Customer Reviews

Blue Jacket, War Chief of the Shawnees

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Allan Eckert is unquestionably a fine writer. However, he is not a great historian. Eckert chooses to ignore certain source material and emphasize dubious or even discredited sources in order to mold the story of Blue Jacket into his own chosen image of Blue Jacket. As one prior review has stated, recent DNA evidence indicates that Blue Jacket and the Swearingens were not related. While this DNA evidence was unvailable at the time of publication of this book, there is other evidence which refutes Eckert's claims. If Eckert would have taken advantage of available source materials, he would have discovered that the real Blue Jacket was much older than the white boy who allegedly became the chief. In addition, no one who ever met the chief and wrote about him ever mentioned his whiteness. In the case of other Indians who were racially white, this fact is constantly mentioned by white observers. In sum, Eckert is a fine writer of literature based on (some) historical evidence, but his historical accuracy is, at best, questionable.

This outstanding piece of literature gives the reader a true feeling of understanding for one of our nation's most amazing, yet forgotten, individuals.

Eckert's work turns the facts of Marmaduke VanSwearingen's (Blue Jacket) life into a panoramic view of a different time and place. He realizes that in order to truly appreciate Blue Jacket, one must first understand the times in which he lived. Eckert expertly sets the stage and tells the tale of a young nation whose expanding borders cannot contain two cultures, and of a complex man who fights for what he believes in. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Ohio Valley or the Shawnee Culture.

Yes, it's true this book is about my great,great,great,great grandfather! His granddaughter married a Bingham & that's how I became to be down the line! But, if you want to read a book about a brave boy who became one of the greatest war chiefs in Shawnee history this is the book for you! Mr. Eckert did a wonderful job telling the story about Blue Jacket's life. This is a treasured book in my family! And I hope that it becomes one of yours! Please read & enjoy! :-)

I have read this book on numerous occasions, once as a child and again as an informed adult and my conclusions regarding this book and its author are the same. This book is poorly written with questionable "research" done by its author and is packaged as if it historcal fact when it is in fact, fiction. Mr. Eckert has done a disservice not only to my family, my tribe, but to that of the Swearingen family as well. Blue Jacket, Weyapiersenwah, was Shawnee NOT an adopted white captive! My ancestor's first child was born when Marmaduke Swearingen was only two a fact that can be verified through family genealogy-this myth was started by a Swearingen descendant in 1877 and author Eckert picked up on the story and has tried to make it more palatable by creating the illusion it is fact. Recently, Swearingen and Bluejacket descendants were subjected to DNA testing. The conclusions: the Bluejackets and the Swearingens are NOT genetically linked and that Marmaduke Von Swearingen once and for all was NOT Chief Blue Jacket. Let us hope that the record will now be set straight and that is that my ggggg grandfather was a great Shawnee leader and mentor to Tecumseh and not some adopted white captive, the creation of an over active imagination.

I have read this book three times now. Needless to say it is my favorite. It is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, who in exchange for his life and his younger brother, gladly agrees to be adopted into the Kispokotha sept of the Shawnee Indians.This book depicts the life of Blue Jacket very well; it seems that Eckert has left out very little details of his life and the lives of those around him.

It tells the life of Blue Jacket as a story other than listing facts, you live with Blue Jacket and understand how he came from being a white settler boy that no one understood to War Chief of the Shawnee Indians. I definatly recommend this book.

I am not a direct descendant, but I can assure the readers that the story as told by Mr. Eckert is authentic. My maternal grandfather's sister was married to William Bluejacket.

Typically, Eckert's writing style makes this a book that is hard to put down. It is very exciting reading. It is not one of the best books that Eckert has written however. Also, it is shorter and doesn't have the great deal of detail that he put into his "Tecumseh" book, for example. It is a lively story, but now that I have read other reviews, I wonder if it is based on error. The early part of the story concerns the fact that Blue Jacket is a "captured" white boy who becomes a great Indian War Chief. If that is not true, then this part of the book is in error. The history of Blue Jacket as an Indian is well written and exciting, in any case. No matter his origin, Blue Jacket was a great Indian warrior and leader.
From other things I have read, my guess would be that Eckert's version is correct. In any case, this is an exciting and enjoyable book to read.

NO young man in those days WANTED to be an indian. What do you think this is? The 50's? Captured? Semantics. After seeing what he saw, it was "come with us." And he did. Much like what's happening in Iraq. You do what you have to do to stay alive. Those of you incapable of writing a book, keeping continuity, and using past records of how the Shawnee lived, give a very poor idea of Marmaduke Van Swearingen's life. (Blue Jacket, War Chief of the Shawnee)It's only when he kills his own blood is when he realizes how brainwashed he was. The technique is still used to this day.

This book is another of Allan W. Eckarts spell binding true books.
It's about a white boy that wants to be an Idian. Well, Here I go, off into the past, picturing what is happening as if I were there. I can hardly put the book down. This is real, things that really happened. This seventeen year old boy barters with the indians to take him and let his twelve year old brother live. they did. He was called blue jacket because that was the color of the faded shirt he had on when captured. Blue Jacket had to earn the trust of the idnians, that didn't take long. Especially after they saw how brave this boy was as he ran the gauntlet. He was give more freedom and could come and go as he pleased after a while. He never thought of his white family anymore. He just thought and talked shawnee. He was the only white chief the Shawnees had. It is a facinating book. A fast read, and you may even learn some indian words.