Shawnee Indian - Kansas

William G. Cutler's

was first published in 1883 by A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL.

http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/deschist/indhistp5.html#EMIGRANT_TRIBES

The Missouri Shawnees were the first Indians removed to the territory set apart for emigrant tribes by the treaties of June, 1825, with the Kanzas and Osages. By treaty made at St. Louis, November 7, 1825, the United States granted "to the Shawnee tribe of Indians within the State of Missouri, for themselves, and for those of the same nation now residing in Ohio who may hereafter emigrate to the west of the Mississippi, a tract of land equal to fifty miles square, situated west of the State of Missouri, and within the purchase lately made from the Osages."

The tract of fifty miles square thus granted, as afterward surveyed and conveyed to the tribe by deed May 11, 1844, was bounded as follows: "Beginning at a point in the western boundary of the State of Missouri, three miles south of where said boundary crosses the mouth of Kansas River, thence continuing south and coinciding with said boundary for twenty-five miles; thence due west 120 miles; thence due north until said line shall intersect the southern boundary of the Kanzas Reservation; thence due east, coinciding with the southern boundary of said reservation, to the termination thereof; thence due north, coinciding with the eastern boundary of said reservation, to the southern shore of the Kansas River; thence along said southern shore of said river to where a line from the place of beginning, drawn due west, shall intersect the same."

Map Kansas 1854

The Shawnees had their ancient home in the basin of the Cumberland River. Their territory was invaded by the Iroquois about the year 1672, and the vanquished Shawnees, fleeing to the South, were scattered over various parts of the country--settling in the Carolinas, at the head-waters of the Mobile River, in Florida, and it is related that one tribe had "quite gone down to New Spain." After a short time, several of the tribes re-united and returned to the vicinity of their old hunting-grounds, forming settlements in the valley of the Ohio, where Father Marquette relates that they were "in such numbers that they seem as many as twenty-three villages in one district, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other."

Several treaties of peace had been made previous to 1786, with the Shawnees, in common with other tribes, but that of January 31, 1786, was the first concluded with them separately as a nation. By the provisions of this treaty, which was made at the mouth of the Great Miami River, on the northwest bank of the Ohio, the United States allotted to the Shawnees certain lands on the Miami River, contiguous to the reservations of the Wyandots and Delawares, in consideration of which the Shawnees, relinquished "all title, or pretense of title, they ever had to the lands east, west and south of the east, west and south lines before described."

The Wyandots protested against this treaty, on the ground that the lands set apart for the Shawnees had been previously, by treaty, ceded to themselves. The Shawnees remained, however, on the land, sharing the Wyandot hunting and fishing grounds, and it was in consideration of their forbearance at this time that the latter tribe requested the Shawnees to cede to them a portion of their reservation in the Indian Territory, when they attempted to negotiate for removal from Sandusky in 1832.
From the time of the treaty of peace which the Shawnees made with William Penn in 1682 (the first treaty with the whites to which they were a party), the Society of Friends took an intelligent and constant interest in their welfare. Thomas Chalkley, a minister of the London society of the denomination, who visited them as early as 1706, mentions among the peculiarities of the nation its custom of admitting women to its councils. He says: "In the council was a woman who took a part in the deliberations of this council, as well as upon all important occasions.

"On the interpreter being questioned why they permitted a woman to take so responsible a part in their councils, he replied that some women were wiser than some men, and that they had not done anything for years without the council of this ancient, grave woman, who spoke much in this council."

Philanthropic and religious enterprises were necessarily suspended during the long-continued French, English and Indian wars, but after the close of the war of 1812, the Friends again resumed their labors among the Shawnees, establishing a school, and building flour and saw mills at their village in Ohio. Under the prudent and energetic superintendence of Henry Harvey, the tribe made rapid advance in civilization, and in the year 1831, when their lands were bought by Government, preparatory to the removal of the tribe to the West, the Ohio Shawnees were prosperous in an eminent degree.
January 4, 1793, Baron De Carondelet, a Spanish nobleman, granted to bands of Shawanoes and Delawares who desired to settle there, a tract of land about twenty miles square, "lying between the River St. Come and Cape Geredeau, and bounded on the east by the Mississippi, and westwardly by White Water."

The Delawares removed from the tract in 1815; the Shawnees removed from their first location near the cape, and again removed as white settlers encroached on their lands, until, by the treaty of November 7, 1825, they relinquished all title to their Missouri lands, and removed to their reservation in what is now the State of Kansas. In 1831, a treaty was concluded with the Ohio Shawnees, giving them a certain sum for their improvements in that State, and land contiguous to the Missouri Shawnees in Indian Territory. A portion of the tribe removed in 1832; the remainder, in the fall of the following year.

The good results of the habits of thrift and industry which these Shawnees had acquired, aided and encouraged by the influence of the missionaries, who soon settled among them in their new location, were, after a few years, apparent in the comparatively comfortable houses and the well-cultivated fields which multiplied on their reservation.

An act was passed in 1853, granting the Ohio Shawanoes $66,000 additional compensation for their improvements in that State--twenty years after their removal. This sum was paid to the Ohio band at their reservation in Kansas.

On May 10, 1854, the tribe ceded to the United States the entire tract set apart for them November 7, 1825, and conveyed to the tribe by deed, May 11, 1844, containing about 1,600,000 acres, and by a provision of the same treaty, the United States retroceded to the tribe "200,000 acres to be selected between the Missouri State line and a line parallel thereto and west of the same thirty miles distant, which parallel line shall be drawn from the Kansas River to the southern boundary line of the country herein ceded."

Three sections of land were to be set apart to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church South; 320 acres to the Friends' Shawnee Labor School; 160 acres to the American Baptist Missionary Union; five acres to the Shawnee Methodist Church; and two acres to the Shawnee Baptist Church--all to be considered a part of the retroceded 200,000 acres. The residue of the tract was to be divided, each individual receiving 200 acres, to be deeded in fee simple, and whatever remained to be set apart for any other Shawnees who might thereafter unite with the tribe.

The privilege of selecting lands extended to every head of a family who, though not a Shawnee, had legally married into the nation, according to their customs, all persons adopted into the tribe, all minor orphan children of Shawnees, and all incompetent persons, to have selections made adjacent to their friends and relatives.

