Removal of the Shawnee and Beyond

Shawnee Removal from Ohio

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Shawnee fought to protect their new Ohio homelands from white settlers from the south and the east.¹Hurt, The Ohio Frontier, 55-57. Treaties such as Fort McIntosh (1785), Greenville (1795), and Treaty of Fort Industry (1805) forced the Shawnee first into smaller sections of Ohio, and then out of Ohio entirely.

During the War of 1812, Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, led an unsuccessful inter-tribal rebellion against the United States. The Treaty of Fort Meigs (1817) placed the Shawnee on three small reservations in western Ohio.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced the Shawnee out of Ohio, and into Kansas and Oklahoma. Today, there are two main Shawnee groups: one who went directly to Oklahoma, and one whom the US forced out of Kansas in 1854 and then merged them with The Cherokee Nation in 1869. 

The Shawnee Today

 In 2000, the Shawnee within the Cherokee Nation separated and became the federally recognized Shawnee Tribe. Recently, the Eastern Shawnee have partnered with the Ohio History Connection to highlight the spiritual significance of the Serpent Mound to Indigenous groups. 

To learn more about the Shawnee, see:

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