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Shawnee

  (shô-nē') pronunciation
n., pl. Shawnee or -nees.
    1. A Native American people formerly inhabiting parts of the Cumberland and central Ohio valleys, with present-day populations in Oklahoma. The Shawnee figured prominently in the resistance to white settlement of the Ohio Valley in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
    2. A member of this tribe.
  2. The Algonquian language of the Shawnee.

[Back-formation from obsolete Shawnese, from Shawnee shaawanooki, those of the south, Shawnee.]


 
 
US History Encyclopedia: Shawnee

Ancient residents of the Ohio Valley, the Shawnees ("Shawanos" or "Southerners") are an Alqonquian-speaking people who were living in villages scattered across southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois when they first encountered the French in the 1670s. During the next two decades, as the Iroquois expanded west, part of the Shawnees sought refuge among the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama, while others fled to northern Illinois, where they established new villages near Fort St. Louis, a French post at Starved Rock, on the Illinois River. By 1715, the Shawnees had reassembled in southern Pennsylvania, erecting villages along the Susquehanna and Monongahela rivers. As the Iroquois threat diminished, they gradually reoccupied their old homelands along the Muskingum, Scioto, and Mad Rivers in southern and central Ohio, often crossing the Ohio River to hunt deer and bison in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky.

During the colonial period the Shawnees divided their loyalties between the British and French, often attempting to "play off" both sides to their own advantage. Although ostensibly friendly to the French, they readily accepted presents from colonial legislatures in Pennsylvania and Virginia and welcomed British traders into their villages. At the beginning of the Seven Years' War, the Shawnees participated in Braddock's Defeat and initially raided the Virginia frontier, but after the British captured Fort Duquesne, they temporarily withdrew from the fighting. In 1763 they joined with other tribes to support Pontiac's Rebellion and besieged Fort Pitt, but were defeated by the British at the Battle of Bushy Run (August 1763) and again made a reluctant peace with the Redcoats. Yet in the early 1770s, as the Virginians, or "Long Knives," crossed the mountains onto Shawnee hunting lands in Kentucky, Shawnees resisted, precipitating what the colonists called Lord Dunmore's War. The Shawnees eventually were defeated at the Battle of Point Pleasant (October 1774) and reduced their attacks upon American settlements in the Bluegrass region, but their bitterness toward the Long Knives continued.

The American Revolution provided the Shawnees with arms and allies to renew their war against Virginia. Led by their war chief Black Fish, the Shawnees assisted the British and spearheaded Indian attacks upon the settlements in Kentucky. In return, their villages were attacked by the Americans, and in 1779, about 1,000 Shawnees (one-third of the tribe) abandoned their Ohio villages and migrated to Spanish Missouri. The Shawnees who remained in Ohio continued to raid Kentucky throughout the war, and following the Treaty of Paris, they opposed any American settlement north of the Ohio. During the early 1790s, they combined with other tribes to defeat American armies led by Josiah Harmer (October 1790) and Arthur St. Clair (November 1791). In August 1794, they were defeated by Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and with no prospect of further British support, they signed the Treaty of Greenville, relinquishing most of Ohio to the United States.

In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the Shawnee Prophet and his brother Tecumseh attempted to unite the tribes of the Midwest and Southeast into a pan-Indian coalition designed to prevent the further sale of Indian lands to the government. Their efforts were thwarted by the jealousy of traditional tribal chiefs, and by William Henry Harrison who attacked and destroyed their village, Prophetstown, at the Battle of Tippecanoe, in November 1811. During the War of 1812, part of the Shawnees supported Tecumseh who allied with the British, but the majority of the group followed Black Hoof, who sided with the Americans. When Tecumseh was killed by American militia at the Battle of the Thames (October 1813), Shawnee resistance to the Americans crumbled.