Other provisions were as follows: "In the settlement known as Black Bob's Settlement, in which he has an improvement, whereon he resides, and in that known as Long Tail's Settlement, in which he has an improvement, whereon he resides, there are a number of Shawnees who desire to hold their lands in common; it is therefore agreed that all Shawnees, including the persons adopted as aforesaid, incompetent persons, and minor children who reside in said settlements, and all who shall, within sixty days after the approval of the surveys hereinafter provided for by the United States, signify their election to join either of said communities and reside with them, shall have a quantity of land assigned and set off to them in a compact body, at each of settlements aforesaid, equal to 200 acres to each individual in each of said communities."

"Piqua Shawnee"

Piqua Shawnee

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

Shawnee Indians - West Virginia

https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/383

Williams, John Alexander "Shawnee." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 29 October 2010. Web. 26 September 2018.

The Shawnees were the southernmost of the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the eastern woodlands; hence their name, which derives from ‘‘southerner’’ in these languages. Originally centered in the mid-Ohio Valley, they descended, according to some archeologists, from the pre-historic Fort Ancient culture whose remains have been found in the Kanawha Valley, among other places. But they left this homeland during the 17th century, presumably in response to Iroquois attacks during the Beaver Wars, and were recorded by Europeans in such widely separated locations as Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. A Shawnee companion of the French explorer, Robert Cavelier de la Salle, even traveled to Paris. The Shawnees entered frontier annals on a regular basis after Quaker missionaries found some of them living on Pequa Creek near present Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1692.

It is possible that the 17th century record represents the separate wanderings of the Shawnee’s principal divisions—Chalakaatha, Mequashake, Pekowi, Hathawikila, and Kishpoko—since the divisions traditionally lived in separate village clusters and were only loosely confederated. European transcriptions of these names in places such as Chillicothe and Piqua, Ohio, Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and Pickaway, West Virginia, testify to some of these wanderings. Thus it was the Pekowi who began the Shawnee return to the Ohio Valley when they moved from eastern to western Pennsylvania in 1728. By 1750, some 1,200 Shawnee were living in villages along the Ohio River, from which they launched attacks against the Virginia frontier during the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebellion. Later they moved their villages to the Scioto River in southern Ohio, and after their defeat in Lord Dunmore’s War they moved again to the Miami River headwaters in southwest Ohio. They consistently claimed Virginia west of the Alleghenies to be their hunting lands, along with most of Kentucky. They also denied the right of the Iroquois to dispose of this territory, as the Iroquois did in land sales to colonial governments in 1744 and 1768.

Under the influence of a nativist religious revival first preached by the Delaware prophet Neolin, Shawnees took the lead in defending the Ohio country from the white advance across the Appalachians in Western Virginia and Kentucky and also sent emissaries to other tribes to preach the necessity of Indian unity. These efforts suffered a temporary setback with the Shawnee defeat in Dunmore’s War, but they continued during the American Revolution. During 1775–76, the Mequashake Shawnees led by Cornstalk adopted a neutralist position between the British and the rebel colonists, but members of other Shawnee bands formed war parties on their own or in concert with Mingos and militant Delawares. When Cornstalk was imprisoned and then murdered at Fort Randolph in 1777, the Mequashake joined the other bands in general warfare all along the frontier. White settlements along the Ohio, in the Kanawha Valley, and in Kentucky bore the brunt of these attacks, which continued through 1782, culminating in the famous second siege of Fort Henry at Wheeling in September of that year.

The Shawnees, along with other Indians resident in Ohio, were outraged when the British accepted Virginia’s claim to the territory between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and ceded this territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, following the Revolution. Disputing the validity of the British cession, Shawnee militants urged the other Ohio tribes and also the Cherokees to fight on. Assaults on the frontier and on white settlers traveling the Ohio River multiplied after 1786 and continued into the early 1790s. Though Euro-American beachheads were established in 1788 north of the Ohio at Marietta and Cincinnati, native resistance succeeded in defeating armies sent against their villages in 1790 and 1791. Only after a combined force of regular troops and militia commanded by Gen. Anthony Wayne defeated a Shawnee-led Indian force at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in northwest Ohio in 1794 did the militants agree to give up their Ohio lands.

The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 cleared the way for white settlement on both banks of the Ohio and ended the threat of raids in what is now West Virginia. Even then, however, the militant Shawnee spirit remained unconquered. In the early 19th century, a new revitalization movement spread under the leadership of the prophet Tenskwatawa and his warrior brother Tecumseh. This movement was centered in new Shawnee villages in what is now Indiana and did not directly affect West Virginia.


This Article was written by John Alexander Williams

Last Revised on October 29, 2010

Piqua Shawnee

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

"Piqua Shawnee"

Shawnee Indians - Texas

SHAWNEE INDIANS

TSHA - Texas State Historical Association

By Carol A. Lipscomb

 

SHAWNEE INDIANS. The Shawnees were one of many immigrant tribes from the United States who entered Texas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This eastern woodlands tribe originally inhabited the Ohio and Cumberland valleys in what is now Kentucky. Some Shawnee groups drifted farther south into the Piedmont area of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The name Shawnee means "southerner" and identifies the tribe as one of the southernmost members of the Algonkian linguistic family.

The Shawnees moved about in search of game during winters. In the growing season they settled in rather large villages where they raised crops of corn, squash, and beans. The tribe carried on extensive trade in animal skins and salt; production of the latter was a major industry for the Shawnees, who extracted the mineral from the many salt springs in Kentucky. Because building material was abundant in the eastern woodlands, the tribe built permanent houses, called wigwams, and abandoned them when they moved. The wigwams were single-family dwellings made of poles and bark that could easily be constructed in a few days.

Shawnee clothing was made of dressed skins and consisted of a shirt for men and a longer overblouse for women. Both sexes wore leggings and moccasins. Their clothing was often decorated with dyed porcupine quills, bright-colored feathers, and paint.

