BULL. :J0] 



SHAWNEE 



533 



of that period. In 1791 Swan mentions 

 the "Savannas" town among the Creeks, 

 occupied by "Shawanese refugees." 



Having shown that the Savannah and 

 the Shawnee are the same tribe, it re- 

 mains to be seen why and when they 

 removed from South Carolina to the N. 

 The removal was probably owing to dis- 

 satisfaction with the English sett.ers, who 

 seem to have favored the Catawba at the 

 expense of the Shawnee. Adair, speak- 

 ing of the latter tribe, says they had for- 

 merly lived on the Savannah r., "till by 

 our foolish measures they were forced 

 to withdraw northward in defence of 

 their freedom." In another place he 

 says, "by our own misconduct we twice 

 lost the Shawano Indians, who have since 

 proved very hurtful to our colonies in 

 general." The first loss referred to is 

 probably the withdrawal of the Shawnee 

 to the N., and the second is evidently 

 their alliance with the French in conse- 

 quence of the encroachments of the Eng- 

 lish in Pennsylvania. Their removal 

 from Soutii Carolina was gradual, begin- 

 ning about 1677 and continuing at inter- 

 vals through a period of more than 30 

 years. The ancient Shawnee villages for- 

 merly on the sites of Winchester, Va. , and 

 Oldtown, near Cumberland, Md., were 

 built and occupied probably during this 

 migration. It was due mainly to their 

 losses at the hands of the Catawba, the al- 

 lies of the English, that they were forced to 

 abandon their country on the Savannah; 

 but after the reunion of the tril)e in the 

 N. they pursued their old enemies with 

 unrelenting vengeance until the Catawba 

 were almost exterminated. The hatred 

 cherished by the Shawnee toward the 

 English is shown by their boast in the 

 Revolution that they had killed more of 

 that nation than had any other tribe. 



The first Shawnee seem to have re- 

 moved from South Carolina in 1677 or 

 1678, when, according to Drake, about 70 

 families established themselves on the 

 Susquehanna adjoining the Conestoga in 

 Lancaster co. , Pa. , at the mouth of Pequea 

 cr. Their village was called Pequea, a 

 form of Piqua. The Assiwikales (Hatha- 

 wekela) were a part of the later migra- 

 tion. This, together with the absence of 

 the Shawnee names Chillicothe and Me- 

 quachake e. of the Alleghanies, would 

 seem to show that the Carolina portion 

 of the tribe belonged to the first named 

 divisions. The chief of Pequea was Wa- 

 patha, orOpessah, who madeatreaty with 

 Penn at Philadelphia in 1701, and more 

 than 50 years afterward the Shawnee, 

 then in Ohio, still preserved a copy of 

 this treaty. There is no proof that they 

 had a part in Penn's first treaty in 1682. 

 In 1694j by invitation of the Delawares 

 and their allies, another large party came 

 from the S. — probably from Carolina — 



and settled with the Munsee on the Del- 

 aware, the main body fixing themselves 

 at the mouth of Lehigh r., near the pres- 

 ent Easton, Pa., while some went as far 

 down as the Schuylkill. This party is 

 said to have numbered about 700, and they 

 were several months on the journey. 

 Permission to settle on the Delaware was 

 granted by the Colonial government on 

 condition of their making peace with the 

 Iroquois, who then received them as 

 "brothers," while the Delawares ac- 

 knowledged them as their "second sons," 

 i. e. grandsons. The Shawnee to-day re- 

 fer to the Delawares as their grandfathers. 

 From this it is evident that the Shawnee 

 were never conquered by the Iroquois, 

 and, in fact, we find the western band a 

 few years previously assisting the INIiami 

 against the latter. As the Iroquois, how- 

 ever, had conquered the lands of the 

 Conestoga and Delawares, on which the 

 Shawnee settled, the former still claimed 

 the prior right of domain. Another large 

 part of the Shawnee probably left South 

 Carolina about 1707, as appears from a 

 statement made by Evans in that year 

 (Day, Penn, 391, 1843), which shows that 

 they were then hard pressed in the S. 

 He says: "During our abode at Peque- 

 han [Pequea] several of the Shaonois 

 Indians from ye southward came to settle 

 here, and were admitted so to do by 

 Opessah, with the governor's consent, at 

 the same time an Indian, from a Shaonois 

 town near Carolina came in and gave an 

 account that four hundred and fifty of 

 the flat-headed Indians [Catawba] had 

 besieged them, and that in all probability 

 the same was taken. Bezallion informed 

 the governor that the Shaonois of Caro- 

 lina — he was told — had killed several 

 Christians; whereupon the government of 

 that province raised the said flat-headed 

 Indians, and joined some Christians to 

 them, besieged and have taken, as it is 

 thought, the said Shaonois town." Those 

 who escaped probably fled to the N. and 

 joined their kindred in Pennsylvania. 

 In 1708 Gov. Johnson, of South Carolina, 

 reported the "Savannahs" on Savannah 

 r. as occupying 3 villages and numbering 

 about 150 men (Johnson in Rivers, S. C, 

 236, 1856). In 1715 the "Savanos" still 

 in Carolina were reported to live 150 m. 

 N. w. of Charleston, and still to occupy 3 

 villages, but with only 233 inhabitants in 

 all. The Yuchi and Yamasee were also 

 then in the same neighborhood ( Barn- 

 well, 1715, in Rivers, Hist. S.C.,94, 1874). 

 A part of those who had come from the S. 

 inl694 had joined the Mahican and become 

 a part of that tribe. Those who had settled 

 on the Delaware, after remaining there 

 some years, removed to the Wyoming val- 

 ley on the Susquehanna and established 

 themselves in a village on the w. bank near 

 the present Wyoming, Pa. It is probable 



