Shawnee

The Shawnee ( shaw-NEE) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. The Shawnee precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed throughout Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. In the early 18th century, they were primarily concentrated in eastern Pennsylvania but later that century dispersed again across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, with a small group joining the Muscogee people in Alabama. The Shawnee fought many wars to attempt to stay in their ancestral homelands, first against the British in the French and Indian War (1754–1763), Pontiac's War (1763), and Lord Dunmore's War (1774), then against the Americans in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), and Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812 (1810–1815). After the death of Tecumseh and the end of the War of 1812, the Shawnee signed several treaties ceding land to the U.S. federal government. The U.S. finally removed them under the 1830 Indian Removal Act to areas west of the Mississippi River; these lands would later become the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. They were subsequently removed again to Indian Territory, which became the state of Oklahoma in the early 20th century. Today, Shawnee people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes: the Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and Shawnee Tribe, all headquartered in Oklahoma.