.

The Patriots of the fort took him hostage, and following the murder of some soldiers by a band from an unnamed indigenous tribe, a group of Fort Randolph soldiers executed Hokoleskwa and his companions. Even after this tragedy, Nonhelema continued to support the Patriots, and would go on to save lives at Fort Randolph by warning them of an attack.

She aided the Americans throughout the war, serving as a scout and translator for both soldiers and settlers.

A third Shawnee woman has also

Nonhelema would later petition Congress for a plot of land in Ohio as compensation for her service during the war. Instead, she was granted a pension of daily food rations and an annual allotment of blankets and clothing. She also compiled a dictionary of Swanee words. Nonhelema died in December of Blackley, Katie.