Shingas was born and raised in the Tulpehocken Creek Valley, in Berks and Lebanon counties, on the upper Schuylkill River, with his uncle Sassoonan and his brothers.
However, Pisquetomen, who was intelligent, strong-willed, and spoke English, was not easily manipulated, and so colonial officials in Pennsylvania refused to recognize him as the Lenape "king".
Shingas was absent from the treaty conference, so Tamaqua "stood proxy for his brother and was presented with a lace hat and jacket and suit.
"[5]: 167 Even on the other side of the mountains, the western Lenape were still caught in a three-way power struggle between the Thirteen Colonies, New France, and the Haudenosaunee.
The struggle between Great Britain and France for control of the interior of the North American continent began near Shingas's village close to the forks of the Ohio River.
Like most Lenape, Shingas and his villagers stayed neutral in the early stages of the conflict, declining to assist George Washington at Fort Necessity in 1754 and the Braddock Expedition in 1755.
Shingas disappears from the historical record around 1764; some historians have speculated that he may have contracted smallpox from blankets distributed to the besieging Lenape from Fort Pitt during the siege,[citation needed] but there is no clear evidence that he died as a result of the incident.