Born in 1718 into the Chalakatha (Chilliothe) division of the Shawnee nation and spent her early youth in Pennsylvania.

Her brother Cornstalk, and her Métis mother Katee accompanied her father Okowellos to the Alabama country in 1725.

Nonhelema and Cornstalk supported neutrality when their land became the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War.

In Summer 1777, Nonhelema warned Americans that parts of the Shawnee nation had traveled to Fort Detroit to join the British.

She dressed Phillip Hamman and John Pryor as natives so they could go the 160 miles to Fort Donnally to give warning.

[5] In 1780, Nonhelema served as a guide and translator for Augustin de La Balme in his campaign to the Illinois country.