The image of the Shawnees in the historiography of the old Northwest has been not unlike that of the Apaches in the desert Southwest. Settlers on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Kentucky feared and hated the Shawnees even as they battled to take their lands, and the image of Shawnee warriors stalking frontier cabins proved too tempting for most later historians to abandon. The Shawnees' capture of Daniel Boone, their siege of Boonesborough, and their resolute resistance to American expansion would seem to suggest that their role in the American Revolution was clear, and certainly few tribes made such common cause with the redcoats.

The Shawnees, however, exemplify the inadequacy of standard portrayals of Indian experiences during the Revolution. Like other Indian peoples, they struggled to survive in a tumultuous situation not of their making. The revolutionary era brought a renewal and intensification of familiar pressures on Shawnee lands and culture; the Revolutionary War was one phase in a long and brutal contest for the Ohio River, in which the Shawnees occupied the front lines. As village chiefs from Chillicothe told the British in 1779, “We have always been the Frontier.” The Shawnees occupied a precarious position between the frontiers of Virginia and Kentucky and militant Mingo bands closer to Detroit. Tribes already allied to the British threatened to attack them if they contemplated peace with the Virginians. They became embroiled in the escalating conflict, but participation was never total, at least before the last year of the war. Different groups and individuals had different ideas about the best course to pursue. The American Revolution in Shawnee country translated into a story of political fragmentation and burning villages. Shawnee people struggled to hold their communities together in the midst of conflict and migration. In the case of the Maquachake division of the tribe, it was also a story of persistent efforts to live in peace, and of vain endeavors to maintain some kind of middle ground as militants on both sides created a new world of war.