The Shawnee are an American Indian Nation which historically resided throughout the present-day United States, mainly within the vicinity of the Ohio River Valley beyond the Virginia frontier. During the French and Indian War, the Shawnee originally allied with the French, but they established a tentative peace with the British in 1758. The peace did not last for long, however. When British colonists continued to encroach onto American Indian lands in the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley, the Shawnee joined other groups of American Indian nations in a war against the British in 1763, called Pontiac's War. After their defeat, the British colonists laid claim to part of the Shawnee's lands.

Fighting continued during the American Revolution and through the War of 1812 under Shawnee leader Tecumseh. The Treaty of Fort Meigs in 1817 brought an end to combat but at a great loss to the Shawnee, who ceded all of their lands in the Ohio Valley to the United States. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, groups of Shawnee people moved westward to portions of Missouri and present-day Oklahoma and Kansas.

Today there are three federally recognized tribes for the Shawnee people: the Shawnee Tribe, the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.

For more information and links to resources, please see our editorial statement on American Indian terminology.