Big Bear's Den 
Image of Shawnee Warrior from Osprey Men-At-Arms "American Woodland Indians" By M.G. Johnson Color Plates by R.Hook
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Camp Daniel Boone is a Boy Scout Camp located in the Great Smoky Mountains ~ 45 minutes west of Asheville, NC.
* WANTED!!!! *
* Young Person/16 plus/Male or Female For *
* “Paid Vacation” Plus All Expenses *
* 8 - 9 weeks /June 4 to ~ August 1, 2010 *
*Camp Daniel Boone near Asheville, NC. Chance to see Biltmore Estate & Cherokee*
* Must Have valid Drivers License and a RELIABLE VEHICLE *
* Truck or Van preferred but not necessary *
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* If you can teach an Indian Craft, much more pay is possible. *
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Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose
in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food
and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death,
so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time
to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
Tecumseh of the Shawnee
Note for Parents
*********This is a repeat of the Notes and Instructions from the home page.*********
If you are younger than High School age please let your parents read these as well.
***Trust me, it could be a big help to you and it is just a good idea****
to let parents and teachers know what you are looking at on the web.
The opinions expressed in this website are those of the author and do not represent the view of any particular tribe or other individual. Nor do the Links that I have on this site necessarily represent the views of this author. Some of the pages in this website are quite large and may take a few moments to load, especially if you have a dial-up connection to the web. The Wiki Links near the top, middle and bottom of most pages are to foster further research. Both are excellent sources for information and words you may not 
understand. If you think of things you would like to see added to this site, let me know and it will be considered. Throughout this site you will find numerous links to other sites with useful information. All of the text links will be in WHITE, ITALICIZED and UNDERLINED (This is not a text link.). If you see numbers following the initial link, each one of those numbers is an additional link. While I cannot vouch for every site being up and running all the times, I do try to stay on top of the active and inactive sites. If you find any broken Links, please let me know. In addition to the sites linked in my text, please visit my LINKS page where you will also find an extensive Reading List. Many more useful links will be found there. I am under some limitations as to how big the site can be unless funds can be raised to support the project. If you are able to make a contribution to the cause, email me to notify me of your intent and I will be in touch. I will not be available during the months of June and July as I will be at Boonesboro Village all of those months and possibly a week or two on each end. Your help in this regard will be greatly appreciated! Thank You!
It is my desire to make this site as "Kid Friendly" as possible. The language I use is rated for an eighth to ninth grade reading level and may cause a mental stretch for some younger children. Hopefully they will come to you for things they do not understand. The mental stretch is intentional. I feel it is part of the educational process. I also wish to point out that some of the sites I have linked to deal with some contemporary "Indian Issues" and may be difficult for some younger children to comprehend. Please don't be afraid to discuss these issues with your children and please email me if you need any help with talking points. While I have reviewed each of these sites myself and have not yet found any major problems, I would like for you to email me if you find any language on any of the sites that you find objectionable and the removal of that link will be considered.
*What follows is three pages of an abridged history of the Shawnee up to the early 19th Century. *
Now that we've gotten all the instructions, advisories and disclaimers out of the way, we can get back to the business of having fun with learning. That is really what all of this is about.If you can't have fun while learning something new, what's the point in learning it anyway. I have always believed that learning should be fun. I just couldn't get some of my teachers
to agree with me. I've also always believed that learning new things must start with the history of that thing. When learning Math, you begin with the theories of Mathematicians that came before. When you study geology, you start with the history of the earth. You can't study genetics without knowing about Mendel's peas and you definitely can't learn about people without knowing their History. Our subject happens to be Eastern Woodland Indians in general and the Shawnee specifically, but the process is no different than it would be for any people anywhere in the world. The subject of this website centers on the 18th and early 19th centuries. If you wish to look into the ancient past of the indigenous people, it is an interesting story.
