Shawnee
The Shawnee Prophet, Tenskwatawa (1775–1836), c. 1820, portrait by Charles Bird King | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 7,584 enrolled[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| United States (Oklahoma), formerly Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and surrounding states[2][1] | |
| Languages | |
| Shawnee, English | |
| Religion | |
| Indigenous religions | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Miami, Menominee, Cheyenne[3] |
The Shawnee (/ʃɔːˈni/ shaw-NEE) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language.
Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio.[2] In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.[4] In the early 18th century, they mostly concentrated in eastern Pennsylvania but dispersed again later that century across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, with a small group joining Muscogee people in Alabama.[2] In the 19th century, the U.S. federal government forcibly removed them under the 1830 Indian Removal Act to areas west of the Mississippi River; these lands would eventually become the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. Finally, they were removed to Indian Territory, which became the state of Oklahoma in the early 20th century.[2]
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.
- ^ a b Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission. Oklahoma Indian Nations Pocket Pictorial. Archived February 11, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. 2008.
- ^ a b c d Callender, "Shawnee," 623.
- ^ "Algonquian, Algic". Ethnologue. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
- ^ Callender, "Shawnee," 623–24.