In the decades following the War of 1812, most Shawnees were removed from Ohio to Kansas and Missouri. Some sought temporary refuge with Cherokees in Texas, but after Texas became independent of Mexico, they returned to the United States. In the aftermath of the Civil War, most were assigned reservations in Oklahoma where they formed three separate bands. Today the Absentee Shawnees maintain a tribal office at Shawnee, Oklahoma; the Loyal Shawnees, closely allied with the Western Cherokees, have a tribal building at White Oak Oklahoma; while the Eastern Shawnee Tribe is headquartered at Seneca, Missouri, near the Oklahoma border. Other small communities of Shawnees, while not officially recognized by the federal government, still reside in Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio.

Bibliography

Edmunds, R. David. The Shawnee Prophet. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.

———. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1984.

Kohn, Rita, and W. Lynwood Montell, eds. Always a People: Oral Histories of Contemporary Woodland Indians. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

McConnell, Michael M. A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its People, 1724–1774. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

Sugden, John. Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

———. Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Holt, 1998.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Shawnee
(shô'nē') or Shawano (shô'wənō) , Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Their earliest known home was in the present state of Ohio. In the mid-17th cent. part of the tribe was settled in W South Carolina and part in N Tennessee. These two bodies, divided by the Cherokee, migrated constantly, from South Carolina to S New York, then to W Pennsylvania and into Ohio, where they finally united in the mid-18th cent. They then numbered some 1,500. After their reunion in Ohio the warlike Shawnee participated in almost every war of the Old Northwest (see Northwest Territory). By the Treaty of Greenville (1795) they were obliged to give up their lands in Ohio and move to Indiana. About 1800 the Shawnee Prophet (Tenskwatawa) arose. He and his followers, cooperating with Tecumseh, established themselves in a village at the mouth of the Tippecanoe River in Indiana. It was this village that William Henry Harrison destroyed in the battle of Tippecanoe. The Shawnee were thereafter moved to Missouri, to Kansas, and finally to Oklahoma. Today they live on reservations in Oklahoma and Missouri. In 1990 there were over 6,600 Shawnee in the United States.

Bibliography

See H. Harvey, History of the Shawnee Indians, 1681–1854 (1855, repr. 1970).

 
History Dictionary: Shawnees
(shaw-neez)

A tribe of Native Americans who inhabited Ohio, Indiana, and other parts of the Middle West during the early nineteenth century. The most famous Shawnee leader was Tecumseh, who joined with the British against the Americans during the War of 1812.

 
Wikipedia: Shawnee
This article is about the Native American tribe. For other uses, see Shawnee (disambiguation).
Shawnee

Bandera_Absentee_Shawnee.PNG

Flag of The Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma

Bandera_Eastern_Shawnee.png

Flag of The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma

Bandera_Shawnee_Tribe.png
Flag of The Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma
Total population

14,000
Regions with significant populations
Oklahoma
(also a small community in Ohio)
Language(s)
Shawnee, English
Religion(s)
traditional beliefs and Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Sac and Fox

The Shawnee, or Shawano, are a people native to North America. They originally inhabited the areas of Ohio, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.

History

Prehistory to 1750s

Shawnee distribution around 1755
Enlarge
Shawnee distribution around 1755

The prehistoric origins of the Shawnees are quite uncertain. The other Algonquian nations regarded the Shawnee as their southernmost branch, and other Algonquian languages have words similar to "shawano" meaning "south". However, the stem shawan does not mean "south" in Shawnee, but "moderate, warm (of weather)". In one Shawnee tale, Shawaki is the deity of the south. 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.[1]

Sometime before 1670, a group of Shawnee had migrated to the Savannah River area. The English of Province of Carolina based in Charles Town were first contacted by these Shawnees in 1674, after which a long lasting alliance was forged. The Savannah River Shawnee were known to the Carolina English as "Savannah Indians". Around the same time other Shawnee groups migrated to Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other regions south and east of the Ohio Country. Historian Alan Gallay speculates that this Shawnee diaspora of the middle to late 17th century was probably driven by the Iroquois Wars that began in the 1640s. The Shawnee became known for their widespread settlements and migrations and their frequent long-distance visits to other Indian groups. Their language became a lingua franca among numerous tribes, which along with their experience helped make them leaders in initiating and sustaining pan-Indian resistance to European and Euro-American expansion.[2]

Prior to 1752, they had a headquarters at Shawnee Springs near Winchester, Virginia, where the father of the later chief Cornstalk had his court. At some point, they had settled in the Ohio country, the area that is now West Virginia, southern Ohio, and northern Kentucky.

