Smoky's Daddy: Free Existence
A man remembers how his son fought payroll warriors and followed free existence...
{A sequel and prequel to Smoky’s Story }
Shawnee
When I found the Shawnee, they found me. A young man, fit, proud, ready to work at what needs done. Good hunter and fisher. Pretty good at trails. Not much of a horse rider, but I was confident around animals.
We smoked on it. Lucky there was others like me who found the Shawnee and who already spoke Shawnee and remembered their English too. Talk and understanding all around until we were clear I was staying. I did.
That could be the end of my story right there. But it wouldn’t get to my son.
Before my son there had to be a mother. And for that there had to be love. Love came two winters later. I saw her the moment I joined the people and she seemed to see me. That moment and many more moments passed before we understood what we wanted. Me having no parents to intercede in the Shawnee way, I went straight to her parents and asked. I brought meat and fish and the most beautiful leather I had worked since my arrival.
There’s ways all this happens and I’m not going to tell you. All you need to know is that we joined our lives.
One winter more passed and then we had a son. He was born for me and born to her. He was of her clan among the people.
The rest of my story is simple.
I was a Shawnee in life though not in blood. When the Iroquois invaded us I fought back. When payroll warriors invaded us, I fought back.
Meanwhile my son grew and became a man. He joined us in hunting, fishing, fighting, and he learned leather from me to carry on good work for everyone.
My story sparks my son’s story.
I’m going to leap to the moment his story separates from mine. The moment when defending the people against the payroll warriors became the main issue for all the free peoples.
Our great warrior Tecumseh helped us to understand that we had to join hands with all other free peoples to push the payroll warriors away from all our lands. He took upon himself the work of joining us. My son followed him closely, learned from him, understood, joined him in travels to create a big joining of peoples.
My son was among the warriors who traveled with Tecumseh as he went about the great work of joining peoples. Tecumseh said each people that fights among the peoples weakens our strength to defend against the payroll people who want to destroy us all.
Among ourselves, fights are short, simple, seasonal, limited. We fight to protect hunting and fishing grounds for supporting our peoples. We recognize that other peoples are doing the same. We recognize an All that includes all Earth and all peoples. No people deny another people’s existence or seek to wipe them off the Earth. We recognize Creation set us in motion in spaces that interweave each other. We fight in the interweaves. These fights are seasonal and limited.
Payroll warriors make what they call ‘borders’. Their ‘borders’ are not interweaves. They fight to put ‘borders’ through our interweaves and around us. They deny we are all peoples. They seek to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Always, not seasonal.
The payroll warriors’ ‘borders’ cut off peoples’ interweaves, destroy spaces for free movement, free existence, free exchange. They want spaces for payroll people inside their ‘borders’. They want to expand payroll spaces without limit.
Tecumseh saw and understood all this. He saw that among the free peoples some now followed payroll and could not be counted upon for the peoples’ joining. He understood that following payroll was not only from fear of payroll weapons, but also from trusting soft-voiced payroll warriors who fight with words and promises, of peace and life-everlasting, of a ‘better’ place, where people don’t fight and all peoples follow one rule.
My son traveled with Tecumseh to help carry the understanding.
His life separated from mine on Tecumseh’s journey to the Creek, where he saw the woman who would be his woman and she saw him and Tecumseh agreed and her parents agreed.
Among the Creek a great break was happening. Creek who did not understand Tecumseh joined the payroll warriors. The Creek split into pieces.
My son and his woman stayed with the free Creek, the Red Sticks.
I don’t want to remember the story1. The Red Sticks fought fiercely. Payroll warriors and their Choctaw and Creek friends fought back, with bigger payroll weapons and many more payroll warriors than ever before.
To say it quickly, the Red Sticks lost. Most of their men were killed and their towns were burned. My son’s woman was killed. My son saw surviving Red Sticks retreating to where the Spanish, not the English, claimed control. He felt no future in that direction, only a possible pause in fighting until the Spanish payroll warriors would come.
My son went alone, not returning with Tecumseh. He walked toward the setting sun.
I know these things from Tecumseh.
Where and how far my son walked I do not know. Perhaps there will be a place where my son will tell that story to someone who asks him, “Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you going?”
Is this a true story of ur life? It’s so sad 😭 and I’m sorry
good one, Peter, and gives clear example of the difference have to explain to people when they defensively say, trying to level the historical field... there's always been wars and the Indians too, a human thing.... Obviously "scorched Earth policy" is not Native.