The Shawnees came into contact with French missionaries, explorers, and fur traders in the mid-seventeenth century. During that same period, southern Shawnees began trading with the Spanish in Florida. By the early eighteenth century, the British were moving into Shawnee territory, and the tribe began a westward migration. During the American Revolution, the Shawnees fought fiercely to retain their hunting grounds, but after 1783 the rapid influx of whites into the trans-Appalachian region scattered them. By the early nineteenth century the tribe was spread from Ohio to Alabama.
Around 1790 a major Shawnee band migrated west of the Mississippi River to the area of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. By 1815 an estimated 1,200 Shawnees were settled there. They were joined by a large band of Delawares, and the two tribes became closely associated. In 1822 a band of the Missouri Shawnees, numbering about 270 families, migrated south into Texas, which was then a part of Mexico. They settled on the south bank of the Red River near Pecan Point. The Texas Shawnees petitioned the Mexican government for land, and in 1824 the governor of Coahuila and Texas, Rafael Gonzales, authorized the legislature to grant the tribe one square mile of land per family along the south bank of the Red River. The Shawnees became allies of the Cherokees and other immigrant tribes living in Texas, and all enjoyed a generally peaceful relationship with Mexican officials and a growing number of Anglo-American settlers. The Shawnees even aided the Mexicans in their war with the Comanches. In 1832 a party of Shawnees, led by chief John Linney, defeated a band of Penateka Comanches at Bandera Pass, west of San Antonio. When Texas became a republic, officials of the new government, under the leadership of President Sam Houston, worked to maintain good relations with the immigrant Indians, including the Shawnees. The tribe and their allies signed a treaty with Texas officials in February 1836. The agreement, however, which granted the Indians a designated tract of land, was never ratified by the Texas Senate. Houston's successor, Mirabeau B. Lamar, saw the immigrant Indians as unauthorized intruders and wanted them removed from Texas. In the summer of 1839, amid rumors of collusion between them and the Mexicans, he provoked the Cherokee War, which ultimately affected all of the immigrant Texas tribes. Lamar sent a message to Linney and the Shawnees asking them to remain neutral in the conflict, and most of the tribe complied with the request.

After the Cherokees were defeated, Shawnee leaders, including Chief Elanie, negotiated a treaty with Texas officials at Nacogdoches. According to its terms, the tribe promised to leave Texas peaceably if they received payment for improvements on their land, deserted crops, and all property left behind. The government agreed to provide transportation and supplies for the relocation. There is some evidence that Texas officials honored those treaty commitments, and by early 1840 most of the Texas Shawnees had moved north of the Red River into Indian Territory. The tribe settled on the Canadian River near the mouth of the Little River and became the nucleus of the present Absentee band of Shawnees. In 1846 they were joined by a large segment of Shawnees who had been forced to leave Kansas. The few scattered Shawnees who remained in Texas after the Cherokee War were consolidated in 1857 with remnants of other tribes on the Brazos Indian Reservation, near the site of present Graham. But the Texas reservation system was shortlived, and in 1859 the reserve Indians, including the Shawnees, were moved to Indian Territory. Those Shawnees joined the Absentee band on the Canadian River. Today many Shawnees still reside in eastern Oklahoma. The Loyal or Cherokee band is centered around White Oak in the northeastern corner of the state. The Absentee band is located in central Oklahoma between Tecumseh and Norman, and the Eastern band lives near Miami. Unlike most tribes now resident in Oklahoma, the Shawnees have managed to preserve to the present day their complete cycle of ceremonial dances and other religious observances.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

H. Allen Anderson, "The Delaware and Shawnee Indians and the Republic of Texas, 1820–1845," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 94 (October 1990).

 

Jerry E. Clark, The Shawnee (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1977).

 

James H. Howard, Shawnee: The Ceremonialism of a Native Indian Tribe and Its Cultural Background (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981).

 

Piqua Shawnee

"Piqua Shawnee"

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

 

Shawnee: Arkansas

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=4749

Shawnee

Among the immigrant Native Americans who lived in territorial Arkansas were several Shawnee communities. They came from Indiana and Missouri at the invitation of the Cherokee after the Treaty of 1817 created the Cherokee Nation on land in the Ozarks between the White and Arkansas rivers. The Shawnee, who built settlements on Crooked Creek and White River, departed after more than a decade of life in Arkansas.

The Shawnee were a large Algonkian-speaking tribe, widely scattered across the eastern woodlands. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the majority of them were living in the area both north and south of the Ohio River. Euro-American settlers from the east brought on years of violence. In a peace treaty in 1774, the Shawnee were forced to cede Kentucky, and the continuing hostilities led some Shawnee in 1779 to move west across the Mississippi River to a large grant south of Ste. Genevieve that had been given by the Spanish government. From that new location, they became familiar with the Ozarks and the western prairies.

After the death of Tecumseh and the collapse of his fight against the United States in 1813, one faction of the Shawnee sought ways to coexist with the Americans, and some saw the migration of the whole tribe to the west as a good strategy. When the Western Cherokee, living in the Ozarks after 1817, became embroiled in skirmishes with the Osage, they invited eastern tribes, including the Shawnee, to move to their land west of the White River. One group, led by Quatawapea, also known as Captain or Colonel Lewis, settled on the White River, with their major town at Shawneetown, a location that later became Yellville (Marion County).

As guests of the Cherokee, the Shawnee were part of a larger group of immigrants into the White River Valley, a group that included the Delaware, Piankashaw, Miami, and other Indian groups. If they ever participated with the Cherokee in military campaigns against the Osage, the documents do not record it. No recorded instances exist of hostilities between the Shawnee and the American settlers, although the latter petitioned Washington for a military garrison for protection. In later years, several of the early settlers wrote their memoirs of that time, and they included several accounts of unpleasant encounters between the two groups, as well as visits to the Shawnee Green Corn ceremonies, hunting together, and a Shawnee-American marriage.

In 1828, the Western Cherokee entered a new treaty arrangement with the United States in which their Ozark holdings were traded for land in Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. They soon moved west and established Tahlequah, where the Cherokee tribal government remains today. Their Indian guests, left as squatters on government land, also moved away from Arkansas during the next few years. By 1833, the Shawnee had gone to Texas and Indian Territory, and the Ozark land was again open to American settlers. Modern Shawnee have few records of the Arkansas period in their complex history.

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

Foreman, Grant. Indians and Pioneers: The Story of the American Southwest before 1830. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1930.

Ingenthron, Elmo. Indians of the Ozark Plateau. Point Lookout, MO: School of the Ozarks Press, 1970.

Jeffery, A. C. Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Early Settlement of the Valley of White River Together with a History of Izard County. Edited by Dale Hanks. Richmond, VA: The Jeffery Historical Society, 1973.

Johnston, James J. “Searcy County Indians in Tradition and History.” Mid-America Folklore 12 (Spring 1984): 24–31.

Lankford, George E. “Shawnee Convergence: Immigrant Indians in the Ozarks.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58 (Winter 1999): 390–413.

Sugden, John. Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1997.

Turnbo, Silas C. Turnbo’s Tales of the Ozarks: Schools, Indians, Hard Times and More Stories. Edited by Desmond Walls Allen. Conway, AR: Arkansas Research, 1987.

