Where the Lilies Cry

Just before the Shawnee leave their homeland in Ohio, forced to move west by the ever growing influx of settlers, an old warrior journeys with his grandchildren back to the place where he was born. The site of a once thriving little village on the Ohio River called Quenolapay Ohtenatit, or Little Buck Town. He tells them of his grandfather, James Letart, a Frenchman and adopted Shawnee who long ago established a trading post across the river from the village. He tells them the story of his father, Cahiktodo, whose English name was James Letart Jr., and his Delaware mother, Chihopekelis or Bluebird and her beautiful field of lilies. The brutal and tragic murder of the family of their good friend Logan, a Mingo village chief, ignited a war which impelled all of the Indians in the Ohio Country to strike the war post. Lord Dunmore, the British Governor of Virginia, headed an expedition to the frontier to "punish" the Indians there, especially the Shawnee. His goal was to destroy their crops, burn their villages and force them into submission. This story, a work of historical fact and fiction, gives a glimpse of the past and of the people who lived in this little Shawnee and Delaware village on the Ohio River, before the white man came and literally wiped out a way of life that will never be experienced again.