The Iroquois later claimed the Ohio Country region by right of conquest, regarding 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 tribes—the Shawnee, the Delaware, and the Mingo—became closely associated in the Ohio country.

Sixty Years' War, 1754–1814

After the Battle of the Monongahela, in 1755, many Shawnees fought with the French during the early years of the French and Indian War until they signed the Treaty of Easton in 1758. When the French were defeated, in 1763, many Shawnees joined Pontiac's Rebellion against the British, which failed a year later.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which was issued during Pontiac's Rebellion, drew a boundary line between the British colonies in the east and the Ohio Country, which was west of the Appalachian Mountains. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, however, extended that line westwards, giving the British a claim to what is now West Virginia and Kentucky. Shawnees did not agree to this treaty: it was negotiated between British officials and the Iroquois, who claimed sovereignty over the land although Shawnees and other Native Americans hunted there.

After the Stanwix treaty, Anglo-Americans began pouring into the Ohio River Valley. Violent incidents between settlers and Indians escalated into Dunmore's War in 1774. British diplomats managed to isolate the Shawnees during the conflict: the Iroquois and the Delawares stayed neutral, while the Shawnees faced the British colony of Virginia with only a few Mingo allies. Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, launched a two-prong invasion into the Ohio Country. Shawnee Chief Cornstalk attacked one wing, but was defeated in the only major battle of the war, the Battle of Point Pleasant. In the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, Cornstalk and the Shawnees were compelled to recognize the Ohio River boundary established by the 1768 Stanwix treaty.

Many other Shawnee leaders refused to recognize this boundary, however, and when the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, a number of Shawnees advocated joining the war as British allies in an effort to drive the colonists back across the mountains. The Shawnees were divided: Cornstalk led those who wished to remain neutral, while war leaders such as Chief Blackfish and Blue Jacket fought as British allies.

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 Lima) and Lewistown (here together with the Seneca).

Missouri joined the Union in 1821 and, after the Treaty of St. Louis in 1825, the 1,400 Missouri Shawnees were forcibly relocated from Cape Girardeau to southeastern Kansas, close to the Neosho River.

During 1833, only the Black Bob's band of Shawnee resisted. They settled in northeastern Kansas near Olathe and along the Kansas (Kaw) River in Monticello near Gum Springs.

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.

Groups

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, but the phonetic spelling is added after each following the work of C. F. Voegelin (see [1] for details on the regularized phonetic spelling):

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:

  • The Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, consisting mainly of Hathawekela, Kispokotha, and Pekuwe, living in Oklahoma
  • The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma mostly of the Mekoche Division living in Oklahoma
  • The Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma formerly an official part of the Cherokee nation mostly of the Chaalakatha and Mekoche Divisions living in Oklahoma

There are presently about 14,000 Shawnee, most in Oklahoma. At least five bands of Shawnee (the Old Town Band, the Blue Creek Band, the East Of The River Shawnee, the Piqua Sept of Ohio Shawnee and the Shawnee Nation, United Remnant Band[3][4][5][6] reside in Ohio, but are not federally recognized nor are they accepted by any of the three federally recognized Shawnee Tribes residing in Oklahoma.

In 1993, leaders of the three federally recognized tribes of Oklahoma met with leaders of three alledged Shawnee groups of Ohio, here at Minnetrista Cultural Center, Muncie, Indiana. After four hours of questioning, not one of the Ohio people could produce any name or information which would identify with any Shawnee presently on a tribal role, which, given the fact that their Shawnee ancestors were not listed on rolls, would make sense (though a few such Shawnee whose ancestors came back east do have such affiliation). In addition, the ceremonies, attempts at language and other cultural information was also lacking in authenticity. Since that meeting, the Minnetrista Council for Great Lakes Native American Studies, a cultural consortium of 20 federally recognized Great Lakes Woodland Tribes, including the Shawnee, have not recognized any Shawnee groups other than the three federally recognized tribes.[citation needed]

In their frequent movements over the centuries, Shawnees established villages in numerous locations, from Illinois to New York and as far south as Georgia.