In 1492 "Columbus sailed the ocean blue," to get to the islands off the coast of what became known as America, but he wasn't the first. There is strong evidence of Norse travelers, Celtic Priests and possibly others before them. In 1620, the "Pilgrims," or more accurately "Puritans," landed at "Plymouth Rock," but they weren't even the first English to establish a colony in the "New World." Throughout the 16th century, Englishmen and other Europeans had been visiting the coast of North America. Of course, the Spanish were already established in the Caribbean, Central and South America and they were making inroads into North America through Florida and the Gulf Coast. And, of course, there was the "Lost Colony." In 1607, the first permanent English settlement was established on the James River in a land they called Virginia. They built a fort they called Jamestown. ( Jamestown Settlement Link) With this act the invasion of the land we know as the United States of America began in earnest. It was the tribes of the Eastern Woodland Indians that met these English. At times the relationship was peaceful and at times it wasn't. I do think it is fair to say that relationships were always guarded on both sides. By the middle of the 18th century, many wars had been fought between whites and Indians and between whites and other whites with both sides using Indians as auxiliary forces.
According to Anthropologists, Archaeologists, Ethnographers and the like, the Shawnee probably started , “after the great migration out of Mongolia,” in the area south of Hudson’s Bay and migrated south and then west to the southern Great Lakes area. I put the quote marks around the bit about Mongolia because, even if it did happen, it was a very slow trickle and there are more than a few differing opinions. The Walam Olum, the migration legend of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware), gives a clue about the time of the Shawnee migration to the Great Lakes: "When Little Fog was chief, many of them (the Lenape) went away with the Nanticoke and Shawnee to the land in the south." The date of this occurrence, if the right Little Fog is known, is estimated at about 1240 A.D. According to the Shawnee, the Wishi-Manitou, Great Spirit, placed them there at the dawn of creation. Some of the Shawnee have preserved a tradition of migrating from the Atlantic down the Saint Lawrence to the Great Lakes. So perhaps they moved east first then came back west and south. From there the stories diverge. Some say the Iroquois drove them out of the area during the Beaver Wars throughout the 17th Century. According to at least one of my Shawnee mentors, the Shawnee had taken everything they could from the Iroquois and others they had been warring with and simply moved on to richer pickings. The Shawnee scattered as far south as the Gulf Coast, Southern Georgia, into areas of the middle and western Appalachians, and the Mid-Atlantic. By the 1730’s the tribe had returned to their homelands in what is now western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. By the time of the War of 1812, due to the influx of American settlers most of the Shawnee had move out of their old homeland. First they moved into Missouri then Kansas. The largest group of Shawnee didn't arrive in Oklahoma until after the Civil War. When the Shawnee first came to the Ohio River Valley, the original Shawnee population may have been as high as 50,000. By the early 18th Century, still scattered to all areas east of the Mississippi, the Shawnee had dropped in number to around 6.000. Even guesses about this time period would be highly inaccurate. This was true, in part, because many of the Shawnee had married into matrilineal cultures and had become part of the wife's families. Also, the Shawnee had been involved in many wars which had depleted their numbers significantly even though they had won most of these wars. Most of these wars were on the behalf of other peoples, both Indians and whites. By the mid-18th century, when the Shawnee were at the height of their power, they probably numbered no more than around 10,000.
Shawan, the root of Shawnee means south. Shawanugi means southerner. This referred to their settlement south of the Great Lakes, south of the other tribes to whom they claimed a kinship and with whom they had formed alliances.
The Shawnee call themselves Shawano or Shawanese. The Cherokee call them Anisawanugi. Among the Spanish and later, the British colonists of Georgia and South Carolina , they were known as the Savannah. When the French first met the Shawnee, they referred to them as Chauenon of Chaouesnon. What ever you called them, you spoke about them as fierce warriors and allies, if you had something they wanted. (The Shawnee were and still are a very pragmatic people.) To many settlers along the Trans-Allegheny Frontier from Pennsylvania through Virginia, the Can-tuc-Kee, south into the Carolinas, the Shawnee were the ultimate “Boogey Men." Stories about them were used to terrorize both children and adults.
