Shawnee History
We Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, as we are often referred are a people native to North America and are considered an eastern woodland people. Our territories have been much disputed but we are originally believed to have inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.
In our early history our prehistoric origins are uncertain and the subject to much debate. Other Algonquian nations regarded the Shawnee as their southernmost branch, while some scholars have speculated that the Shawnee are descendants of the people of the prehistoric Fort Ancient culture of Ohio, while others disagree, and no definitive proof has been established.
Our oral history we the people of the East of The River Shawnee hold is as follows; Pre 1000 AD our people, the Lenni Lanape lived in the foothills of mountains at the south of Lake Chapala in Mexico. To avoid the Aztecs, Chief Little Frog led his people across the gulf of Mexico into what is known as the Florida. As a people we divided in this new land but eventual reunited in Georgia and built Stone Eagle Mound. From Florida and Georgia we traveled north into what is present day Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia and some even farther. For a time we were also know as Gator people because the alligators of the swamps sustained us when we entered our new lands.
Historians tell that sometime before 1670, a group of Shawnee migrated to the Savannah River area. The English of Province of Carolina based in Charles Town were first contacted by these Shawnees in 1674, and were known as "Savannah Indians". Around this time other Shawnee groups were reported migrating to Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other regions south and east of the Ohio country partially believed driven by the Iroquois Wars that began in the mid 1600s. What ever the case we Shawnee became known for our widespread settlements and migrations and frequent long-distance visits to our other Indian brothers and sisters. Our 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.
Prior to 1752, we sheltered at Shawnee Springs at modern-day Cross Junction, Virginia near Winchester, Virginia, where the father of the later Chief Cornstalk was chief. At some point, we 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 us Shawnee and the Delaware who resettled there as dependent tribes. Many Iroquois also migrated westward at this time and became known as the Mingo. All three tribes—we Shawnee, the Delaware, and the Mingo—became closely associated in the Ohio country.
Sixty Years' War
In 1755, many Shawnees fought with the French during the early years of the French and Indian War until the Treaty of Easton in 1758. When the French were defeated in 1763, many Shawnee joined Pontiac's Rebellion against the British, which failed a year later.
The 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. We 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.The Iroquois and the Delawares stayed neutral, during this conflict while the Shawnees faced the British with only a few Mingo allies. Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, launched an invasion into the Ohio Country. Shawnee Chief Cornstalk attacked one faction of this invasion and fought to a draw in the wars only major battle, the Battle of Point Pleasant. In the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, Cornstalk and the Shawnee were compelled to recognize the Ohio River boundary established by the 1768 Stanwix treaty.
Many other Shawnee leaders refused to recognize white boundaries, and when the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, many Shawnees advocated joining the war as British allies in an effort to drive the colonists back. 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 Miami into a great fighting force. After the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, many of the Shawnee bands signed the Treaty of Greenville a year later, in which large parts of their homeland were surrendered 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 septs 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 ultimately his death at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. This was the last attempt of the Shawnee nation to defend the Ohio country from American expansion.
“(Governor William Harrison), you have the liberty to return to your own country ... you wish to prevent the Indians from doing as we wish them, to unite and let them consider their lands as common property of the whole ... You never see an Indian endeavor to make the white people do this ... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? How can we have confidence in the white people?"
Tecumseh, 1810
After the war
Several hundred Missouri Shawnee left the United States in 1815 together with some Delaware people and settled in Texas under control 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, Oklahoma, 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 (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 to southeastern Kansas.
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. The Shawnee Methodist Mission was built nearby to minister to the tribe.
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 in Oklahoma. After the death of Black Hoof, many of remaining 400 Ohio Shawnee in Wapaughkonetta and Hog Creek surrendered their land and moved to the Shawnee Reserve in Kansas, while many remained hidden behind.
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 expelled and moved to northeastern Oklahoma—whereupon the Shawnee part of the former Lewistown group became known as the Eastern Shawnee and the former Kansas Shawnee became known as the Loyal Shawnee (some say this is because of their allegiance with the Union during the war, others say this is because they were the last group to leave their Ohio homelands). The latter group was regarded as part of the Cherokee Nation by the United States because they were also known as the Cherokee Shawnee. The "Loyal" or "Cherokee" Shawnee received federal recognition, independent of the Cherokee Nation, in 2000 and are now known as the "Shawnee Tribe".
Today, the largest part of the Shawnee nation still resides in Oklahoma, but many decendants from the hidden Ohio Shawnee still claim the State and surrounding areas as their home hand.