George E. Lankford
Batesville, Arkansas

Last Updated 6/21/2010

"Piqua Shawnee"

Piqua Shawnee

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

History Of The Shawnee: Part 2

PART 2:

As published in the Official Newsletter of the Piqua Shawnee (Fall 2018)

By Barbara Lehmann, Piqua Shawnee Tribal Historic Preservation Officer

 

Barbara’s History Corner:

Here is an article from Access Geneology (1/13/15):

On De l’Isle’s map, also, we find the Savannah River called “R.des Chouanons,” with the “Chaouanons” located upon bothbanks in its middle course. As to Gallatin’s statement that the name of the Savannahs is dropped after Lawson’s mention in 1701, we learn from numerous references, from old records, in Logan’s Upper South Carolina, published after Gallatin’s time, that all through the period of the French and Indian war, 50 years after Lawson wrote, the “Savannahs” were constantly making inroads on the Carolina frontier, even to the vicinity of Charleston. They are described as “northern savages” and friends of the Cherokee, and are undoubtedly the Shawnee. In

1749 Adair, while crossing the middle of Georgia, fell in with a strong party of “the French Shawano,” who were on their way, under Cherokee guidance, to attack the English traders near Augusta. After committing some depredations they escaped to the Cherokee. In another place he speaks of a party of “Shawano Indians,” who, at the instigation of the French, had attacked a frontier settlement of Carolina, but had been taken and imprisoned. Through a reference by Logan it is found that these prisoners are called Savannahs in the records of that period. In 1791 Swan mentions the “Savannas” town among the Creeks, occupied by “Shawanese refugees.” Having shown that the Savannah and the Shawnee are the same tribe, it remains to be seen why and when they removed from South Carolina to the north. The removal was probably owing to dissatisfaction with the English setters, who seem to have favored the Catawba at the expense of the Shawnee. Adair, speaking of the latter tribe, says they had formerly lived on the Savannah River, “till by our foolish measures they were forced to withdraw northward in defense of their, freedom.” In another place he says, “by our own misconduct we twice lost the Shawano Indians, who have since proved very hurtful to our colonies in general.” The first loss referred to is probably the withdrawal of

the Shawnee to the north, and the second is evidently their alliance with the French in consequence of the encroachments of the English in Pennsylvania.

Their removal from South Carolina was gradual, beginning about 1677 and continuing at intervals through a period of more than 30 years. The ancient Shawnee villages formerly on the sites of Winchester, Virginia, and Oldtown, near Cumberland, Maryland, were built and occupied probably during this migration. It was due mainly to their losses at the hands of the Catawba, the allies of the English, that they were forced to abandon their country on the Savannah; but after the reunion of the tribe in the north they pursued their old enemies with unrelenting vengeance until the Catawba were almost exterminated. The hatred cherished by the Shawnee toward the English is shown

by their boast in the Revolution that they had killed more of that nation than had any other tribe.

The first Shawnee seem to have removed from South Carolina in 1677 or 1678, when, according to Drake, about 70 families established themselves on the Susquehanna adjoining the Conestoga in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, at the mouth of Pequea creek. Their village was called Pequea, a form of Piqua. The Assiwikales (Hathawekela) were a part of the later migration. This, together with the absence of the Shawnee names Chillicothe and Mequachake east of the Alleghanies, would seem to show that the Carolina portion of the tribe belonged to the first named divisions. The chief of Pequea was Wapatha, or Opessah, who made a treaty with Penn at Philadelphia in 1701, and more than 50 years afterward the Shawnee, then in Ohio, still preserved a copy of this treaty. There is no proof that they had a part in Penn’s first treaty in 1682.

In 1694, by invitation of the Delawares and their allies, another large party came from the south probably from Carolina and settled with the Munsee on the Delaware, the main body fixing themselves at the mouth of Lehigh river, near the present Easton, Pennsylvania, while some went as far down as the Schuylkill. This party is said to have numbered about 700, and they were several months on the journey. Permission to settle on the Delaware was granted by the Colonial government on condition of their making peace with the Iroquois, who then received them as “brothers,” while the Delawares acknowledged them as their “second sons,” i. e. grandsons. The Shawnee today refer to the Delawares as their grandfathers. From this it is evident that the Shawnee were never conquered by the Iroquois, and, in fact, we find the western band a few years previously assisting the Miami against the latter. As the Iroquois, however, had conquered the lands of the Conestoga and Delawares, on which the Shawnee settled, the former still claimed the prior right of domain. Another large part of the Shawnee probably left South Carolina about 1707, as appears from a statement made by Evans in that year 5, which shows that they were then hard pressed in the south. He says: “During our abode at Pequehan [Pequea] several of the Shaonois Indians from ye southward came to settle here, and were admitted so to do by Opessah, with the governor’s consent, at the same time an Indian, from a Shaonois town near Carolina came in and gave an account that four hundred and fifty of the flat headed Indians [Catawba] had besieged them, and that in all probability the same was taken.

To Be Continued

Piqua Shawnee

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

"Piqua Shawnee"

https://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/shawnee-indians.htm

https://www.google.com/

History Of The Shawnee: Part 1

PART 1
As published in the Official Newsletter of the Piqua Shawnee (Summer 2018)

By Barbara Lehmann, Piqua Shawnee Tribal Historic Preservation Officer

Barbara’s History Corner:

Here is an article from Access Geneology (1/13/15):

The history of the Shawnee begins in 1669-70. They were then living in two bodies at a

considerable distance apart, and these two divisions were not fully united until nearly a century later, when the tribe settled in Ohio. The attempt to reconcile conflicting statements without a knowledge of this fact has occasioned much of the confusion in regard to the Shawnee. The apparent anomaly of a tribe living in two divisions at such a distance from each other is explained when we remember that the intervening territory was occupied by the Cherokee, who were at that time the friends of the Shawnee. The evidence afforded by the mounds shows that the two tribes lived together for a considerable period, both in South Carolina and in Tennessee, and it is a matter of history that the Cherokee claimed the country vacated by the Shawnee in both states after the removal of the latter to the north. It is quite possible that the Cherokee invited the Shawnee to settle upon their eastern frontier in order to serve as a barrier against the attacks of the Catawba and other enemies in that direction. No such necessity existed for protection on their northwestern frontier.

The earliest notices of the Carolina Shawnee represent them as a warlike tribe, the enemies of the Catawba and others, who were also the enemies of the Cherokee. In Ramsey’s Annals of Tennessee is the statement, made by a Cherokee chief in 1772, that 100 years previously the Shawnee, by permission of the Cherokee, removed from Savannah River to the Cumberland, but were afterward driven out by the Cherokee, aided by the Chickasaw, in consequence of a quarrel with the former tribe. While this tradition does not agree with the chronological order of Shawnee occupancy in the two regions, as borne out by historical evidence, it furnishes additional proof that the Shawnee occupied territory upon both rivers, and that this occupancy was by permission of the Cherokee.