The Shawnee were divided into septs or sub-nations, varying in pronunciation depending on which sept you were from, which were the Chalagawtha, Chalaakaatha or Chalaka ; Hathawekela, Thaweglia, Oawikila, or Thaawikila; Kispokotha, Kispoko, or Spitotha; Maykujay, Mekoche, Mekoce, or Mequachake; and Pequa, Piqua or Pekowi. This variation in pronunciations has led to speculation that at one time the Shawnee were five separate tribes that came together in one of the earliest confederacies formed among the inhabitants of this land we now call America.
Being Algonquins the Shawnee thought of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) as their "grandfathers" and progenitors of all of the Algonquins.
The Shawnee and Kickapoo (Giingaabaw in their own language) were, most likely, the same tribe at one time as they share a common language and both tribes have an oral tradition that reiterates that idea. Also, in the time before contact with the “shemanese (long knives, white man)” the Kickapoo were known to have lived in the area south of the Great Lakes in the northeast part of the present state of Ohio. The Kickapoo and the Shawnee share a legend about their separation. The split was caused by a hunters' quarrel over the division of some roasted bear paws. The only difference as told by the two tribes is who is credited with the blame. A commander of a frontier post in the 1820's, tells of a Shawnee chief who describes the same incident except that it was the Sauk from which the Shawnee separated. Their strongest cultural affiliations are with the Huron, Seneca, Winnebago, Ojibwa, Lenape, and Nanticoke. In all their wanderings, the Shawnee have maintained a sense of tribal identity unrivaled by most any other tribe in spite of having little to no central government. While wandering, each of the five septs of the Shawnee operated completely independent of the others and this continued right on through their return to the Ohio and beyond. Very few individual Shawnee ever presumed to speak for all of the Shawnee as their principle chief. Each sept had its own civil chief and among the Shawnee they had no “War Chiefs” as such. What ever respected warrior the others would follow into battle, based on battle skills and leadership abilities, were considered “War Chiefs.”
Those Shawnee that had spent many years in the southeast among the Tsalagi (Cherokee)(2) and the Muscogee (Creek) Nations (another of those large Confederacies that many tribes had formed themselves into) and picked up many of the traits of those nations. Things such as foods, food preparations, dress, all became ingrained in those Shawnee and over time became a way of life for the entire tribe. This may have been enhanced by the fact that the Shawnee also brought along many husbands and wives. Not all Shawnee stayed with the tribes whose members they had married as the Shawnee were patrilenal. That's one thing the Shawnee hadn't changed in their travels.
During the spring and early summer the Shawnee would come together to the site of their largest “towns” for planting and socializing. It was during these times that young men and women would begin their courtships as it was not permitted for them to marry within their own sept. Each extended family would have their own longhouse. By the 18th Century, they tended to be rectangular and slope roofed and made from bark. Each “town“ had their own very large council house for meetings and religious ceremonies. Many of the religious ceremonies of all tribes were tied to the planting and harvest cycles. These council houses would be large enough to hold the entire population of the tribe. Granted it was very crowded in these council houses, yet they were still very large. The men would take care of the hunting for meat and leather and fishing during these times of gathering and the women would tend to the fields, the preserving of meats and the preparation of the hides. The primary crop was maize and the Shawnee fields were the envy of both other tribes and the shemanese. There are accounts of Shawnee cornfields where the corn was as high as two men, one atop the other. After the harvest the tribe would break up into to small hunting camps for the taking of fur hides and of course the meat associated with it. It was also easier to feed smaller bands, for even though the Shawnee were consummate farmers, there was still much they gathered from nature.
Like all Indians before white contact, the history and culture of the Shawnee is only known by stories passed down verbally. Very little can be documented.