Groups
Before contact with Europeans, the Shawnee tribe consisted of a loose confederacy of five divisions which shared a common language and culture. The 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.
Chillicothe, Chalahgawtha, Chalaka, Chalakatha
Hathawekela, Thawikila
Kispokotha, Kispoko, Kishpoko, Kishpokotha
Mequachake, Mekoche, Machachee, Maguck, Mackachack, etc.
Pekuwe, Piqua, Pekowi, Pekowitha
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.
Today there are three federally recognized tribes in the United States, all of which are located in Oklahoma:
The Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, consisting mainly of Hathawekela, Kispokotha, and Pekuwe
The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, mostly of the Mekoche division
The Shawnee Tribe, formerly an official part of the Cherokee Nation, mostly of the Chaalakatha and Mekoche divisions.
As of 2009, there are federally enrolled Shawnee in Oklahoma and at least four bands of Shawnee that reside in Ohio but are not federally recognized.
Villages
In their frequent movements over the centuries, Shawnees established villages in numerous locations, such as Illinois, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and as far south as Georgia.
Famous Shawnee
Hokoleskwa or Cornstalk (c.1720 – November 10, 1777) was a prominent leader of the Shawnee people. He was born about 1720, probably in Pennsylvania. He and the rest of the Shawnee people were pushed into Ohio in the 1730s.
His name in his own language meant "blade of corn", and was rendered in innumerable variations by contemporary chroniclers, including Colesqua and Keigh-tugh-qua.
Cornstalk and his tribesmen were a part of many battles with the English settlers of Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. But it is his death, at a time when he had been at peace with the White man, and was actually trying to warn the fort of impending plans of massacre by militant Natives, that perhaps defines this Native American Hero.
Biography
Early years
Historians can only speculate on Cornstalk’s early years and that he may have been born in present-day Pennsylvania, and migrated to the Ohio Country, near present day Chillicothe. During the French and Indian War, Cornstalk and the Shawnees sided with the French. They feared that English settlers would come rapidly into the Ohio Country if they were not stopped. Cornstalk led raiding parties into western Virginia, hoping to drive the English away from Shawnee territory. He also played an active part in Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763. Colonel Henry Bouquet defeated the Shawnee in 1764. To assure that the natives would sign a peace treaty ending the rebellion, Bouquet seized several hostages, including Cornstalk. The Shawnee agreed not to take up arms against the English again.
During the next decade, fighting did occur between the English and the Ohio natives. Cornstalk tried to peacefully ease the tensions, but the arrival of more white settlers placed him in the minority as to how to deal with the whites. By the spring of 1774, violence was constant. Upon hearing of the murders, many Mingos and Shawnees demanded retribution. Some, like Cornstalk, urged conciliation.
Cornstalk, his son, and other Natives in American custody during the American Revolution were killed by the colonist and Cornstalk was originally buried at Fort Randolph. In 1840 his grave was found and the remains moved to the Mason County Courthouse grounds. When the courthouse was torn down in 1954 he was reburied at Tu-Endie-Wei State Park in Point Pleasant.
Catecahassa or Black Hoof (c. 1740–1831) Born in Florida (or maybe near Lexington, Ky the Shawnee hunting ground) was the head civil chief of the Shawnee Indians in the Ohio Country of what became the United States. A member of the Mekoche division of the Shawnees, Black Hoof became known as a fierce warrior during the early wars between the Shawnee and Anglo-American colonists. Black Hoof claimed to have been present at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, when General Edward Braddock was defeated during the French and Indian War, although there is no contemporary evidence that Shawnees took part in that battle.
Little documentary evidence of Black Hoof's life appears in the historical record before 1795. He probably took part in the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War against the Virginia militia in 1774. During the American Revolutionary War, he may have taken part in the siege of Boonesborough in 1778, which was led by Chief Blackfish, as well as the subsequent defense of the Shawnee village of Chillicothe in 1779. In the Northwest Indian War, Black Hoof was defeated by "Mad" Anthony Wayne and, following the collapse of the Indian confederation, surrendered in 1795.
Like Little Turtle of the Miamis, Black Hoof decided that American Indians needed to adapt culturally to the ways of the whites in order to prevent decimation through warfare. During his later years, Black Hoof became an ally of the United States and was responsible for keeping the majority of the Shawnee nation from joining "Tecumseh's War", which became part of the War of 1812.
