SHAWANO. •sha'vn-nt, or SHAWNEE from shawan, south, or .seiran. pungent, salty). One of the most important tribes of the Algon quian stock (q.v.). The Shawano were formerly noted salt-makers. They carried on an extensive manufacture at the salt springs of southwestern Virginia and traded the product to other tribes. They have thirteen clans, the elan of the indi vidual being indicated by his name. They are also organized into four divisions, which may have been originally distinct, allied tribes—Piqua, Slequachake, Kiscopocoke. and Chillicothe. lo the second of these belonged the hereditary priesthood, but the first was most prominent and apparently most numerons.
The Shawano were of wandering and warlike habit. They appeared first in history about 1070 under the name of Savannahs, and lived upon the middle Savannah River in South Carolina, with their principal village nearly opposite the site of Augusta, Ga., hut before the end of the seventeenth century we find a portion of them, apparently the main body, occupying the basin of the Cum berland River in Tennessee and Kentucky.
The Shawano of Carolina for some time kept on friendly terms with the whites, giving them efficient. aid against the hostile Westo in 1680. but finally, wearied by the encroachments and oppressions of the settlers. were forced to with draw northward. In 1694 almost the whole body of the Carolina Shawano removed north ward and settled upon the Upper Delaware River in the neighborhood of their relatives and friends, the Delaware and Mohican. About thirty years later they again removed to the Susquehanna River, in the neighborhood of the present Wyoming, Pa., where they were joined in 1742 by the Delaware and Munsee, who had been dispossessed by the 'Walking Treaty.' By 1756 the Shawano had made another westward move and joined their brethren on the Upper Ohio, who had come up in the meantime from Tennessee. Up to about 1730 they had still kept up their old village near Augusta, on the Savan nah, from which they were finally driven by the Cherokee.
The western Shawano, of the Cumberland re gion, are first definitely mentioned in the Jesuit Relations of 1648 under the name of Onchauna nag. In 1670, as Chaoaanon, they are described
as living some distance southeast from their friends, the Illinois. From that time their name appears frequently in the records until their expulsion and removal from the Cumber land between 1705 and 1715 in consequence of a war with the Chickasaw and Cherokee. They retired to the Ohio country, where they united with those who had originally conic up from Carolina, establishing their principal villages near the present Piqua and Chillicothe, Ohio. The Shawano took a leading part against the English in the I.'reneh and Indian War and Pontiac's War, and afterwards against the Americans in the Revolution, the Tippecanoe campaign, and the War of 1812. In 1793 a considerable body set tled in Missouri on lands granted by the Spanish Government. The death of Tecumseh broke the spirit of the Ohio tribes, and the war period closed for them with the treaty of peace in 1815. By a rapid series of treaty sales and removals the Shawano were shifted successively, in differ ent bands, to Missouri, Texas. Kansas. and the Indian Territory. Those in Missouri removed to Kansas in 1825 and were joined there by the main body from Ohio in 1831. Some of these, known now as Absentee Shawnee, removed to the Indian Territory about 1845, others followed. and in 1867 the main tribe removed bodily and became incorporated with the Cherokee Nation.
The Shawaiio have always been noted for their strong conservatism. high courage, and superior intellectuality. as exemplified in the life of the great Tecumseh and his brother, the prophet Tenskwatawa. Under the new conditions of civilization they are somewhat behind their In dian neighbors. They probably never numbered more than 2500. They number now altogether about 1500 sour. all in the Indian Territory or Oklahoma. viz.: In Cherokee Nation, about SOO; Absentee Shawnee, 500: Big ,Tim's Band. ISO; Eastern Shawnee. Quapaw Agency, un, with a few others scattering. See TECUMSEH; TEN SKWATAWA.