De l’Isle’s map of 1700

De l’Isle’s map of 1700 places the “Ontouagannha.” which here means the Shawnee, on the headwaters of the Santee and Pedee rivers in South Carolina, while the “Chiouonons” are located on the lower Tennessee River. Senex’s map of 1710 locates a part of the “Chaouenons” on the headwaters of a stream in South Carolina, but seems to place the main body on the Tennessee. Moll’s map of 1720 has “Savannah Old Settlement” at the mouth of the Cumberland, showing that the term Savannah was sometimes applied to the Western as well as to the eastern band.

The Shawnee of South Carolina, who included the Piqua and Hathawekela divisions of the tribe, were known to the early settlers of that state as Savannahs, that being nearly the form of the name in use among the neighboring Muskhogean tribes. A good deal of confusion has arisen from the fact that the Yuchi and Yamasee, in the same neighborhood, were sometimes also spoken of as Savannah Indians. Bartram and Gallatin particularly are confused upon this point, although, as is hardly necessary to state, the tribes are entirely distinct. Their principal village, known as Savannah Town, was on Savannah River, nearly opposite the present Augusta, Ga. According to a writer of 1740 it was at New Windsor, on the north bank of Savannah River, 7 miles below Augusta. It was an important trading point, and Ft Moore was afterward built upon the site. The Savannah river takes its name from this tribe, as appears from the statement of Adair, who mentions the “Savannah river, so termed on account of the Shawano Indians having formerly lived there,” plainly showing that the two names are synonyms for the same tribe. Gallatin says that the name of the river is of Spanish origin, by which he probably means that it refers to “savanas,” or prairies, but as almost all the large rivers of the Atlantic slope bore the Indian names of the tribes upon their banks, it is not likely that this river is an exception, or that a Spanish name would have been retained in an English colony. In 1670, when South Carolina was first settled, the Savannah were one of the principal tribes southward from Ashley River. About 10 years later they drove back the Westo, identified by Swanton as the Yuchi, who had just previously nearly destroyed the infant settlements in a short but bloody war. The Savannah seem to have remained at peace with the whites, and in 1695, according to Gov. Archdale, were “good friends and useful neighbors of the English.” By a comparison of Gallatin’s paragraph with Lawson’s statements from which he quotes, it will be seen that he has misinterpreted the earlier author, as well as misquoted the tribal forms.

Lawson traveled through Carolina in 1701, and in 1709 published his account, which has passed through several reprints, the last being in 1860. He mentions the “Savannas” twice, and it is to be noted that in each place he calls them by the same name, which, however, is not the same as any one of the three forms used by Gallatin in referring to the same passages. Lawson first mentions them in connection with the Congaree as the “Savannas, a famous, warlike, friendly nation of Indians, living to the south end of Ashley River.” In another place he speaks of “the Savanna Indians, who formerly lived on the banks of the Messiasippi, and removed thence to the head of one of the rivers of South Carolina, since which, for some dislike, most of them are removed to live in the quarters of the Iroquois or Sinnagars [Seneca], which are on the heads of the rivers that disgorge themselves into the bay of Chesapeak.” This is a definite statement, plainly referring to one and the same tribe, and agrees with what is known of the Shawnee.

(to be continued)

Piqua Shawnee

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

https://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/shawnee-indians.htm

Bluejacket Carved Walking Stick

Walking Stick

Shawnee tribal leader Charles Bluejacket carved this walking stick for his friend Charles Boles, a Methodist missionary, in the mid- to late-19th century. The two met in Kansas in the early 1850s, when the church assigned Boles to preach to the Shawnee tribe.

A deep friendship took root between two men in the wilds of Kansas. Their bond spanned the differences of culture and race, and lasted a lifetime. Today we often think of encounters between whites and American Indians on the frontier as tense, even violent. This was not always the case. The likelihood that individuals would get along depended on their personalities and as well as the circumstances under which they interacted. In this regard, Bluejacket and Boles may have been predisposed to friendship. Both men were deeply religious. They fathered large families, and lived respectable lives by European-American standards.

Charles Bluejacket came to Kansas as a youth after a treaty with the United States government removed the Shawnees from Ohio and Missouri. His grandfather was the famous chief Bluejacket, and his grandmother probably was white. Charles was familiar with Indian missions, having attended a Quaker school in Ohio. In Kansas, he completed his education at another mission school. He married, became a successful farmer and interpreter for the federal government, and began leading a prayer group.

Charles Boles converted to Methodism as a young man in Missouri and was ordained an elder in 1851. The following year he was assigned to the Shawnee Indian Mission School in present-day Kansas City. It was during his six-year ministry to the tribe that he became friendly with Bluejacket.

Shawnee Methodist Mission

Conditions were primitive at many frontier missions, but not at Shawnee Indian Mission. The Methodist church considered it an exemplary site, as did the federal government (a major funding source). At its height, the mission occupied almost 2,000 acres, much of it farmland. Its grounds had brick schoolhouses and dormitories, workshops, and farm buildings. Because the Methodists used "circuit riders" (traveling ministers) to spread the gospel, Shawnee Mission was Boles' headquarters, although he spent most days in the field ministering to his flock.

Details on the friendship between Boles and Bluejacket are spotty, but the two men obviously saw each other frequently and perhaps even rode the circuit together. One early visitor to the area noted that he met Bluejacket and Boles at another missionary's home in 1857. The Methodist conference minutes for this time period record that Boles was "assisted" by Bluejacket and others in building the church rolls to about 100 Shawnees.

The six years Boles preached to the Shawnee tribe coincided with the Bleeding Kansas era, when violence exploded along the Kansas-Missouri border. It became extremely difficult to accomplish any missionary work. The Methodist conference minutes for this period note, "There was comparatively little done from 1855 to 1865. During these perilous years Bro. Boles stood almost alone." Almost alone, but not quite. His friend Bluejacket had become an ordained minister in 1859. When war made it impossible for whites to preach at Shawnee Mission, Bluejacket became missionary in charge.

A number of mission schools closed during the Civil War, including Shawnee Mission. Methodists continued to preach to the tribes remaining in Kansas, but most American Indians were removed to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) shortly after the war. Boles began preaching to non-Indian Methodists in eastern Kansas. Bluejacket became a prosperous farmer, despite the fact that many of his fellow tribesmen had moved south. An 1874 county atlas describes his "beautiful farm" and house "furnished in a style that would do credit to many of our wealthy people."

