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Cheeseekau (c. 1760–1792) was a war chief of the Kispoko division of the Shawnee Nation. Also known as Pepquannakek (Gunshot), Popoquan (Gun), Sting, and Chiksika. Although primarily remembered as the eldest brother and mentor of Tecumseh, who became famous after Cheeseekau's death, Cheeseekau was a well-known leader in his own time, and a contemporary of Blue Jacket.

Few details are known about Cheeseekau's early life. He may have been born along the Tallapoosa River in what is now Alabama. His parents, Puckeshinwa and Methoataaskee, moved north to the Ohio Country around the time of his birth. After Pukeshinwa's death in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, Cheeseekau assumed much of the responsibility for his younger brothers, including Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa.

During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Cheeseekau joined with those Shawnees who allied themselves with the British and sought to drive the American settlers out of Kentucky. After the war, as Americans expanded into Ohio, in 1788 Cheeseekau led a group of Shawnees to Missouri. American colonists were moving to Missouri too, and Cheeseekau resettled his band at the village of Running Water on the Tennessee River, where he joined Dragging Canoe's militant Chickamauga Cherokee in fighting American expansion. He died On October 1, 1792 after being mortally wounded during an attack on Bledsoe's Station, a frontier fort near Nashville, TN.

Notes

1. "Shawnees". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
2. Alvin M. Josephy Jr. (1961). "These lands are ours …". American Heritage. Vol. 12, no. 5. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
3. "Tecumseh". History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts. 2013. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
4. "Re: Tecumseh and Tecumapease decendants [sic]". RootsWeb: OHROOTS-L. 2005-04-07. Archived from the original on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
5. Benjamin Drake (1852). Life of Tecumseh and of his brother the prophet. Cincinnati: H.S. & J. Applegate & Co. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
6. Ethel T. Raymond (1920). Tecumseh : a chronicle of the last great leader of his people. Toronto: Glasgow, Brook. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
7. Glenn Tucker. "Tecumseh (Shawnee chief)". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
8. Brown, p. 271

Sources

• Brown, John P. Old Frontiers: The Story of the Cherokee Indians from Earliest Times to the Date of Their Removal to the West, 1838. (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1938).
• Eckert, Allan W. A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh. (New York: Bantam, 1992).
• Sugden, John. Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Holt, 1997. ISBN 0-8050-4138-9 (hardcover); ISBN 0-8050-6121-5 (1999 paperback).
• Sugden, John. "Cheeseekau". American National Biography. 4:767–68. Ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-512783-8.

• 1760s births
• 1792 deaths
• Native Americans in the American Revolution
• Native American people of the Indian Wars
• Chickamauga Cherokee people
• 18th-century Shawnee people
• Shawnee leaders
• Tecumseh