Black Hoof

Catecahassa or Black Hoof (c. 1740 – 1831) was the head civil chief of the Shawnee Indians in the Ohio Country of what became the United States.

As a child he may have been a member of a wandering band of some 400 Shawnees led by Peter Chartier between 1745 and 1748, who founded the community in Kentucky called Eskippakithiki[1] and later moved to Sylacauga, Alabama, eventually settling in Old Shawneetown, Illinois.

During the American Revolutionary War, he may have taken part in the Siege of Boonesborough in 1778, which was led by Chief Blackfish, as well as the subsequent defense of the Shawnee village of Chillicothe in 1779.

Like Little Turtle of the Miamis, Black Hoof decided that Native Americans needed to adapt culturally to the ways of the whites in order to prevent decimation through warfare.

Black Hoof resisted the policy of Indian removal that the United States implemented soon after the War of 1812.