A Little History

ABSENTEE SHAWNEE
1895 Maps of Indian Nations

The Shawnee were formerly a leading tribe with settlements in South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.  Because of both their interior position away from the travel routes of  early days and their migratory habits, little is know of their orgin.  Delaware Indians tradition claims that the Shawnee and the Nanticoke were originally one people; and, while this may or may not be true, Shawnee today refer to the Delaware as their "grandfathers."

Historically, the Shawnee became known around 1670.  At that time they lived in two main bodies at a considerable distanct from each other-one in the Cumberland region of Tennessee and the other on the Savannah River in South Carolina.  During the late 18th Century the two main bodies united in Ohio.  For about 40 years,  until the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.  The Shawnee were almost constantly at war with the English and the Anglo-Americans.  After the death of Tecumeh, their most famous war chief, they lost their taste for war and began to move to their present locations.  One group settled on a reservation in Kansas, another went to Texas to join a band of Cherokee. A third group settled on the Canadian River in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma, just south of the Quapaw Reserve, and are today know as the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.