Bluejacket eventually joined his tribesmen in Indian Territory, but before he left he made this elaborate walking stick for Boles. Its carved figures include at least two motifs from the pillars of an early Shawnee council-house in Kansas--a rattlesnake and a turtle, the latter being prominent in Shawnee creation mythology. View a close-up of the turtle carving. The walking stick was passed down in the Boles family until the Kansas State Historical Society acquired it in 2009. It is in the collections of the Society's Kansas Museum of History.

https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/walking-stick/10388

Entry: Walking Stick
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: July 2009
Date Modified: December 2014

Piqua Shawnee
Piqua Shawnee Tribe

The War of 1812 in Alabama and the Creek War, 1813-1814

The War of 1812 took place while Alabama was part of the Mississippi Territory. Alabama was involved primarily because of a civil war between the Creek Indians.

Causes:
The Federal Road divided the traditional Upper Creeks from more assimilated Lower Creeks.

• Creek ownership of traditional lands was endangered as land-hungry whites moved across it or settled illegally on it.
• The British sent Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, from the Great Lakes to unite all Indians against white Americans and form an alliance with England and Spain.
• England and Spain incited the Creeks against American settlers and supplied Creeks with guns and ammunition.

Battles raged on the frontier between Creek "Red Sticks" and American militia led by General Andrew Jackson. The last and most famous battle, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (now a National Military Park) destroyed the strength of the Creek Nation. General Jackson forced the Creeks to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, ceding some forty thousand square miles of land to the United States.
Consequences:

• Foreign influence among Indians was destroyed.
• United States took Mobile from Spain, the only additional land acquired in War of 1812.
• The Fort Jackson Treaty, acquiring Creek lands, began a series of forced land-cession treaties by the United States with other southern tribes until all were removed west.
• General Andrew Jackson became a national hero for defeating the Creeks, a victory that helped pave his way to become President of the United States.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Halbert, Henry S. and Timothy H. Ball. The Creek War of 1813-1814. 1895. Reprints, edited, with introductions and notes, by Frank L. Owsley Jr., Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1969 and 1995.
In vivid detail, Halbert and Ball recount everything they could find about this conflict. The names of participants (their ancestors and children), locations of battles with full descriptions of gory scenes, and comments on accounts of informants and other writers make this a wonderful source. Students will find textbook accounts of the Fort Mims massacre pale compared to this one. The question of what caused the Creek conflict, whether it was a civil war brought on by factionalism between Lower Creeks and Upper Creeks, is debated.

Holland, James W. Andrew Jackson and the Creek: Victory at the Horseshoe. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1968. Reprint, 1990.
This fifty-page booklet, published to promote Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, offers a concise story of the events that brought an end to the Creek Nation in the South. Students will enjoy this well-illustrated, lively account.

Martin, Joel W. Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.Martin approaches the history of the Muskogees (Creeks) from a religious point-of-view. According to his theory, their "culture of the sacred" determined how they interacted with and reacted to Europeans and, later, Americans. To support his theory, he discusses their spiritual, economic, and social background. He compares their revolt against the Americans in the Creek War with struggles of other native Americans to retain their traditions. It is an interesting theory that can provide an introduction to the religious beliefs of the Creeks.

Wright, J. Leitch Jr. Creeks and Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

The names Creek and Seminole were attached to the Muscogulge people for the convenience of European and U.S. governments who wanted to address nations. The Muscogulge lived in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida—geographically close, but not unified under one leader. Although some had ancient common origins, many spoke different languages and often could not understand each other. Wright explains the background of the Muscogulges and describes their culture in language readily understood. He defines words that he believes might be unfamiliar to the general reader. He elaborates on familiar topics such as trade, relations with European powers and the U.S. government, the Creek Wars with Andrew Jackson and his pursuit of the survivors into Florida, and finally removal, dispersal, and survival. This book is an enlightening inside view of the Muscogulges' heroic struggle for survival; it is also an indictment of the U.S. Government.

Piqua Shawnee
Piqua Shawnee Tribe

http://www.archives.alabama.gov/results.html?q=shawnee

Nonhelema Hokolesqua (Cornstalk's Sister) c. 1718–1786

Nonhelema Hokolesqua (Cornstalk's Sister)^[1] (c. 1718–1786) Born in 1718 into the Chalakatha (Chilliothe) division of the Shawnee nation, spent her early youth in Pennsylvania. Her brother Cornstalk, and her metis mother Katee accompanied her father Okowellos to the Alabama country in 1725. Their family returned to Pennsylvania with in five years. In 1734 she married her first husband, a Chalakatha chief. By 1750 Nonhelema was a Shawnee chieftess^[1] during the 18th century and the sister of Cornstalk, with whom she migrated to Ohio and founded neighboring villages.
Nonhelema, known as a warrior, stood nearly six feet, six inches(198 cm).^[2] Some called her "The Grenadier" or "The Grenadier Squaw", due to the large height of 18th-century grenadiers.
Nonhelema had three husbands. The first was a Shawnee man.^[3] The third was Shawnee Chief Moluntha.^[2] She had a son, Thomas McKee, through her relationship with Indian agent Colonel Alexander McKee and another son, Captain Butler/Tamanatha, through her relationship with Colonel Richard Butler.
Nonhelema was present at the Battle of Bushy Run in 1764. She and her brother, Cornstalk, supported neutrality when their land became the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War. In Summer 1777, Nonhelema warned Americans that parts of the Shawnee nation had traveled to Fort Detroit to join the British.^[4] Following Cornstalk's 1777 murder at Fort Randolph, Nonhelema continued to support the Americans, warning both Fort Randolph and Fort Donnally of impending attacks. She dressed Philip Hammond and John Pryor as Indians so they could go the 160 miles to Fort Donnally to give warning. In retribution, her herds of cattle were destroyed. Nonhelema led her followers to the Coshocton area, near Lenape Chief White Eyes.^[4] In 1780, Nonhelema served as a guide and translator for Augustin de La Balme in his campaign to the Illinois country.^[2]
In 1785, Nonhelema petitioned Congress for a 1,000-acre grant in Ohio, as compensation for her services during the American Revolutionary War. Congress instead granted her a pension of daily rations, and an annual allotment of blankets and clothing.^[2]
Nonhelema and Moluntha were captured by General Benjamin Logan in 1786. Moluntha was killed by an American soldier, and Nonhelema was detained at Fort Pitt. While there, she helped compile a dictionary of Shawnee words.^[2] She was later released, but died in December 1786.^[2]

References

• McEuen, Melissa A. (2015). Kentucky Women Their Lives and Times. Athens, Georgia 30602: The University of Georgia Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0-8203-4453-9.
• Cook, Bernard A. (ed); Gundersen, Joan (2006). Women and war: a historical encyclopedia from antiquity to the present. ABC-CLIO. p. 434. ISBN 9781851097708. Retrieved 29 Nov 2011.
• Winkler, John F (2011). Wabash 1791. St. Clair's defeat. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-84908-676-9.
• Nash, Gary B. (2006). The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. London: Penguin Books. p. 255. ISBN 978-0-14-303720-0. Retrieved 28 Nov 2011.
• "Fiction Review - Warrior Woman: The Exceptional Life Story of Nonhelema, Shawnee Indian Woman Chief". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 27 November 2011.