Black Hoof resisted the policy of Indian removal that the United States implemented soon after the War of 1812. He never signed a removal treaty, and continued to lead his tribe until his death in Wapakoneta, Ohio in 1831. After his death, the Shawnee were eventually compelled to emigrate to the West.
Blackfish (c. 1729–1779), known in his native tongue as Cot-ta-wa-ma-go or Mkah-day-way-may-qua, was a Native American leader, war chief of the Chillicothe division of the Shawnee tribe. Little is known about him, since he only appears in written historical records during the last three years of his life, primarily because of his interactions with the famous American frontiersmen Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton.
When the Shawnees were defeated by Virginia in Dunmore's War in 1774, the resulting peace treaty made the Ohio River the boundary between western Virginia (what is now Kentucky and West Virginia) and American Indian lands in the Ohio Country. Although this treaty was agreed to by Shawnee leaders such as Cornstalk, Blackfish and a number of other leaders refused to acknowledge the loss of their traditional hunting grounds in Kentucky.
Violence along the border escalated with the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. As a result, the Chillicothe Shawnees moved their town on the Scioto River further west to the Little Miami River, near what is now Xenia, Ohio. Encouraged and supplied by British officials in Detroit, Blackfish and others launched raids against American settlers in Kentucky, hoping to drive them out of the region. In revenge for the murder of Cornstalk by American militiamen in November 1777, Blackfish set out on an unexpected winter raid in Kentucky, capturing American frontiersman Daniel Boone and a number of others on the Licking River on February 7, 1778. Boone, respected by the Shawnees for his extraordinary hunting skills, was taken back to Chillicothe and adopted into the tribe. The traditional tale is that Boone was adopted by Blackfish himself, although historian John Sugden suggests that Boone was probably adopted by another family.
Boone escaped in June 1778 when he learned that Blackfish was launching a siege of the Kentucky settlement of Boonesborough, which commenced in September of that year. The siege of Boonesborough was unsuccessful, and the Kentuckians, led by Colonel John Bowman, counterattacked Chillicothe the following spring. This raid was also unsuccessful, but Blackfish was shot in the leg, a wound which became infected and was eventually fatal.
Blue Jacket or Weyapiersenwah[1] (c. 1743 – c. 1810) was a war chief of the Shawnee people, known for his militant defense of Shawnee lands in the Ohio Country. Perhaps the preeminent American Indian leader in the Northwest Indian War, in which a pan-tribal confederacy fought several battles with the nascent United States, he was an important predecessor of the famous Shawnee leader Tecumseh.
Tecumseh (March 1768 – October 5, 1813) also Tecumtha or Tekamthi, was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy that opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. He grew up in the Ohio country during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War where he was constantly exposed to warfare.
At the conclusion of hostilities he became involved with his brother Tenskwatawa, a religous leader who advocated a return to the ancestral lifestyle of the tribes. A large following and a confederacy grew around the teachings. The religous doctrine led to strife with settlers on the frontier, causing the group to move farther into the northwest and settle Prophetstown in 1808. Tensions continued to rise and Tecumseh took an active role in confronting Governor William Henry Harrison to demand land purchase treaties be rescinded. He began an attempt to expand the confederacy into the southern United States, but while he was away traveling his brother was defeated in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe.
Hostilities continued into the War of 1812 as Tecumseh and his confederacy allied with the British in Canada and helped in the capture of Fort Detroit. The Americans, led by Harrison, launched a counter assault and invaded Canada, killing Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames. Tecumseh has subsequently became a folk legend and is remembered as a hero by many Canadians for his defense of their country.
Tenskwatawa, (also called Tenskatawa, Tenskwatawah, Tensquatawa or Lalawethika) (1775 – November 1836) was a Native American religious and political leader of the Shawnee tribe, known as The Prophet or the Shawnee Prophet. He was the brother of Tecumseh, leader of the Shawnee. He was originally given the name Lalawethika (He Makes a Loud Noise or The Noise Maker). He fathered a total of 20 children and had 3 wives.
Biography
Early years
Because his father died before he was born and because his mother left his family shortly after, Lalawethika grew up without parents. Lalawethika was then at the mercy of his siblings to teach him the Shawnee ways. Because he was not close with his older sister or older brother, he never learned how to successfully hunt or to be a good warrior, which are essential roles for a Shawnee man. He accidentally lost an eye in a hunting accident. His poor looks and braggart personality also did not win him many friends. As a result, Lalawethika grew up to be the laughing-stock of his community and he turned to alcohol.
