Shawnee Indians
Packet #3: Charles Bluejacket
This packet includes:
- “Charles Bluejacket, Shawnee Landowner” from Johnson County, Kansas: A Pictorial History, 1825-2005
- “Rev. Charles Blujacket” from 1874 Atlas of Johnson County
- Link to 1874 Atlas maps
- Image of Bluejacket Farm from 1874 Atlas
- Photograph of Bluejacket Farm
Charles Bluejacket: Shawnee Leader and Landowner
Charles Bluejacket, like most of the Shawnee people, accepted the 200-acre land allotment provided in the 1854 treaty. He became a successful farmer, raising livestock and crops, including a successful fruit orchard. An 1858 newspaper account praised Bluejacket’s adoption of the American way of life: “[Mr. Bluejacket] has a beautiful farm of several hundred acres under improvement, subdivided into fields. His dwelling is a frame house 20x40, two stories high, plastered and painted, furnished in a style that would do credit to many of our wealthy people in the old states. Mr. Bluejacket is a quite a gentleman in his manners…”
Charles Bluejacket was born in Michigan, grandson of the infamous war chief Waweyapeirsenwaw, more commonly known as Blue Jacket. As a child, he attend Quaker mission schools in Ohio and the Baptist Mission School in Johnson County. He became a Methodist minister in 1859 and preached throughout his life. In 1864, he was not only recognized as the minister of the Shawnee tribe but he also served as Head Chief, continuing in that role until January of 1865. Charles Bluejacket lived in Johnson County until 1872, when he sold his farm and moved to the new Indian Territory in Oklahoma. He returned to Kansas in September 1897 to help locate the gravesite of The Prophet and died shortly thereafter at his home in Indian Territory.
From 1874 Atlas Map of Johnson County, Kansas by E. F. Heisler and D. M. Smith/History of Johnson County, Kansas by Oliver H. Gregg
Rev. Charles Blujacket
Was born in Michigan in 1817. His father, George Blujacket, subsequently bought land on the Huron river, and continued farming until 1822, when he moved to Ohio. He was one of the best educated Indians of his day, and Charles for a long time kept copies of his father’s work, done while at school. He was chief warrior in one of the Shawnee bands, and died in 1830. The subject of this sketch received his early education in a mission school near Ft. Meigs. Afterwards he attended the Friends’ Mission school in Ohio, and latterly the Baptist Mission school, in this county where he finished his education in ’34. He was elected chief of the Shawnees shortly before the late war, and was called upon for men, and commanded a company of Shawnees in Col. Alex. Johnson’s regiment. He served as head chief of the Shawnees for four years. He married Miss Pa-wa-see, in ’33; she died in ’41, and the following year he married Julia Ann Doherty. She died July 11th, ’70, and in ’71 he married Miss Louisa Captain. He has an intelligent family of seven children living, two of whom are married-Mrs. Jonathan Gore, and David, who now lives with the tribe in the Indian Territory. Mr. Blujacket was interpreter for the tribe for many years, and has frequently visited Washington. He is a man of fine mind, and entertains exalted ideas of his Creator, whom he frequently exhorts his people to imitate. He is a useful citizen, a kind husband, and an affectionate father. His children are intelligent, communicative and wellbred, and in conversation are quite interesting and entertaining, at the same time manifesting a laudable desire to gain information. Mr. B. is a Methodist minister, has preached to his people in the Shawnee tongue, and recently has preached in English to the white race, and is admitted to be a speaker of more than ordinary interest. He has a fine farm in a high state of cultivation; his fine orchard yields bountifully of many choice varieties of fruits. The writer hereof, in the month of March, was served to rare varieties of choice fruit at his residence, and that too in a manner and with a grace becoming the first circles of society — a thing so much neglected in very many families, while good breeding costs nothing. Mr. B. demonstrates the fact that Indians can be educated and civilized, can have good farms, and can raise good fruit. He has been offered $50 an acre for his farm.
Key to italicized terms:
Blujacket: Another spelling for Bluejacket's name. It is sometimes seen as Blue Jacket, too.
1874 Atlas Map - map of Johnson County on page 8; map of Shawnee Township on page 80.
Image of Bluejacket Farm from 1874 Atlas of Johnson County
Photograph of Bluejacket Farm
