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Migration and Identity in Protohistoric and Colonial Shawnee Society

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Migration and Identity in Protohistoric and Colonial Shawnee Society Stephen Warren. The Worlds the Shawnees Made: Migration and Violence in Early America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Maps. 336 pp. $39.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-4696-1173-0. Reviewed by Jamie Mize Published on H-AmIndian (July, 2014) Commissioned by F. Evan Nooe (University of North Carolina, Charlotte) In The Worlds the Shawnees Made, Steve colonial period; therefore, historical approaches Warren examines Shawnee identity, and how, should avoid this designation as well. even though they lacked a shared sacred ground, Even though Shawnee identity was not ho‐ the Shawnees maintained a cultural distinctive‐ mogenous, cosmologies, ritual practices, and a ness from their various American Indian neigh‐ shared language knitted the Shawnees together bors. According to Warren, a renowned Shawnee while dispersion and migration became central scholar and associate professor at Augustana Col‐ aspects of their lived experience. According to lege, migration and reinvention allowed the Warren, Shawnee cosmologies do not focus on Shawnees to maintain their culture in the face of place, but rather, they “emphasize transience, mo‐ violence and other pressures brought by colonial‐ bility, and alliance” (p. 21). In light of their tradi‐ ism. Central to Warren’s thesis is his idea of the tions of migration it is not surprising that no Shawnees as “parochial cosmopolitans.” Due to archeological markers of the Shawnees exist. their migrations, the Shawnees were highly at‐ Warren traces the shortage of Shawnee archeo‐ tuned to the complexities of colonial life, but they logical evidence to the lack of archeological stud‐ also remained committed to their villages and of‐ ies of colonial sites. This coupled with the fact that ten maintained a local focus. Because the historians rarely study protohistoric peoples cre‐ Shawnees often lived in completely different geo‐ ates a very real gap in Shawnee scholarship. War‐ graphical regions, and because their social power ren suggests that the best way to remedy this is‐ structures placed authority at a village level, War‐ sue is to rely on “circumstantial” evidence from ren argues that the only way to truly understand the protohistoric peoples of the Ohio River Valley, the Shawnees is to examine them at the local lev‐ known as the Fort Ancient Tradition, to connect el. Shawnees did not think in “tribal” terms in the their culture to that of the colonial Shawnees (p. 19). As such, Warren relies on archeological H-Net Reviews sources along with archival evidence from While clan identity had an impact on Shawnee French, British, and other colonial archives, as migrations, kinship affiliations also “fragmented well as numerous and assorted published mem‐ and coalesced with each other as they moved” (p. oirs and manuscripts. 78). Warren demonstrates this point in the re‐ The Worlds the Shawnees Made is divided mainder of the book as he analyzes Shawnee mi‐ into three chronological sections. The frst section grations through village-based analysis. opens with a survey of Fort Ancient peoples. War‐ The second section examines Shawnee society ren labels these peoples the frst “parochial cos‐ at three different village sites in disparate geo‐ mopolitans” because even as they “adjusted their graphical locations, and the varying colonial chal‐ way of life to suit new, colonial circumstances lenges they faced in each place: the Illinois River they maintained their attachment to their village- Valley, the Savannah River, and the Upper Chesa‐ based way of life” (p. 25). Even though Fort An‐ peake. Regardless of location, Warren argues, con‐ cient peoples left the Middle Ohio River Valley, tinuities existed between precolonial and colonial they moved as villages. Warren asserts that the American Indians, and a failure to acknowledge most likely reason for the migrations of Fort An‐ this fact has led to an overemphasis on the “rup‐ cient peoples was disease. He is rather adamant tures of colonialism” (p. 82). In the Southeast, the that Iroquois raids into the Ohio River Valley were Shawnees obtained a foothold by aligning them‐ not a principal factor in the end of Fort Ancient selves frst with the Westos in the Indian slave Traditions. To support this assertion, Warren re‐ trade, but they achieved a preeminent place for lies on archeological evidence. Archeologists have themselves when they destroyed the Westos at the not discovered “time-sensitive European artifacts behest of the English. The Indian slave trade pro‐ dating to the period between 1650 and 1720.” The vided security for groups such as the Shawnee, absence of such artifacts coupled with the lack of but the slaving of these smaller, autonomous peo‐ archaeological indications of violent deaths leads ples “forced coastal villagers such as the Catawbas Warren to assert that the “absence of such evi‐ and interior tribes such as the Creeks to coalesce” dence proves that the depopulation of the Ohio (p. 84). The use of Shawnee as a trade language by Valley occurred largely before the Iroquois con‐ the eighteenth century offers additional evidence quest of the Ohio Valley” (p. 74). Warren suggests for the influence of the Shawnee in the Southeast. continuity between the Fort Ancient peoples and While the Shawnees warred with other Indi‐ the Shawnees due to the fact that they both prac‐ an peoples during slaving expeditions in the ticed fragmentary migrations. While the Fort An‐ Southeast, in the Upper Illinois River Valley cient peoples moved as villages, the Shawnees Shawnees warred with each other. To demon‐ formed their villages and made decisions based strate the nature of this conflict Warren analyzes on fve patrilineal kinship designations. Prior to a battle in 1680 at the village of Kaskaskias in the historic period, each of the fve society clans which a group of Shawnees, allied with the held a designated territory with a town that French and Illinois peoples, fought against an in‐ shared the clan name. From the historic period vading force of Iroquois and other Shawnee peo‐ forward, however, these larger territorial units ples. Warren argues that previous attempts to ex‐ broke down into smaller, “patrilocal” communi‐ plain this conflict as a civil war overlook the im‐ ties, and the largest clan, numerically, “seems to portance of local concerns to the Shawnee peo‐ have determined the identity and the leadership ples. Rather than viewing themselves as a tribe, of the town itself.” In addition to the fve societal the Shawnee remained “parochial cosmopolitans” clans, Shawnee society was further divided into and made decisions based on a village or local lev‐ twelve clans that held ceremonial importance. 2 H-Net Reviews el. Warren suggests that older alliances brought Shawnees to quit their settlement in Pennsylvania the Shawnees to Kaskaskias, and the lure of trade and return to the Ohio River Valley. with the English, and the violence and depletion According to Warren, “after the Walking Pur‐ of resources at the Grand Village eventually led chase, Native people in Pennsylvania understood the Shawnees to migrate. The fnal chapter in sec‐ that land-hungry settlers would inevitably con‐ tion 2, the weakest chapter in this section in terms sume their estates. The Ohio country became the of source base, discusses the Shawnee presence in only remaining alternative for those seeking eco‐ the Chesapeake. According to Warren, these nomic and cultural freedom” (p. 195). Once back Shawnees chose “absorption into the Iroquois in the Ohio River Valley, Shawnee societal struc‐ Confederacy” rather than a direct alliance with ture underwent an evolution. Charismatic indi‐ the English (p. 153). The Shawnees were permit‐ viduals became chiefs, breaking the tradition of ted to settle in the Chesapeake as long as they act‐ hereditary chiefly lineages. Warren asserts that ed as a bufer against raids on the Iroquois, and as this social change emerged from the “increasingly a result, they experienced many of the retaliatory selective and voluntary nature of Indian identi‐ attacks by the Catawba and other southern tribes. ties” (p. 189). The impacts of colonialism and mi‐ Just as the frst two sections suggest continu‐ gration wrought many changes on Indian soci‐ ity from Fort Ancient Traditions to colonial eties. According to Warren, the Shawnees and oth‐ Shawnees, the third section argues for a reconsid‐ er Indians began to identify a “common racial eration of historians’ periodization of removal. heritage that had supplanted village-based identi‐ Warren argues, “we must situate the Indian Re‐ ties. To the settlers, and perhaps now to them‐ moval Act of 1830 into a much longer history of selves, a kind of 'Indian' racial identity bound forced relocation,” beginning in the 1720s (p. 156). them together in a common fate” (p. 197). This Central to this point are the competing histories of shared “Indian” identity provided the ground‐ the Shawnee and the Iroquois. The Iroquois be‐ work for the revitalization movements that oc‐ lieved that they defeated the Shawnees and curred in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth forced them to relocate, thus the Iroquois equated centuries. The connections that the Shawnees the Shawnee migration to the Upper Chesapeake made with other Indian groups through their and Pennsylvania with subjugation. The many travels and migrations proved beneficial to Shawnees viewed their migrations as voluntary their revitalization and pan-Indian efforts. War‐ rather than coerced. According to Warren the ren’s theme of parochial cosmopolitanism is per‐ memory of the Iroquois (and subsequently the haps best seen in this fnal example. Ultimately, English) regarding the Shawnee migration “has Shawnees chose to relocate for their own local defined Shawnee history since the late seven‐ reasons, but after years of migrations, the teenth century,” ultimately resulting in loss of Shawnees had established intertribal connections sovereignty for the Shawnee people (p. 149). The and alliances in most locations east of the Missis‐ issue of sovereignty and the importance of sippi River.
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