By the early 18th Century, the Shawnee and their allies occupied an area bounded on the east from a point near present day Erie, Pennsylvania, south to the area of the forks of the Allegheny and monongahela Rivers where they merge to become the Ohio River ( present day Pittsburgh). Later these forks became the sight of Fts. Duquesne and Pitt. The Shawnee territory then followed a line down the Ohio River to a line on the west running northward following the Scioto and Sandusky Rivers. Their people now numbered close to 15,00 with approximately 3,000 warriors. This alliance was now too big for them to remain invisible. The British became worried because most of these tribes had been allied to the French in the last war. The French were worried because the British blockade during the last war had cut off the supply of trade goods and during this time many of these tribes had turned to the British who had better goods anyway. The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee), who fancied themselves the masters of the northeast, had become upset because this alliance had become so powerful that they no longer took instructions from the Iroquois.
Using a half French-half Shawnee, or Metis' (pronounced Me-tee) trader by the name of Pierre Chartier, the French tried to keep the Shawnee and the other tribes at odds with the British. Chartier was successful in that he recruited some Shawnee to raid some British traders. This led the British to fear the whole tribe coming under the influence of the French. The British tried to get their Iroquois allies to force the Shawnee and Lenape to return to the east where the British could keep them more under control. With some reluctance the Iroquois finally issued the orders to the Shawnee only to have the Shawnee ignore them. There were many threats and much diplomacy but all to no avail. The Shawnee did not leave their home. The Iroquois did score a minor victory in the creation of a system of representation for the Ohio tribes in the Iroquois councils. A number of half-kings were created for this purpose. The half-kings, chosen from the Iroquois themselves, would be appointed to each tribe to represent them in council. None of the Ohio tribes objected because the Iroquois had the ear of the British and now the Ohio tribes had the ear of the Iroquois.
The French felt their old alliances slipping away. The Miami, Wyandot, Shawnee and Lenape were all openly trading with the British. The Mingo still continued to follow the lead of their Iroquois cousins. It was primarily the Mingo that turned back the French, when a military expedition was sent out to lay claim to the Allegheny, asking what right the French had to claim Iroquois land?
Desperate, the French mounted an attack. They put another Metis to use. Charles Langlade recruited a force of 250 Anishinabe, or Ojibwe as others called them, and Odawa (2), or Ottawa (2) as they have come to be known, and traveled from Michilimackinac to Piqua, Ohio (2)to destroy that Miami village and the associated with a British trading post. The Ohio Indians were so shocked at the totality of the destruction that the immediately rejoined the French alliance. The French, emboldened by their success, immediately tried block the British from any access to the area by building a line of forts across the frontiers western border following the line of the Allegheny River.
The Shawnee and their allies were angered by the French invading their territory and asked the Iroquois to intervene. This request backfired when the Iroquois turned to the British to enforce the 1744 agreement confirming the fact that they were to posses lands west of the Allegheny, using the British to confirm the Iroquois as masters of the Northwest Territory. In 1752 the Iroquois signed the Logstown Treaty reinforcing the 1744 agreement and allowing the British to build a blockhouse at the forks of the Ohio (Pittsburg) to be called Fort Prince George. This fort was destroyed after chasing off the builders shortly after work began. On top of the rubble, the French built Fort Duquesne.Let us diverge from our main story for a moment and I'll give you another
Interesting Fact - In October 1753, George Washington was assigned by Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia to warn the French to leave Virginia. At that time Virginia was laying claim to all the lands west of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in what is now western Pennsylvania, Ohio,West Virginia, et.al. The French did not leave the region and in April 1754, Washington was sent back to the frontier with two companies of militia to construct a fort. He was instructed to match "Force by Force" only if the foreign force prevented their building of forts. On his way, Washington received word that a French party of 50 soldiers was in the area. Fearing they may be a raiding party, Washington ambushed them, and nearly every Frenchmen was killed or captured. The Battle of Jumonville Glen was fought on May 28, 1754 near present-day Uniontown , Pennsylvania, tthus starting a war which really became the First World War as it ultimately involved all the major powers in Europe with theaters of combat all around the globe. Every where but North America, this became The Seven Years War. In America it lasted nine years and came to be known as the French and Indian War.
