swanton] EARLY BISTORT OF THE CREEK INDIANS 317 
THE SHAWNEE 
The earliest known home of the Shawnee was on Cumberland 
River. From there some of them moved across to the Tennessee 
and established settlements about the Big Bend. As we have seen, 
Henry Woodward was a witness, in 1674, to what was probably the 
first appearance of members of the tribe on Savannah River. 1 
Although he represents them as settled southwest of that stream near 
the Spaniards, it is more likely that the individuals whom he met 
belonged on the Cumberland, had been to St. Augustine to trade 
with the Spaniards, and were on their return home. Shortly after- 
wards a Shawnee band settled near what is now Augusta, and, as 
already stated, in 1681 x they drove the Westo Indians from that 
neighborhood. In 1708 they had three towns on Savannah River, 
and the number of their men was estimated at 150, 2 but in 1715 a 
more detailed census gives three towns, 67 men, and 233 souls. 3 
Before even the first of these enumerations, however, a part of 
the Shawnee had moved north to join their relatives fr.om the Ohio 
and Cumberland who had settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 
about 1 5 years before. 4 These latter belonged to the Piqua band, and 
the association of the southern Shawnee Indians with them led 
Mooney to state that the Shawnee in Carolina belonged to both the 
Piqua and Hathewekela, 5 but there is no absolute proof of this, and 
it is more likely that all the Piqua came directly from the Cumber- 
land. There is some doubt as to the time when the first Shawnee 
moved from Carolina into Pennsylvania, yet we are able to fix upon 
the probable period. In the first place, Lawson, in his History of 
Carolina, published in 1709, says that the "Savannas Indians" had 
formerly lived on the banks of the Mississippi "and removed thence 
to the head of one of the rivers of South Carolina [the Savannah], 
since which, for some dislike, most of them are removed to live in the 
quarters of the Iroquois or Sinnagars [Seneca], which are on the heads 
of the rivers that disgorge themselves into the bay of Chesapeak." 6 
In June, 1707, Gov. John Evans of Pennsylvania visited the 
Shawnee Indians on the Susquehanna and states that, while he was 
at their village — 
several of the Shawnee Indians from the southward came to settle here, and were 
admitted to so do by Opessah, with the governor's consent; at the same time an 
Indian from a Shawnee town near Carolina came in, and gave an account that 450 of 
the Flat Head (Catawba) Indians had besieged them, .and that in all probability the 
same was taken. Bezallion (a Trader, who acted as interpreter) informed the Governor 
i See p. 307. & Handbook of Amer.Inds., Bull. 30, Bur. Amer. 
»S.C. Pub. Docs.,7, pp. 207-209, MS. Ethn., pt. 2, Article "Shawnee." 
3 Rivers, Hist. S. C, p. 94. s Lawson , Hist. Car., pp. 279-270. 
* Hanna,The Wilderness Trail, i, pp. 119-160. 