Based on Lalawethika's development, it seemed that Lalawethika would never make a contribution to his tribe. However, that changed when Lalawethika was put in trance by the Master of Life. In May 1805, he experienced the first of several visions. He had a taste for whiskey, and in one of his alcoholic stupors he had a vision. After he awoke he began preaching and became a religious leader, and taught that the white Americans were children of the Great Serpent, the source of evil in the world. He forbade his people to use European foods, clothing, manufactured goods and alcohol. He changed his name to Tenskwatawa (The Open Door or One With Open Mouth). In 1808 Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh moved their followers to a new village called Prophetstown (Tippecanoe), near the present-day town of Battle Ground, near the juncture of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers in Indiana.
Tecumseh's War
There is some disagreement among historians over whether Tecumseh or Tenskwatawa was really the primary leader of the Pan-Indian community that grew up around Prophetstown. Either way, Tenskwatawa's preachings grew more militant and narrowly political from 1808-1811, as more and more young disaffected warriors from nearby tribes joined his movement. By 1811, both white settlers in the region and the U.S. Army had become quite concerned about what was happening at Prophetstown.
Late in 1811, Tecumseh journeyed south to meet with representatives of other tribes in hopes of building a larger alliance, leaving Tenskwatawa in command at Prophetstown. According to legend, Tecumseh ordered Tenskwatawa to avoid any confrontation with whites during his absence. However, on November 7, 1811, while Tecumseh was still away, Tenskwatawa saw a vision and told the other indians to attack the coming white people. The Americans were under the command of future President William Henry Harrison. Tenskwatawa's forces were soundly defeated. (See the Battle of Tippecanoe.) It was a two hour battle that left many Indians dead or wounded. The Indians buried their men in the night, and stripped The Prophet of his powers. The village at Prophetstown was burned down and the defeat put an end to Tecumseh's hope of a broad Native alliance.
With his brother, Tenskwatawa participated in the defense of the Canadian colonies during the War of 1812. In 1813 he was present at the Battle of the Thames, but fled with the British forces and was absent when Tecumseh was killed.
Later years and death
In the following decade he unsuccessfully tried to regain a position of leadership among Native Americans. In 1825 he returned to the United States and assisted in removing many of the Shawnees west of the Mississippi. In 1826 he established a village at the site of modern Kansas City, Kansas. He died in 1836 at his village in Kansas City, Kansas (located in the Argentine area; the White Feather Spring marker notes the location).
Black Bob/Wa-wah-che-pa-e-hai is the name of a Native American Chief. He was the chief of a Shawnee band, originally a part of the Hathawekela division of the Shawnee. Known as the Chaliawa in French term Chalaqua. About the year 1826 they separated from their kindred, then living in eastern Missouri on land granted to them about 1793 by Baron Carondelet, near Cape Girardeau, then in Spanish territory, and removed to Kansas, where, by treaty with their chief, Black Bob, in 1854, they were given rights on the Shawnee reservation in that state. Under Black Bob's leadership they refused to remove with the rest of the tribe to Indian Territory in 1808, but are now incorporated with them, either in the Cherokee Nation or with the Absentee Shawnee or in Ohio with Morning Star Shawnee Nation/Chaliawa who are documented in 2007 as Blood Decent. (From the Access Genealogy website And the Ancestry Book of the Family of Decent.)
Cheeseekau (c.1760 – 1 October 1792) was a war chief of the Kispoko division of the Shawnee Nation. Also known as Pepquannakek (Gunshot), Popoquan (Gun), Sting, and Chiksika. Although primarily remembered as the eldest brother and mentor of Tecumseh, who became famous after Cheeseekau's death, Cheeseekau was a well-known leader in his own time, a contemporary of Blue Jacket.
Few details are known about Cheeseekau's early life. He may have been born along the Tallapoosa River in what is now Alabama. His parents, Pucksinwah and Methoataaskee, moved north to the Ohio Country around the time of his birth. After Pukeshinwa's death in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, Cheeseekau assumed much of the responsibility for his younger brothers, including Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa.
During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Cheeseekau joined with those Shawnees who allied themselves with the British and sought to drive the American settlers out of Kentucky. After the war, as Americans expanded into Ohio, in 1788 Cheeseekau led a group of Shawnees to Missouri. American colonists were moving to Missouri too, and so Cheeseekau instead resettled his band at the village of Running Water on the Tennessee River near Lookout Mountain. There he joined Dragging Canoe's militant resistance movement against American expansion. He died in April 1789 after being mortally wounded during an attack.
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