How it happened is a subject of great debate. One story says that he was tomahawked by Tanachrison, a Seneca/Mingo chief that was acting as a scout for the colonial force. The long and the short of it was, at the end of the battle, the French commander, Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, was dead.
After the ambush at Jumonville Glen, the next shooting was at the Battle of Fort Necessity. After the ambush, Washington and his small force retreated to their fallback position a the "Great Meadows" where they had built a small fort Washington had named Fort Necessity.
It was there that the French caught up with are "Hero." The French and their allies surrounded the Fort and began lobbing rounds in. It didn't take long for Washington to realize he was in a completely untenable position and surrender. Washington was forced to sign a document confessing to the "assassination" of Jumonville. Later Washington claimed he didn't understand what he was signing. Washington did have a rudimentary knowledge of French and the word assassination is pretty much the same in both English and French. The Battle of Fort Necessity was fought on July 3, 1754 and the surrender took place on the 4th of July. For the next several years, when anyone wanted to needle George, they would simply whisper, "4th of July" within ear shot. Finally one day Col. Washington snapped and yelled "4th of July, 4th of July. I wish to never here of that date again!!!"
Back to our main story line.
When the news of Braddock’s defeat circulated through the colonies it was met first with disbelief, followed by anger and third a desire for revenge against every Indian they saw.
The Shawnee and Lenape sent a delegation to Philadelphia to protest the Iroquois giving away their land and the whites accepting it even though they knew it did not belong to the Iroquois. The Shawnee and Lenape could not have picked a worse time. Even though neither of these two tribes had participated in the “massacre” of Braddock”s force Pennsylvania hanged them. The Shawnee and Lenape struck the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina with a ferocity unrivaled by any war since the beginning of Red - White wars in North America. From 1755 -1757 war parties killed over 2,500 colonists and burned hundreds of farms and for good measure, got their revenge on the Catawba by killing their last powerful Chief, Haiglar, and ending the power of that tribe forever. When the Iroquois ordered a cease fire they were ignored. The war continued until October of 1758 when peace was reached with the eastern Lenape and Pennsylvania gave up its claims to all land west of the Appalachians that had been "sold" to them by the Iroquois four years earlier. When word of Pennsylvania’s agreement with the eastern Lenape reach the Ohio, the Shawnee and their allies allowed the British to “capture” ( the French actually abandoned) Fort Duquesne in November of 1758. The Shawnee and Lenape stopped raiding the western settlements and made peace with the British in July of 1759.
In rather rapid succession, Fort Niagara, Quebec and Montreal fell to the British. Hostilities in North America, for the most part, ceased. While the final treaty between the British and French would not come for another three years, the tribes agreed to return the over roughly 700 white prisoners taken during the hostilities in exchange for peace. This exchange took place in 1761 on the Muskingum River. Some of the captives were quick to return to their friends and families, most captives had to be forced to return to their “Liberator’s” and still more had refused to leave their life among the tribes at all. The Ohio tribes expected the British to return to the Atlantic colonies since the war was over, prisoners exchanged and Pennsylvania had given up claim to the Ohio. Instead the British stayed. They built Ft. Pitt on the site of Ft Duquesne and posted some 200 men there to “protect’ the Indians. Interesting Fact - During the last period of the Seven Years War, many French civilians were driven out of the Canadian Atlantic Coast region, an area known as Arcadia. Many of these refugees went to a French controlled area between the Mississippi and Spanish controlled Texas only to find that the French secretly ceded the area to Spain in 1762. They and their descendants stayed and these Arcadians now number in the millions. We know them today as “Cajuns.”
Interesting Question - How come when the whites win its a "Glorious Victory" but when the Indians win its a "Massacre?"
The two allied tribes were now ready to go to war with the British. They did not side with the French. This one was for themselves!