Foster, Ann (November 22, 2016). "With death on the line, Timeless forges new ground". ScreenerTV.com. Retrieved November 29, 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonhelema
Piqua Shawnee
Piqua Shawnee Tribe

The Treay of Greenville

The Treaty of Greenville was signed on August 3, 1795, at Fort Greenville, now Greenville, Ohio; it followed negotiations after the Native American loss at the Battle of Fallen Timbers a year earlier. It ended the Northwest Indian War in the Ohio Country and limited strategic parcels of land to the north and west. The parties to the treaty were a coalition of Native American tribes, known as the Western Confederacy, and United States government represented by General Anthony Wayne for local frontiersmen. The treaty is considered "the beginning of modern Ohio history."^[1]
The treaty established what became known as the Greenville Treaty Line, which was for several years a boundary between Native American territory and lands open to European-American settlers. The latter frequently disregarded the treaty line as they continued to encroach on Native American lands.

1805 map showing western "Indian Boundary" between Port William and Fort Recovery, as well as the northern "Gen Wayne Treaty 1793" boundary between Fort Recovery and the Muskingum River near Salem. Much of the land east and south of these boundaries was open to settlement after the Treaty of Greenville.[/caption]

The treaty line began at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in present-day Cleveland and ran south along the river to the portage between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers, in what is now known as the Portage Lakes area between Akron and Canton. The line continued down the Tuscarawas to Fort Laurens near present-day Bolivar.

From there, the line ran west-southwest to near present-day Fort Loramie on a branch of the Great Miami River. From there, the line ran west-northwest to Fort Recovery, on the Wabash River near the present-day boundary between Ohio and Indiana. From Fort Recovery, the line ran south-southwest to the Ohio River at a point opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River in present-day Carrollton, Kentucky.

The treaty also established the "annuity" system of payment in return for Native American cessions of land east of the treaty line: yearly grants of federal money and supplies of calico cloth to Native American tribes. This institutionalized continuing government influence in tribal affairs, giving outsiders considerable control over Native American life.^[2]

In exchange for goods to the value of $20,000 (such as blankets, utensils, and domestic animals), the Native American tribes ceded to the United States large parts of modern-day Ohio, the future site of downtown Chicago,^{[nb 1][4]} the Fort Detroit area, the Maumee, Ohio Area,^[5] and the Lower Sandusky, Ohio Area.^[6]

The United States was represented by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who led the victory at Fallen Timbers. Other Americans at the treaty include William Wells, William Henry Harrison, William Clark, Caleb Swan, and Meriwether Lewis.^[7]

Native American leaders who signed the treaty included leaders of these bands and tribes: Wyandot chiefs Tarhe, Leatherlips, and Roundhead (Wyandot), Delaware (Lenape; several bands). Shawnee, Chief Blue Jacket, Ottawa (several bands), Chippewa, Potawatomi (several bands), Miami (several bands), Chief Little Turtle, Wea, Kickapoo, and Kaskaskia.^[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Greenville
Piqua Shawnee
Piqua Shawnee Tribe

Weyapiersenwah (ca. 1743-1810) / Blue Jacket

From Ohio History Central

Chief Blue Jacket

Weyapiersenwah (ca. 1743-1810), also spelled Wehyehpiherhsehnwah and commonly referred to by his English name Blue Jacket, was a prominent military leader of the Shawnee. During the Northwest Indian Wars (1785-1795), Blue Jacket and Miami Chief Little Turtle led an American Indian alliance against United States military forces in the Ohio Country, which included members of many tribes with villages in Ohio, including the Shawnee, Miami (Myaamia), Wyandotte, Delaware (Lenape), Ottawa, Potawatomis, Ojibwes, and small numbers of Cherokee and Seneca-Cayuga Tribes.
The first sources mentioning Blue Jacket date to his being a prominent war chief, leaving his early life up to speculation. However, Blue Jacket was born during a time marked by regular, bloody skirmishes between the American Indians and Anglo-American settlers. During the 1740s, Ohio tribes previously forced to flee the Ohio Country during the Beaver Wars, a campaign during which the Iroquois fought other American Indian groups, including those in the Ohio Country, for their lands and territories in order to gain access to new beaver populations, were returning to what we refer to today as Ohio. The most notable of these tribes was the Shawnee, and by the time Blue Jacket was a young boy, the Shawnee’s re-settlement in the Ohio Country was fully underway. The British and French desired the Shawnee’s homeland, and it became disputed “unsettled” territory.

During the early 1760s, Ohio tribes, including the Shawnee, ran out of ammunition and other supplies with which to defend their villages and lands, and began to conduct a series of raids to replenish supplies. It is during this period that Blue Jacket probably gained recognition as a talented warrior. Blue Jacket and the Shawnee allied with the British during the American Revolution (1765-1783) and he led the Shawnee in Lord Dunmore’s War (1774), when the Shawnee and Seneca-Cayuga Tribes unsuccessfully fought to ward off Anglo-American squatters on American Indian lands south of the Ohio River in Virginia. As a result, American Indians there lost their rights to hunt on lands south of the Ohio River. The Shawnee continued to lead the resistance and Blue Jacket rose to prominence.

During the 1790s, Blue Jacket and Little Turtle together led warriors of their American Indian alliance in victory over United States’ forces under the command of Josiah Harmar in 1790, and again in 1791 against Arthur St. Clair. As ordered by President George Washington, St. Clair’s forces fought to force American Indian groups in the Ohio Country off their land. The two leaders led the alliance in an offensive attack on St. Clair’s troops at daybreak and swarmed the camp on the banks of the Wabash. Although Blue Jacket and Little Turtle led the alliance against United States forces, the American Indians suffered a decisive defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers against General Anthony Wayne in 1794. The American Indian’s defeat at Fallen Timbers resulted in leaders of many tribes, after months of deliberation, signing the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, a document which ceded two-thirds of the State of Ohio to the United States—all of southern Ohio and parts of the central and eastern regions.

