 As a leader in two wars against the United States, Egushawa was one of the most influential Native Americans of the Great Lakes region in the late eighteenth century.Egushawa first appears in historical records in 1774, when he signed an indenture granting an island in the Detroit River to Alexis Masonville in 1774, not far from the British Army outpost of Fort Detroit.Nothing is known for certain about his life before that time.