Interesting Fact - Among the captives, it was the adult males that were most willing to return to their life of privilege in white society. Even the lowest rung on the ladder for most men, was higher than most women could ever hope to climb. Yes, a woman's work was hard among the Indians, but no harder than it was back in the "civilized" world. Among the "Savages," women were treated with respect and owned most of the property. In the "civilized" world they were the property. The same was true of the children, who were encouraged to run and jump, laugh and play and were rarely ever required to do "chores" and were never beaten. Vastly different than back in the "civilized" world where "the rule of thumb" was practiced. A man could not beat his wife, his children or his slaves with anything bigger around than his thumb.
After 1763, with the French having completely pulled out of North America, British military and mercantile interests were no longer challenged east of the Mississippi except in Spanish Florida and a small enclave around New Orleans. Having nothing but contempt for the Indians, French allied, British allied or neutral, General Lord Jeffery Amherst, military commander of all of the British colonies, took it upon himself to put an end to any of the annual payments made to the chiefs of the many nations. Many tribes had become dependent on this tribute paid to them primarily in the form of lead and powder not to mention a fair supply of rum. In addition the supply of trade goods was heavily restricted. All of this, along with the string of forts the British were building or re garrisoning after the French evacuation, caused a great resentment among all of the tribes.
The Seneca had begun circulating a “War Belt” by 1761. By 1763 the call for war was coming together around the Odawa (Ottowa) chief, Obwandiyag or Pontiac to the whites.
Pontiac’s Rebellion caught the British completely off guard. With no warning Pontiac’s allied tribes, which included all of the Ohio tribes, captured of six of nine forts 
west side of the Appalachians. The Shawnee, along with the Lenape and Mingo besieged Fort Pitt, began a series of raids through the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia frontiers, burning many farms and killing over 600 settlers and probably taking an almost equal number of captives, although that number is hard to corroborate. A French informer living in the Ft. Detroit area sounded the alert and saved the garrison. Forts Niagara and Pitt were surrounded and isolated. General Amherst was so desperate that he wrote to Captain Simeon Ecuyer, commander at Fort Pitt, to suggest that he infect the Shawnee, Lenape, and Mingo, that had laid siege the fort, with gifts of smallpox-infected handkerchiefs and blankets . 
Ecuyer interpreted this as an order a began the distribution of the gifts. It was most effective because the Ohio tribes had never been exposed and had no immunity to small-pox. The Shawnee were also in conflict with the Cherokee in Tennessee during this time, and they carried the disease to them. The Shawnee living with the Creek Confederacy, carried the disease to them, as well. From there it spread to the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and the whole of the, including many white settlements. Before the disease had run its course, the epidemic had killed thousands.
The French refused to help their former allies and Pontiac's Rebellion collapsed after its failure to take Forts Pitt, Niagara, and Detroit. In August the Shawnee, and their immediate allies, the Mingo and Lenape, met defeat by Colonel Henry Bouquet at the
Battle of Bushy Run. The battle lasted two-days and, when over, lifted the siege at Fort Pitt. The Shawnee retreated into Ohio but continued to raid western Pennsylvania. Bouquet's army persued them, while Colonel John Bradstreet went to relieve Fort Detroit and the tribes besieging that post; the Ojibwe, Wyandot, and Ottawa. Pontiac’s allies began to defect to make their own peace with the British when Pontiac was forced to retreat into Indiana.
Amherst had been replaced by Thomas Gage who restored the supply of trade goods to previous levels. The Lenape and Shawnee signed a peace treaty with the British in November at Coshocton. The Proclamation Line of 1763, prohibited 
further settlement west of the Appalachians. However, this provided little relief for the Ohio tribes and a great deal of grief for the British. The damage had been done. True peace would not come to the Ohio for another half century. It is often taught that this Proclamation was a provision in the final peace treaty with the French at the end of the "Seven Years War." IT WASN''T. It was because of Pontiac's Rebellion and other raids by tribes all along the area of white settlement on the eastern border of Indian lands.
