He was born c. 1775 into the Ottawa tribe, possibly near the Maumee River in what is now the state of Ohio, United States. It is said that his father was a nephew of Pontiac. His name was spelled variously as Shabbona, Shabonee, Shobonier, Shaubena, and sometimes Chambler or Chambly.
On the death of the old chief succeeded to his place of influence in Potawatomi tribe. For a time he lived in a Potawatomi village on the Illinois River near the mouth of the Fox but soon removed to a place that became known as Shabbona Grove, now in southern Dekalb County. About 1807 he became attached to the rising power of Tecumseh, in 1810 went with the leader to visit the Indian villages in the northern Illinois country and on the Wisconsin River, and the next year accompanied him south to try to persuade the southern tribes to join the confederation.
When war was declared between Great Britain and the United States he was loath to join in the bloody business of killing and scalping American settlers and, with Sauganash, was active in saving the lives of the family of John Kinzie and others in the Chicago massacre of August 1812; but he fought at Tecumseh's side in the battle of the Thames.
After the War of 1812 he never wavered in his allegiance to the government of the United States and in various ways rendered important aid to the settlers. In the Winnebago outbreak of 1827 he opposed the desire of Big Foot and other Potawatomi to join the Winnebago, was made prisoner at Big Foot's Lake, now Geneva Lake, Wis. , and narrowly escaped death in his efforts to protect the American settlers. When Black Hawk undertook active opposition to white encroachment in 1832, Shabonee again protected the settlers. He sent his son and nephew to warn the settlers at Holderman's Grove and on the Fox River.
Although the treaties of July 29, 1829, and September 26, 1833, seemed to grant him two sections of land at his own village, he became involved in technicalities of the white man's law of ownership and lost his lands to encroaching settlers. However, a small group of settlers bought for him a small farm in Grundy County. He died in 1859.
Shabonee several white families at the Chicago massacre, he also protected the American settlers during the Black Hawk War, mainly he warned the settlers at Holderman's Grove and on the Fox River and set out on a desperate ride to the settlements near Bureau and Indian creeks. For this exploit the descendants of the settlers raised a monument in 1903 and in 1906 set aside a park to his memory, but in his own lifetime his reward was neglect and poverty.
He married the daughter of a Potawatomi chief. He had a son and a nephew.
