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The Shawnee
Some of the Delaware and
Shawnee had crossed the Mississippi in 1793, at the invitation of the
Spanish Government of Louisiana, and had been assigned a reservation at
Cape Girardeau.
It is said that the name of this most remarkable tribe
comes from Shawun, south, or Shawunogi, Southerners. They
lived in South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and other states before coming to Kansas. One of their early homes was on
the Savannah River, which, indeed, took its name from this tribe. They
called themselves Shawano, and “Savannah” is but a corruption of
that form of the name.
The Shawnees were the extreme southern people of the
Algonquian family. It is supposed that they settled on the Savannah at
the invitation of the Cherokees, who placed them next to the Catawba as a
protection from that fierce Siouan people. The Shawnees removed from that
region because of the injustice and discrimination of the English
Colonies. They were made welcome by the Delaware, who assigned them a
home on the Susquehanna, in what is now Lancaster County, Pa. The first
families of this migration arrived about 1678. Others followed for the
next forty years. They were gradually pushed to the westward with other
tribes, and in 1756 they were established on the Ohio, where they became
firm friends and allies of the French.
There was another band of Shawnees—known as the
Western Shawnees. They occupied the valley of the
Cumberland River. They seem never to have lived east of the
Alleghenies. A war broke out between them and the Cherokees.
The Chickasaws were in league with the Cherokees. These
tribes expelled the Shawnees from the Cumberland. They took
refuge on the north bank of the Ohio about 1730. Their towns
which later became famous in pioneer annals were set up by
these Western Shawnees, Sawcunk, Logstown, the Lower Towns
at the mouth of the Scioto, and perhaps others. When the Eastern Shawnees
were driven across the Alleghenies, they found their Western brethren
already seated on the Ohio, and the two divisions of the tribe were merged
into the Shawnees so well known to historians. No other Indians gave the
back settlements of the English so much trouble. For thirty years the
pioneers of Kentucky suffered at their hands. Their towns shifted from the
north bank of the Ohio to the interior waters of what is now the State of
Ohio. From these villages warriors were constantly departing to raid the
Kentucky settlements.
The Shawnees bore important parts in the wars of the
West. They were pushed gradually farther and farther to the westward. It
was the Shawnee Prophet who fought the battle of Tippecanoe. They began to
cross the Mississippi soon after the French and Indian War. At one time
there were hundreds of them around the new post of St. Louis. When the
Spaniards owned Louisiana they feared the Osages, and it was to form a
bumper between themselves and the Osages that caused them to settle the
Shawnees and the Delaware at Cape Girardeau. Bands of both the Shawnees
and the Delaware scattered to the Southwest, some drifting as far as
Texas. When Louisiana came into possession of the United States the
American policy was exercised towards all tribes alike. In 1825, that year
fateful to Indian possessions, the Government made a treaty with these
Western Shawnees, in the preamble of which it is recited that:
Whereas the Shawnee Indians were in possession of a
tract of land near Cape Girardeau, in the State of Missouri, settled under
permission from the Spanish Government, given to the said Shawnees and
Delaware by Baron de Carondelet, on the fourth day of January, one
thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, and recorded in the office of the
Recorder of Land Titles at St. Louis, containing about twenty-five miles
square, which said tract was abandoned by the Delaware, in the year 1815;
and from which the said Shawnees, under assurance of receiving other land
in exchange, did remove, after having made valuable and lasting
improvements on the same, which were taken of by citizens of the United
States, etc.
For the cession of the land above mentioned the
Shawnees were given a tract of land equal to fifty miles square out of the
land then recently ceded by the Osages. This tract was twenty-five miles
north and south by one hundred miles east and west, lying west of the
Missouri and south of the present south line of the State of Kansas. Upon
examination this tract was not satisfactory. The tribe was permitted to
make another selection. The land immediately south of the Kansas River
being then unassigned, the Shawnees chose that as their future home,
relinquishing the tract specifically given them in the treaty. The
accurate description of the lands so selected is set out in the treaty
made with the Shawnees, May 10, 1854. The reservation on the south side of
the Kansas River was estimated to contain sixteen hundred thousand acres
of land. It is one of the most beautiful and fertile tracts in America.