The Shawnee protested the ceding of Ohio by the Iroquois. If the Shawnee refused to accept the agreement, the Iroquois threatened the Shawnee with a genocidal war. This forced the Shawnee into action. The Shawnee sent war belts to the Lenape, Odawa, Tsalagi, Chickasaw, Illinois, Wea, Piankashaw, Miami, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Wyandot, , Mascouten, and Ojibwe. The Shawnee met with delegates from most of these tribes in 1770 and 1771 on the Sciota River in Ohio. William Johnson, who also had an interest in Ohio lands, by spreading “disinformation,” stopped the formation of the alliance. However, this was a start of a true alliance.
The Shawnee, Lenape and Mingo would have to act alone against the Shemanese, aka Long Knives (Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiersmen).
The cession of Ohio by the Iroqui0s had included the Can-tuc-kee. This land was also claimed by the Tsalagi (Cherokee). The Iroquois, Cherokee and the British had all conveniently forgotten about the Shawnee claims to the area. The British were able to get the Cherokee to “sell” the area in 1774 and 1775 (It seems to me that the Cherokee were pretty shrewd real estate agents to sell the same land, that they didn’t own anyway, twice).
The cession of land by the Iroquois and the “sale” of the land by the Cherokee, had ultimately been a private land deal to the Transylvania Land Company and had opened the entire Ohio River Valley to European settlement. This was, supposedly, in violation of British law. The Proclamation Line of 1763 was designed to stop settlement west of the Appalachians. British officials in America never had any intention of enforcing the Proclamation as many of them had stock in the land companies and were not only complicit in the settlement but actively participated in the reduction of the tribes to resist any encroachments on their territory. The British had closed all but Detroit, Michilimackinac, Kaskaskia, and sat on their hands as war grew closer. There were 50,000 people west of the Appalachians by 1774. Most of them itching for a fight. Most of these people had been fighting the tribes all of their lives. For some of them, both their fathers and grand fathers had been doing that as well. These frontiersmen could be more brutal and merciless than the most barbaric of any “savage.” The Cherokee had tried to warn Daniel Boone when they sold Kentucky, that the Shawnee would fight if the Americans tried to settle there. The Shawnee had killed Boone’s oldest son, James, in 1773, while on a hunting expedition.
Tensions were already high in the white settlements along the upper Ohio between Pittsburgh and mouth of the Muskingum. Both Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed the area around Pittsburgh and were almost ready to fight each other for it. Virginia had never given up claim to Ohio and needed Fort Pitt as jumping off point for settlement of the region. Having seen this kind of thing before, the Lenape made arrangements to move. They received permission from the Miami to settle in the area of present day Indiana in 1770. When Virginia sent surveyors into the area west of the Kanawha River, a sure sign that settlement was about to begin, the war began. While younger warriors began raiding the surveyor’s camps, two large bands, close to 700 of the Shawnee, primarily of the Piqua and Kispokotha septs, did not wish to participate in yet another war and moved west into Spanish Missouri. In the spring of 1774 Virginia moved into the abandoned Fort Pitt in order to use it as a supply base for the coming war with the Shawnee. There were more clashes between the surveyors and Shawnee during. In April, Michael Cresap and his vigilantes were blamed for an ambush of a Mingo/Shawnee trading party near present day Wheeling, WVA. Actually it was Daniel Greathouse, who was known to hate ALL Indians and displayed their scalps from his belt and a group of men of rather dubious character. Included in this party was the brother and pregnant sister of Logan, a Mingo war leader.
A few days later, in May, at Yellow Creek near present day Stuebenville, Ohio, another band of the Shemanese massacred a peaceful band of Mingo . Cornstalk, a very powerful chief among the Shawnee, still wanted to avoid a war. He asked the Virginians at Ft. Pitt to “cover the dead.” This was a Shawnee ceremony whereby the families of the dead would forgive the transgressors and “let bygones be bygones.” Logan, however, didn’t want anything “covered.” He returned to Wakatomica, a mixed Shawnee/Mingo village, gathered a war party, led them to the white settlements on the Muskingum River and killed 13 settlers.
In June of 1774 Dunmore's War, also known as Cresap's War, begins. In July, Logan attempted to tell the Virginians that his killing had ended. This is one of the most memorable statements by a Native leader known as "Logan's Lament."
