The Shawnee Indians of Ohio

The Shawnee Indians were a friendly and brave tribe. A male child born to a Shawnee was given a name within ten days. A female child was named within twelve days. The name was either bestowed by a parent or by some trusted friend of the family, called a "conferrer". An "unsoma", or social classification usually determined by the clan into which one was born or adopted, was a chief consideration when the child was named.

The Shawnee Indians were living in the Ohio Valley as early as the late 1600s. The Iroquois Indians were unwilling to share these rich hunting grounds and drove the Shawnees away. Some went to Illinois; others went to Pennsylvania, Maryland or Georgia. As the power of the Iroquois weakened, the Shawnee Indians moved back into Ohio from the south and the east. They settled in the lower Scioto River valley.

The Shawnees spoke one of the languages of the Algonquian Indians, and so they are related to the Delaware and Ottawa Indians.The Shawnee Indians were allies of the French until British traders moved into the Ohio Country in 1740. The French pushed the British out of Ohio and the Shawnees became allies of the French again until the British victory in the French & Indian War . As French trading posts turned into British forts, the Ohio Indians, including the Shawnees, fought the British and their colonists. Cornstalk led the Shawnees against British colonists during Lord Dunmore's War in the early 1770s. During the American Revolution the Shawnees fought alongside the British against the colonists. The Shawnees believed that England would prevent the colonists from encroaching further upon the natives' land. After the war the Indians continued to fight the Americans.

The Shawnees were fierce warriors. They were among the most feared and respected of Ohio's Indians. Tecumseh was their most famous chief.

General Anthony Wayne defeated the Shawnees and other Ohio Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The Shawnees surrendered most of their lands in Ohio with the signing of the Treaty of Greenville