The prehistoric origins of the Shawnees are uncertain. It is suspected that they, like other Algonquian speaking tribes, originated from the area around Lake Winnipeg and were one of the first tribes to move south. Supposedly this migration was parallel to the one of the Delaware and Nanticoke during the 13th century. At some point they had settled in the Ohio country, the area that is now West Virginia, southern Ohio, and northern Kentucky. Some scholars have speculated that the Shawnee are descendants of the people of the prehistoric Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio country, although other scholars disagree, and no definitive proof has been established.O'Donnell, p. 31; Howard, p. 1.
When the Shawnees enter the historical record in the late 17th century they were widely scattered, living in the Illinois Country, along the Ohio River, in Maryland, and as far south as the Savannah River. This was the result of the French and Iroquois Wars of the 1660s, in which the Iroquois drove the Shawnee out of the Ohio country in order to claim those fertile hunting grounds for themselves. Due to the pressure of the surrounding tribes and the expansion of European settlement in the east, the Shawnee began to recolonize the Ohio country in the 1720s. The Iroquois still claimed the region by right of conquest, however, and they regarded the Shawnees and Delawares who resettled there as dependent tribes. A number of Iroquois also migrated westward at this time, and became known as the Mingo. These three tribesâ€"the Shawnee, the Delaware, and the Mingoâ€"became closely associated in the Ohio country.
The Shawnee people continued to fight against white settlers that entered, without authorization by their own government (¹) , into the Shawnee homeland. During Dunmore's War in 1774 an Anglo-American force defeated the Shawnee under Chief Cornstalk at the Battle of Point Pleasant. Between 1774 and 1779 large groups of Shawnee relocated to Missouri due to the increasing pressure of white settlers. In 1780 Captain Henry Bird led a mixed force of British and Native Americans against Kentucky settlers at Ruddells and Martins Stations [1]; in retaliation George Rogers Clark attacked Pequea (near present Springfield, Ohio [2]).
In the Northwest Indian War between the United States and a confederation of Native American tribes, the Shawnee combined with the Miamis into a great fighting force. After the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, most of the Shawnee bands signed the Treaty of Greenville a year later, in which large parts of their homeland were turned over to the United States. Other Shawnee groups rejected this treaty and joined their brothers and sisters in Missouri and settled near Cape Girardeau. By 1800 only the Chillicothe and Mequachake tribes remained in Ohio while the Hathawekela, Kispokotha, and Piqua had migrated to Missouri.
From 1805 a minority of Shawnees joined the pan-tribal movement of Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, which led to Tecumseh's War and his death at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. This was the last attempt (in vain) of the Shawnee nation to defend the Ohio country from American expansion.
After the war
Several hundred Missouri Shawnee left the United States in 1815 together with some Delaware people and settled in Texas, which was at that time controlled by Spain. This tribe became known as the Absentee Shawnee; they were once again expelled in 1839 after Texas had gained its independence three years earlier. These people settled in Oklahoma, close to present-day Shawnee and were joined in 1845 by Shawnee from Kansas that shared their traditionalist views and beliefs.
In 1817 the Ohio Shawnee signed the Treaty of Fort Meigs, ceding their remaining lands in exchange for three reservations in Wapaughkonetta, Hog Creek (near Ada) and Lewistown (here together with the Seneca).
During 1833, only the Black Bob's band of Shawnee resisted. They settled in northeastern Kansas near Olathe and along the Kaw River near Shawnee, Kansas.
About 200 of the Ohio Shawnee followed the Prophet Tenskwatawa and joined their Kansas brothers and sisters in 1826, but the main body followed Black Hoof, who fought every effort to give up the Ohio homeland. In 1831 the Lewistown group of Seneca-Shawnee left for the Indian territory (present-day Oklahoma). After the death of Black Hoof the remaining 400 Ohio Shawnee in Wapaughkonetta and Hog Creek surrendered their land and moved to the Shawnee Reserve in Kansas.
During the American Civil War the Black Bob's band fled from Kansas and joined the Absentee Shawnee in Oklahoma to escape the war. After the Civil War the Shawnee in Kansas were once again dispelled and moved to Oklahoma—whereupon the Shawnee part of the former Lewistown group became known as the Eastern Shawnee and the former Missouri Shawnee became known as the Loyal Shawnee (due to their allegiance with the Union during the war). The latter group was regarded as part of the Cherokee nation by the United States because they were also known as the Cherokee Shawnee.