“I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my country-men pointed as they passed, and said, ‘Logan is the friend of the white men.’ I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance: for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? - Not one.”
The Virginian's would hear none of it. They wanted a war. The Virginians had gathered in the their forts waiting for more troops. They had no wish to use diplomacy.
Lord John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, raised a large army and led them to Ohio.
The recent flight of some Shawnee to Missouri had left the Shawnee weak. The Shawnee circulated a war belt to the tribes gathered around Detroit. It was refused. The Shawnee and Mingo were left to stand against the Virginians alone as most of the Lenape chose to remain neutral. Wakatomica and five other villages were destroyed by Dunmore's militia. October saw a regrouping by the Virginians at Point Pleasant on the Ohio (in present day West Virginia) for a second campaign.
Cornstalk, with 300 warriors launched a surprise attack. After fighting all day, with heavy casualties on both sides, Cornstalk was forced to withdraw and recross the Ohio. A month later, Cornstalk, met with officials from Virginia. He signed the Treaty of Camp Charlotte giving up all claims south of the Ohio River. Soon after, the remaining Hathawekela Shawnee moved to the Muscogee of northern Alabama. With the close of Dunmore's War, Kentucky was cleared settlement.
James Harrod, established the first permanent white settlement in Kentucky, Harrodstown, in March, 1775. A month later the Revolution had already begun by the time Daniel Boone brought a second party through the Cumberland Gap. This group founded a settlement and named it Boonesborough.
A slight deviation from our timeline but, it falls into the category of another :
Interesting Fact - At this point we reach one of the notable points in Shawnee history. In 1769, the Shawnee captured an exploring party led by Daniel Boone. They made the whites take them to all their hunting camps, where they destroyed or confiscated all the whites' property. The Shawnee then released the party unharmed, kindly supplying each member with a pair of moccasins, a gun, and a doeskin for patch leather, so that they would survive their trip home, with instructions not to return to the Can-tuc-kee. The frontiersmen, however, were not impressed by the treatment they received; on the contrary, they were incensed at being kicked off land to which they believed the Shawnees had no valid claim (LOL).
When Daniel Boone was taken prisoner again in 1778 he accepted adoption by Chief Chiungalla, or "Black Fish", and given the name 'Sheltowee' meaning 'Big Turtle.' He stayed with the tribe for three months. The Shawnee considered him to be one of their own and he professed to feel the same way about them. When he ran away from the tribe to go back to the whites, the Shawnee considered Boone a traitor. His sympathies had always remained with the whites. When Boone discovered that the Shawnees were planning to attack Boonesboro, a station in Kentucky that had been founded by and named after him, he escaped in time to warn the inhabitants and help them defend the fort.To the Shawnee, a man's word was his bond. Boone knew if he didn't accept adoption and become a member of the tribe, he would be tortured and killed. A Shawnee would accept his fate rather than live a lie.
"We must be united
We must smoke the same pipe
We must f fight each other's battles
And more than that, We must love the Great Spirit."
--Tecumseh --
-His appeal to other tribes to join his confederacy.-
ALL ABOUT THE SHAWNEE SHAWNEE HISTORY 2 SHAWNEE HISTORY 3
PORTRAYING INDIANS THE CAPTIVE CORPS TURTLE ISLAND
WIKTIONARY WIKIPEDIA
BOONESBORO VILLAGE CAMP DANIEL BOONE CDB VIDEO DANIEL BOONE COUNCIL
Camp Daniel Boone is a Boy Scout Camp located in the Great Smoky Mountains ~ 45 minutes west of Asheville, NC.
If for any reason the email links throughout this site do not work you may reach me by email at
shemaqua@bigbearsden.org,
snail mail me @
Shemaqua 
127 - A King Henry Way
Williamsburg, VA
23188-1903
or call me at 757.253.6999
or send up a smoke signal, use a drum, or communicate telepathically.
(I wouldn't count on those last three.)
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