Articles on historic Shawnee towns include:

Other historic Shawnee towns were located in the following places:

Language

For more details on this topic, see Shawnee language.

The Shawnee language is part of the Algonquian family and is closely related to Mesquakie-Sauk (Sac and Fox) and Kickapoo.

Famous Shawnee individuals

  • 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.
  • * Nas'Naga, novelist and poet.
  • Linda Cook, United States CEO of Shell Gas & Power, part of Royal Dutch Shell, in London and later in Canada. The first of a very few female leaders in the male dominated oil industries. She has been recognized as one of the world's leading female entrepreneurs.

Footnotes

  1. ^ O'Donnell, James H. Ohio's First Peoples, p. 31. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8214-1525-5 (paperback), ISBN 0-8214-1524-7 (hardcover), also: Howard, James H. Shawnee!: The Ceremonialism of a Native Indian Tribe and its Cultural Background, p. 1. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-8214-0417-2; ISBN 0-8214-0614-0 (pbk.), and the unpublished dissertation Schutz, Noel W. Jr.: The Study of Shawnee Myth in an Ethnographic and Ethnohistorical Perspective, Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, 1975.
  2. ^ Gallay, Alan. The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717, p. 55. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-10193-7
  3. ^ "Joint Resolution to recognize the Shawnee Nation United Remnant Band" / as adopted by the [Ohio] Senate, 113th General Assembly, Regular Session, Am. Sub. H.J.R. No. 8, 1979-1980
  4. ^ American Indians in Ohio, Ohio Memory: An Online Scrapbook of Ohio History. The Ohio Historical Society, retrieved September 30, 2007
  5. ^ Koenig, Alexa; Jonathan Stein. [http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=alexa_koenig Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: A Survey of State-Recognized Tribes and State Recognition Processes Across the United States]. Santa Clara Law Review Volume 48 (forthcoming) Section 12. Ohio. Retrieved on 2007-09-30. “Ohio recognizes one state tribe, the United Remnant Band. . . . Ohio does not have a detailed scheme for regulating tribal-state relations.”
  6. ^ Watson, Blake A.. Indian Gambling in Ohio:What are the Odds?. Capital University Law Review 237 (2003) (excerpts). Retrieved on 2007-09-30. “Ohio in any event does not officially recognize Indian tribes.” Watson cites legal opinions that the resolution by the Ohio Legislature recognizing the United Remnant Band of the Shawnee Nation was ceremonial and did not grant legal status as a tribe.

References

  • Callender, Charles. "Shawnee" in Northeast: Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, ed. Bruce Trigger. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. ISBN 0-16-072300-0
  • Clifton, James A. Star Woman and Other Shawnee Tales. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984. ISBN 0-8191-3712-X; ISBN 0-8191-3713-8 (pbk.)
  • Edmunds, R. David. The Shawnee Prophet. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. ISBN 0-8032-1850-8.
  • Edmunds, R. David. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. Originally published 1984. 2nd edition, New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. ISBN 0-321-04371-5
  • 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, 1754–1814, pp. 337-51. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87013-569-4.
  • Howard, James H. Shawnee!: The Ceremonialism of a Native Indian Tribe and its Cultural Background. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-8214-0417-2; ISBN 0-8214-0614-0 (pbk.)
  • O'Donnell, James H. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8214-1525-5 (paperback), ISBN 0-8214-1524-7 (hardcover).
  • Sugden, John. Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Holt, 1997. ISBN 0-8050-4138-9 (hardcover); ISBN 0-8050-6121-5 (1999 paperback).
  • Sugden, John. Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8032-4288-3.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shawnee".  Read more

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