Shingaba W'Ossin, or Image Stone, was one of the most influential chiefs of the Chippewa nation during the years Colonel McKenney was in office. He was a famed war captain, a powerful orator, and a statesman admired by both red and white men.

Frontiersmen and army officers recalled the Chippewa chief as a tall with a nose thin and sharp as an ax blade and a deep-set penetrating eyes. He had an air of command, almost aloofness, and was a member of the ancient Crane clan. He became a legend for his exploits in the great war between the Chippewa and the Fox, which finally ended the feud between those two nations.

Like his friend, Tecumseh, the Chippewa feared the white man's civilization. When John Johnston, the celebrated Indian trader, asked to marry his daughter O-shaw-ous-go- day-way-gua, Shingaba W'Ossin told the "accomplished Irish gentleman" to go back to Montreal and think seriously over what he had proposed.

"White man, I have noticed your behaviour," he said,"it has been correct. But... your colour is deceitful. Of you, may I expect better things?...If you return I shall be satisfied of your sincerity, and will give you my daughter."

Johnston took the chief's advice and returned to Montreal. In a year he was back and Shingaba W'Ossin kept his word. Johnston and the chief's daughter were married and had several children.[...]

Shingaba W'Ossin constantly urged his nation to seek peace with the white man. As he told them at one council: "If my hunters will not take the game, but will leave the chase and join the war party, our women and children must suffer. If the game is not trapped, where will be our packs of furs? And if we have no furs, how shall we get blankets? Then when winter comes again we shall perish! It is time enough to fight when the war drum sounds near you-when your enemies approach-then it is I shall expect to see you painted for war, and to hear your whoops resound in the mountains; and then you will see me at your head with my arm bared-."

He signed all the treaties drawn between his nation and the United States in the councils held between 1825 and 1827 at Prairie du Chien, Fond du Lac, and Butte des Morts. He also informed McKenney that the thousand dollar annuity that the government agreed to pay the Chippewa nation should go toward starting an Indian school at Sault Sainte Marie on the northern Michigan peninsula.

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