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

    ALL ABOUT
        THE SHAWNEE
            THEIR ORIGIONS,
                        CULTURE &
                              HISTORY

SHAWNEE LEADERS  SHAWNEE RELIGION  MIGRATION & RESETTLEMENT  THE SHAWNEE TODAY 

HOME     ABOUT ME     TURTLE ISLAND

REENACTING MADE SIMPLE     PORTRAYING INDIANS      THE CAPTIVE CORPS    
WISDOM of the ELDERS          ALL ABOUT THE SHAWNEE

LINKS      EMAIL     SITEMAP      GUESTBOOK    BEARTRACKS BLOG     SITE INFO

WIKTIONARY     WIKIPEDIA     SHAWNEE DICTIONARY
BOONESBORO VILLAGE

What follows are three pages of an abridged history of the Shawnee up to the early 19th Century.

    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 18^th and early 19^th Centuries. If you wish 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 coming to the "New World.". 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 16^th Century, Englishmen and other Europeans had been visiting the coast of North America. Of course, the Spanish were already well 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 Woodlands 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 17^th 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 moved 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 18^th 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 people, both Indian and white. In the mid-18^th Century, when the Shawnee were at the height of their power, according to the ethnographers, numbered no more than around 10,000 while other estimates actually made in the 18^th Century, put the numbers at around 15,000. 
    
    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, Shawanese , or Sawanokee. 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 and gave it up without a fight. (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,Chilacahtha, Chalaka or Chillicothe; 
                       the Hathawekela, Thaweglia, Oawikila, or Thaawikila;
                       the Kispokotha, Kispoko,Kispogogi or Spitotha;
                       the Maykujay, Mekoche, Mekoce, or Mequachake; and
                       the Bicowetha, 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.

These septs were further divided into thirteen clans that transcended sub-national divisions. The names of these clans were as follows:          M'-wa-wa'               -  Wolf                     Ma-gwa'       -  Loon                    M'-kwa'      -  Bear
                        We-wa'-see             -  Buzzard               M'-se'pa-se  -  Panther               M'-ath-wa  -  Owl    
                        Pa-la-wa'                -  Turkey                  Psake-the'    -  Deer                    Sha-pa-ta'  -  Raccoon
                        Na-ma-tha'             -  Turtle                   Ma-na-to'     -  Snake                  Pe-sa-wa'    -  Horse
                        Pa-take-e-no-the"  -  Rabbit
   The name of the Pesawa or Horse clan was probably changed from something else after the arrival of the white man. Prior to that no living Indian had seen a horse, but all of the Indians were highly impressed by them.

Interesting Fact - Many tribes had legends about the horse because the horse had been indiginous to North America. It is believed that the earliest Indians had regarded the horse as food and had hunted them into extenction about 10,000 years ago.
I believe this, and other species that had vanished from North America, is why the American Indian developed into the conservationists that they have become famous for. 

   Being Algonquins the Shawnee thought of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) as their "grandfathers" and progenitors of all of the Algonquins. Modern DNA testing is beginning to show that this may be true.

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. In fact the word "Chief" implies a certain dictatorial power over others. In most tribes, their head men and women were leaders out of earned respect and could only make suggestions that were usually accepted by the whole tribe. 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.

   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, thus 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 at the "Great Meadows" where they had built a small fort Washington had named Fort Necessity.

   It was there that the French caught up with our "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.

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!

   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.

    In 1749 Virginia had chartered the Ohio Company with a large land grant at the forks of the Ohio (Pittsburgh). Virginia's claims were far more extensive than Pennsylvania and included the entire Ohio Valley west to the Illinois River including present day, Kentucky, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and Michigan, except for the upper peninsula. Many colonists (including George Washington) had invested in Ohio land speculation, and the British refusal to open the area for settlement started many of the more wealthy colonists on the path towards revolution. Poor frontiersmen had a simpler solution - they ignored the proclamation and settled on lands in western Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, white settlement was beginning to encroach on the Iroquois homeland. This was the setting in 1768 when the British and Iroquois met at Fort Stanwix and produced a treaty where the Iroquois (who could no longer control the Ohio tribes) ceded Ohio to the British (who could no longer control the Americans). 

  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 the 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 that resisted the 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 grandfathers 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” in exchange for "gifts" of some considerable value. 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 March of 1768 a baby had been born into the Shawnee and by his father was given the name Tecumtha. In 1774 the Hathawekela sept of the Shawnee moved to northern Alabama to live with the Upper Creek. Tecumtha’s mother had just lost her Kispokotha Shawnee husband at the battle of Point Pleasant. She made the decision to go with her people. However, she left Tecumtha and his older brother, Lalawatitheka, to be raised by their older married sister, Tecumpease and their older still, Kispokotha brother, Cheeseekau. While the Hathawekla sept had pronounced the baby's name as Tecumtha, the Kispokotha, with whom he was now living, pronounced it as Tecumseh.

    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, 4^th Earl of Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, raised a large army and led them to Ohio.
  
   The recent flight of some Shawnee to Missouri and Alabama 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   - 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 Shawnee had no valid claim (LOL). Incidentally, the picture at the right was a sketch done while Daniel Boone was still living. You will notice that he wears no coonskin cap. Also as depicted in the old TV program, he had no Cherokee friend named Mingo and his son, Israel, was three years OLDER than Boone's daughter, Jemima. Add to this the fact that at the time the show depicts, Daniel and Rebecca, Boone's wife, had SIX other children.
 
   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.

Go to the next page for the continuation of our story.

Part 1 - up to 1774     Part 2 - 1775 - 1781     Part 3 - 1782 - 1799     Part 4 - 1800 - 1813

SHAWNEE LEADERS  SHAWNEE RELIGION  MIGRATION & RESETTLEMENT  THE SHAWNEE TODAY 

"We must be united
We must smoke the same pipe
We must 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-
 

Back to Top 

HOME     ABOUT ME     TURTLE ISLAND

REENACTING MADE SIMPLE     PORTRAYING INDIANS      THE CAPTIVE CORPS    
WISDOM of the ELDERS          ALL ABOUT THE SHAWNEE

LINKS      EMAIL     SITEMAP      GUESTBOOK    BEARTRACKS BLOG     SITE INFO

WIKTIONARY     WIKIPEDIA     SHAWNEE DICTIONARY
BOONESBORO VILLAGE

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

                                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.)                                                                                                      

Pipe graphics provided by

POWERED BY
GoDaddy.com - World's No.1 Domain Name Registrar