It required some time to settle all the details of
changing the reservations. The treaty had been
made with the Chillicothe division sometimes called the Meremac band,
which, it seems, had crossed the Mississippi at the suggestion of the
Spaniards. The Fish band of this division moved to the new reservation in
1828. A few Shawnees had come the year previous, and the old members of
the tribe have told this author that a few of their people had been living
there some years before the treaty of 1825 was made. Their influence
caused the change in the location of the reservation. It is possible that
this was the real cause of the change. The first Shawnees to arrive
settled on the highlands, in what is now Wyandotte County, and not far
from the present town of Turner. Others came slowly. Some were in
Missouri, some were in Ohio, some were in Arkansas, some in Texas, and
some in what is now Oklahoma. It required ten years to assemble the
tribe—then all did not come. In 1830 some of the Ohio Shawnees came. They
contracted smallpox in St. Louis, the disease spreading to others living
near the present town of Merriam, in Johnson County, and killing many. In
1832 the remainder of the Ohio Shawnees arrived on the Kansas River.
With their coming the tribe was more nearly united than
ever before except when they first gathered on the Upper Ohio. They
suffered secession, however, for about 1845 a large number of the tribe
left the Kansas River reservation and moved to the Canadian, where they
were known as the “Absentee Shawnees.”
The Shawnees occupied only a small portion
of their Kansas River reservation. Few of them ever lived west of
Lawrence. The majority lived in Wyandotte and Johnson counties. The
council-house was erected on the southeast quarter of section two (2),
township twelve (12), range twenty-four (24), near the present town of
Shawnee, Johnson County. It was of logs, but not “chinked and daubed.”
There had been an earlier council-house, a temporary one, a small cabin on
another site, but it was never regarded as the real seat of the Shawnee
government. The missions were near this seat of government. The Prophet,
the most distinguished Shawnee ever in Kansas, had a little settlement on
the fine plateau back of the present town of Argentine. He died within the
limits of the town and is buried there.
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In 1830 the
Methodist Episcopal Church established a mission among the Shawnees.
The first building was probably in section twenty-four (24),
township eleven (11), range twenty-four (24), on the uplands just
east of Turner, in Wyandotte County. With the Fish band in 1828,
came Frederick Chouteau, who set up a |
trading-house on the south side of the Kansas
River immediately north of the present and above mentioned town of
Turner. The mission was given its location because of the proximity
of the trading-house. Chouteau soon became interested in the Kansa
Indian trade, building a post at Horseshoe Lake (now Lakeview), and,
later, at the Kansas Mission, in Shawnee County. The discontinuance
of his trading-post near the Shawnee caused the Methodist Mission to
be moved to what is now Johnson County, some three miles from the
old town of Westport, Mo. Substantial brick buildings were erected
there by Rev. Thomas Johnson, the missionary, a man of superior
parts and especially fitted for his work. The manual-labor school
was on the south-west quarter of section three (3), township twelve
(12), range twenty-five (25). Good schools were maintained, which
were attended by the Shawnee children and by Indian children of
other tribes. This mission was for a time the capital of Kansas
Territory.
The Baptists founded a mission among the Shawnees in
1831. Dr. Johnson Lykins and his wife were appointed missionaries to
the Shawnees through the efforts of Rev. Isaac McCoy. Dr. Lykins put
up a small building on the Missouri side of the State-line, where he
first labored, preaching, and teaching the Shawnee children. In 1832
he erected a mission building on the northeast quarter of section
five (5), township twelve (12), range twenty-four (24). There he
opened his school the same year. On the 13th of July, 1833, Rev.
Moses Merrill and his wife arrived at the mission from Sault St.
Marie to aid in the work among the Shawnees. Later in the same year
Rev. Jotham Meeker and his wife reached the Baptist Shawnee Mission.
They brought with them a Miss C. Brown. Mr. and Mrs. Merrill and
Miss Brown were sent to labor among the Oto, leaving the Shawnee
Mission October 25, 1833. Mr. Meeker brought as a part of his
equipment a small printing press and a quantity of type. By the 10th
of May, 1834, he had printed two books in a system of phonograph of
his own invention for the use of the Indians. On the first day of
March, 1835, the first number of a semi-monthly newspaper was
issued. It was edited by Dr. Lykins and printed at the Shawnee
Mission. This is said to have been the first newspaper ever
published exclusively in an Indian language. It was called the
Shau-wau-nowe Kesauthwau, which in the Shawnee tongue is The
Shawnee Sun. This was the first Kansas newspaper.
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