Today the largest part of the Shawnee nation still resides in Oklahoma.
Before contact with Europeans, the Shawnee tribe consisted of a loose confederacy of five divisions which shared a common language and culture. These division names have been spelled in a variety of ways: Chillicothe (Chalahgawtha) Hathawekela (Asswikales, Sweickleys, etc.) Kispokotha (Kispoko) Mequachake (Mekoche, Machachee, Maguck, Mackachack, etc.) Pekuwe (Piqua, Pekowi, Pickaway, Picks)
Membership in a division was inherited from the father. Each division had a primary village where the chief of the division lived; this village was usually named after the division. By tradition, each Shawnee division had certain roles it performed on behalf of the entire tribe, although these customs were fading by the time they were recorded in writing by European-Americans and are now poorly understood.
This arrangement gradually changed due to the scattering of the Shawnee tribe from the 17th century through the 19th century. Today there are three federally recognized tribes in the United States: Absentee Shawnee, consisting mainly of Hathawekela, Kispokotha, and Pekuwe, living on the Absentee Shawnee Indian Reservation Eastern Shawnee Loyal Shawnee, or Cherokee Shawnee, formerly an official part of the Cherokee nation
There are presently about 14,000 Shawnee, most in Oklahoma, although some are scattered throughout Alabama; at least four bands of Shawnee (the Old Town Band, the Blue Creek Band, the Piqua Sept of Ohio Shawnee and the Shawnee Nation, United Remnant Band) reside in Ohio, while other descendents of non-affiliated Shawnee, some from historical remnant pocket communities, are scattered throughout the old homelands and elsewhere.
The United Remnant Band (URB) consists of approximately 600 people. This group claims to be descendants of Shawnees that evaded the 1830 expulsion from Ohio. This group is acknowledged by neither the BIA nor any of the other three official Shawnee tribes. However, they are recognized by the State of Ohio, having been given official recognition by the Ohio General Assembly in 1979.[3] This tribe owns land at several sites in Ohio, including the Zane Shawnee Caverns near Zanesfield, Ohio.
* Tecumseh, the outstanding Shawnee leader, and his brother Tenskwatawa attempted to unite the Eastern tribes against the expansion of white settlement; see also Tecumseh's War. This alliance was broken up by the Americans, leading to the Shawnee's expulsion to Oklahoma. * Blue Jacket, also known as Weyapiersenwah, was an important predecessor to Tecumseh, and a leader in the Northwest Indian War. Blue Jacket surrendered to General "Mad" Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and signed the Treaty of Greenville, ceding much of Ohio to the United States. * Cornstalk, Blue Jacket's most prominent predecessor, led the Shawnee in Dunmore's War, and attempted to keep the Shawnee neutral in the American Revolutionary War. * Black Hoof, also known as Catecahassa, was a respected Shawnee chief and one of Tecumseh's adversaries. He thought the Shawnee had to adapt culturally to the ways of the whites in order to prevent decimation of the tribe through warfare.
*Callender, Charles. "Shawnee" in Northeast: Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, ed. Bruce Trigger. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. ISBN 0160723000 *Clifton, James A. Star Woman and Other Shawnee Tales. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984. ISBN 081913712X; ISBN 0819137138 (pbk.) *Edmunds, R. David. The Shawnee Prophet. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. ISBN 0803218508. *Edmunds, R. David. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. Originally published 1984. 2nd edition, New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. ISBN 0321043715 *Edmunds, R. David. "Forgotten Allies: The Loyal Shawnees and the War of 1812" in David Curtis Skaggs and Larry L. Nelson, eds., The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes, 1754â€"1814, pp. 337-51. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001. ISBN 0870135694. *Howard, James H. Shawnee!: The Ceremonialism of a Native Indian Tribe and its Cultural Background. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1981. ISBN 0821404172; ISBN 0821406140 (pbk.) *O'Donnell, James H. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004. ISBN 0821415255 (paperback), ISBN 0821415247 (hardcover). *Sugden, John. Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Holt, 1997. ISBN 0805041389 (hardcover); ISBN 0805061215 (1999 paperback). *Sugden, John. Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. ISBN 0803242883.
