Shawnee Prophet, 1775?-1837?, Native North American of the Shawnee tribe; brother of Tecumseh. His Native American name was Tenskwautawa. He announced himself as a prophet bearing a revelation from the Native American master of life. The message urged the renunciation of the acquired ways of the whites and the return to Native American modes and customs in all matters. His doctrines were widespread among Native Americans, and his prestige was enhanced when he foretold a solar eclipse in 1806. His influence gave rise to the plan to confederate all the Native Americans in opposition to the whites—a plan that inspired the Creek War of 1813. In 1811 he led the Native American forces in the battle of Tippecanoe. The movement inspired by him provided many recuits for the British in the War of 1812, after which Tenskwatawa retired to Canada with a British pension. He returned to Ohio in 1826 and accompanied his people to Missouri and farther west into Kansas, where he died.

Shawnee or Shawano, Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Their earliest known home was in the present state of Ohio. In the mid-17th cent. part of the tribe was settled in W South Carolina and part in N Tennessee. These two bodies, divided by the Cherokee, migrated constantly, from South Carolina to S New York, then to W Pennsylvania and into Ohio, where they finally united in the mid-18th cent. They then numbered some 1,500. After their reunion in Ohio the warlike Shawnee participated in almost every war of the Old Northwest (see Northwest Territory). By the Treaty of Greenville (1795) they were obliged to give up their lands in Ohio and move to Indiana. About 1800 the Shawnee Prophet (Tenskwatawa) arose. He and his followers, cooperating with Tecumseh, established themselves in a village at the mouth of the Tippecanoe River in Indiana. It was this village that William Henry Harrison destroyed in the battle of Tippecanoe. The Shawnee were thereafter moved to Missouri, to Kansas, and finally to Oklahoma. Today they live on reservations in Oklahoma and Missouri. In 1990 there were over 6,600 Shawnee in the United States.

Shawnee. 1 City (1990 pop. 37,993), Johnson co., NE Kans., a residential suburb of Kansas City; founded 1857, inc. 1922. Consumer goods, lumber, honey, concrete, terra cotta, metal products, and machinery are produced, and farm and dairy products are shipped. The city was the original site of the Shawnee Indian Methodist Mission (1830). A re-creation of an old Shawnee town is in Bluejacket Park.

2 City (1990 pop. 26,017), seat of Pottawatomie co., central Okla., on the North Canadian River; inc. 1894. Shawnee boomed with the discovery of oil there in 1926. The city is the trade and rail center for a rich farm, dairy, and oil area. Electronic goods, machinery, apparel, chemicals, and metal products are manufactured. Shawnee is the seat of Oklahoma Baptist Univ. and St. Gregory's Univ. Art and Native American museums are in the city. Jim Thorpe was born nearby.

Algonquian-speaking North American Indian people from the central Ohio River valley. Closely related in language and culture to the Fox, Kickapoo, and Sauk, the Shawnee were also influenced by the Seneca and Delaware. Traditionally the Shawnee lived in bark-covered houses grouped into large villages near cornfields. Women farmed and the primary male occupation was hunting. In winter the village broke into small patrilineal family groups, which moved to dispersed hunting camps. In the 17th century the Shawnee were driven from their home by the Iroquois and scattered into widely separated areas. After 1725 the Shawnee reunited in Ohio. Following their defeat by Gen. Anthony Wayne (1794), they broke into three independent branches that eventually settled in Oklahoma. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 12,000 individuals of Shawnee descent. Seealso Tecumseh.

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