After the signing of the Treaty of Greenville, although Blue Jacket remained active in public relations efforts, he retired to Wapakoneta, Ohio, where he supplemented his farming and hunting with trade. Blue Jacket’s later successor Tecumseh became a notable warrior during the Northwest Indian Wars and after Blue Jacket’s passing, grew to prominence and continued to lead the alliance during the War of 1812.

It is interesting to note that a story in an 1877 issue of the Ohio State Journal written by journalist Thomas Jefferson Larsh propagated the idea that Blue Jacket was in fact a young, Anglo-American man named Marmaduke van Sweringen who was captured by the Shawnee, probably during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). In the late 1960s, author Allan W. Eckert popularized the theory in his novels. However, chronological disconnects and other inconsistencies in the documented lives of both Blue Jacket and van Sweringen, along with conclusive DNA tests, prove this theory to be false. The results of the DNA tests were published in the September 2006 issue of the Ohio Journal of Science.

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Weyapiersenwah
Piqua Shawnee
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The Piqua Shawnee Tribe

 

Visit the State of Alabama Indian Affairs Commission website for more information

http://aiac.state.al.us/tribes_piquaShawnee.aspx

Early History
The state of Alabama has long been the home of many Shawnee people. In fact, some historians state that perhaps the Shawnee people have inhabited Alabama for a longer period of time than any other geographic region. Some archaeologists set the date of 1685 as the first evidence of Shawnee settlement in Alabama. However, oral tradition states that we have been here much longer than that. Ancient burial sites that use burial methods common to the Shawnee have been located in several sections of the state. Early accounts can be confusing since what is now called Alabama was once a part of Georgia territory. Several early maps show Shawnee settlements in what is now called Alabama.

Early French and English maps show several Shawnee towns in what would be considered Upper Creek territory in Alabama. Some of the most notable were near modern Alabama towns. One village was near present day Talladega and was known in English as Shawnee Town. Another town was near Sylacauga. In 1750 the French took a census mentioning the Shawnee at Sylacauga as well as enumerating another Shawnee town called Cayomulgi, (currently spelled Kyamulga town) that was located nearby. Kiamulgatown was also listed in an 1832 census. A 1761 English census names Tallapoosa Town. This town was also named in a 1792 census by Marbury. There are French military records that mention a Shawnee presence at Wetumpka near Fort Toulouse. In most cases the traders called Alabama Indians “Creeks” because they lived on the numerous creeks and waterways in the area. Many of these “Creeks” were not of the same tribe or nation. Rather they went by a large number of names. Each group maintained their own unique heritage while living side by side with their neighbors.

Piqua Shawnee

Piqua Shawnee Tribe

Tecumseh

Tecumseh, Shawnee

www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Tecumseh

Tecumseh was born in 1768 near Chillicothe, Ohio. His father, Puckshinwau was a minor Shawnee war chief. His mother Methotaske was also Shawnee. Tecumseh came of age during the height of the French and Indian War and in 1774 his father was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore’s War. This had a lasting effect on Tecumseh and he vowed to become a warrior like his father. As a teenager he joined the American Indian Confederacy under the leadership of Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant. Brant encouraged tribes to share ownership of their territory and pool their resources and manpower to defend that territory against encroaching settlers. Tecumseh led a group of raiders in these efforts, attacking American boats trying to make their way down the Ohio River. These raids were extremely successful, nearly cutting off river access to the territory for a time. In 1791 he further proved himself at the Battle of the Wabash as one of the warriors who defeated General Arthur St. Clair and his army. Tecumseh fought under Blue Jacket and Little Turtle and the American Indian Confederacy was victorious slaying 952 of the 1,000 American soldiers in St. Clair’s army. St. Clair was forced to resign. In 1794 Tecumseh also fought in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This decisive conflict against General Anthony Wayne and his American forces ended in a brutal defeat for the American Indian Confederacy. A small contingency of about 250 stayed with Tecumseh after the battle, following him eventually to what would become Prophetstown and a new pan-Indian alliance.

Portrait of the Shawnee military and political leader Tecumseh, ca. 1800-1813. He worked with his brother Tenskwatawa, known as 'The Prophet,' to unite American Indian tribes in the Northwest Territory to defend themselves against white settlers.

Tecumseh’s brother Tenskwatawa joined him at Prophetstown, also known as Tippecanoe in Indiana Territory and in 1808 the two men began recruiting a large multi-tribal community of followers under a message of resistance to settlers, the American government, and assimilation. Tecumseh traveled north to Canada and south to Alabama in an effort to recruit men to his cause. Meanwhile, William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory was negotiating treaties and utilizing American forces to put pressure on those tribes still in Indiana and especially those allied with Prophetstown. In 1809 Harrison, signed the Treaty of Fort Wayne which allotted him a massive amount of American Indian territory thus increasing Tecumseh’s efforts and amplifying his message. Tecumseh was away from Prophetstown on a recruitment journey when Harrison launched a sneak attack now known as the Battle of Tippecanoe. The American forces cleared the encampment and then burned it to the ground. It was a severe blow to the confederacy and a harbinger of war to come.

On June 1, 1812 under the advisement of President Madison, Congress declared war on Great Britain. In the Northwest Territory, American Indian tribes found themselves pulled in two separate directions – side with the British or with the Americans. Tecumseh and his confederacy sided with the British. He and his men were assigned to overtake the city of Detroit with Major General Isaac Brock. The siege of Detroit was a success due in no small part to Tecumseh’s military strategy. He continued to support British efforts under Major-General Procter at the Siege of Fort Meigs. The siege failed and morale waned as a result.

In the fall of 1813 as conditions around Detroit worsened, Procter began a retreat east toward Niagara. Tecumseh requested arms so that his men could stay in the Northwest Territory and continue to defend their lands. Procter agreed to make a stand at the forks of the Thames River. However, when forces reached the site communication broke down and some men deserted while others continued east. When the Americans attacked, large sections of forces broke leaving about 500 hundred American Indians to hold back 3,000 Americans. Tecumseh was fatally wounded in the battle. It is unknown who killed him or what happened to his remains. His death began a rapid decline in American Indian resistance and the War of 1812 is marked as the beginning of removal in the upper Midwest.

Piqua Shawnee
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