A bridge between two cultures : Anthony Shane, Métis interpreter

Abstract

As an interpreter, messenger, and spy, Anthony Shane participated in many of the major events in the history of relations between the United States and the tribes of the Old Northwest. He was a major source of information for the biographers of Tecumseh. Lyman Draper, pre-eminent historian of the Old Northwest, had significant questions about the ancestral background and reliability as a witness of Shane. Of French-Ottawa ancestry, the metis interpreter faced the problems of living in the region during the years of transition to Euro-American dominance. The Chenes, Anthony Shane's French forebears, played roles in the establishment of the Detroit colony, the Pontiac Revolt and in supporting the British during the revolution. Although Shane fought for the British-supported Indian Confederation in the early 1790s, he entered American service after the tribes' defeat at Fallen Timbers. Realizing America would be the dominant power in the region, Shane gave his loyalty to the United States. Service as an interpreter, messenger and spy from 1795 to 1813, Shane gained financial rewards and the friendship of the new settlers, who distrusted the metis. Shane and Lamateshe, the interpreter's Delaware wife, were major sources of information on the life and death of Tecumseh. They were of questionable reliability as witnesses because they used their testimony to advance personal causes and to ingratiate themselves to American political leaders. Through foresight and planning the Shanes were able to take economic advantage of the increased American settlement of the region. Though more successful than most metis in dealing with growing American domination of the Old Northwest, the Shanes preferred the lifestyle of the tribes of the region. In the late 1820s, the family joined the migration of the Shawnee and Delaware tribes to their reservation in Kansas Territory where Shane died in 1834. A study of the life of Anthony Shane provides a new view of many of the major people and events in the contact history of the Old Northwest. An examination of the interpreter's life also helps us to understand the importance of the metis, an often ignored minority, in the history of the region.