Diversity Within The Shawnee It is intriguing to try to imagine the incredible diversity of peoples along the Kansas- Missouri border in the 1840s. Francis Parkman, the famous historian of the West, witnessed a small portion of it as he traveled towards the Sioux-speaking peoples of the western plains in 1846. According to Parkman, Westport was full of Indians, whose little shaggy ponies were tied by dozens along the houses and fences. Sacs and Foxes, with shaved heads and painted faces, Shawanoes and Delawares, fluttering in calico frocks and turbans, Wyandots dressed like white men, and a few wretched Kanzas wrapped in old blankets, were strolling about the streets, or lounging in and out of the shops and houses. The tribesmen Parkman described had been forced to relocate from Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio to Indian Territory with a vastly different geography. Methodist missionary Allen Ward wrote of this land: there “appears to be no boundaries, or nothing to confine the vision, but as far as the eye can reach, one extended plain or meadow.” The relocated tribes traveled from their reservations in Indian territory (now Kansas) across the Missouri border in search of trade goods and supplies. Westport was a center of commerce. Products ranging from farm implements to the Bible were signs of the dramatic transformation that was taking place on the frontier. Traders and businessmen flocked to towns like Westport to profit from the more than 46,000 emigrant Indians and from the traffic brought by the rush of settlers heading west along the overland trails. Parkman identified the differences between the divergent Indian tribes he saw in Westport. Yet his description gives no hint of the incredible differences within individual emigrant Indian groups. For example, a series of treaties with the Shawnee tribe forced radically different Shawnee bands to cooperate politically and culturally. The United States’ removal of the Shawnees involved three different treaties which were signed by separate, autonomous villages. These discrete Shawnee bands had differing objectives and levels of interest in cooperating with the federal government. Unlike previous land cessions, these treaties eliminated all Shawnee territory in the Old Northwest and Missouri and forced 2,183 Shawnees to remove to a shared reservation between 1825 and 1834. This 1.6 million-acre reservation stretched from the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers west toward present-day Topeka. The forced exodus of the Shawnees from their homelands capped a long process of splintering within the tribe. Prior to their arrival in Kansas, the Ohio River Valley had been the center of the Shawnee homeland. Their territory was the site of decades of warfare between the Shawnees and British and American settlers. White settlers consistently thwarted plans for a restricted line of settlements in the Trans-Appalachian West. Consequently, large groups of the Shawnee tribe decided to move beyond the Mississippi River as early as 1774. Chief Lewis Rogers said that his people realized that their “children would not live well or happy while at war with the whites.” Some joined with the Creek confederacy in the Southeast; others traveled southwest into Mexican Territory. The Shawnees who remained in the Old Northwest began a new era of cooperation with the Americans in the years before the War of 1812. Fifty years of geographic separation of the tribe led to cultural differences which undermined unity after they arrived in Kansas. The Internal Struggle Over Leadership Shawnee leaders had a difficult time achieving a constructive political discourse because of basic internal differences concerning American expansion and the survival of the Shawnee people. Each individual band had years of experience dealing with different empires, other Indian tribes, and the multitude of languages and customs each group maintained. Some Shawnee individuals spoke three or more languages. However, this experience in negotiating and cooperating with many different groups could not overcome the problem of disagreement among bands over assimilation and other cultural issues. The Ohio Shawnees, however, held a decided advantage over their western counterparts. One of their key leaders, Joseph Parks, had been raised in Michigan by Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of War, Lewis Cass. Another Ohio Shawnee, the elder Chief BlackHoof, provided years of service to the United States in the War of 1812. This legacy—coupled with the continued assistance of the Ohio Shawnee chiefs during removal—helped establish the Ohio Shawnee leaders as the preeminent spokesmen for the Shawnee nation. The Missouri Shawnees were equally in favor of friendly relations with the united States, but they also wanted and achieved friendly relations with the French and Spanish. The Spanish population in the center of the continent was so limited that friendly tribes such as the Shawnees, Kickapoos, and Delawares were critically important to the maintenance of the empire. Unlike the partnerships between Indians and whites in the Ohio River Valley, military and trade relationships west of the Mississippi River relied upon the interdependence of Colonizers and Indians endeavors. The Ohio Shawnees did not have the strategic and economic options that allowed the Missouri Shawnees independence of movement and action. These sharp contrasts between the Shawnee people became even more acute in the Indian Territory. Leaders of the Missouri Shawnees, such as Lewis Rogers and Paschal Fish, struggled to form a partnership of equals with the Americans and the neighboring tribes in the region. The Ohio Shawnees recognized that the era of cooperation with other tribes had long since passed and used their most influential chiefs to demonstrate their continued loyalty to the United States alone. Loss of Population Population loss was another problem faced by the Shawnees upon their arrival in the Indian Territory. Baptist missionary and surveyor Isaac McCoy reported in March 1832 that “the smallpox is raging between Lake Michigan and Mississippi.” The epidemic plagued the emigrating tribes who were moving west across Indiana and Illinois. They brought the disease with them into the Indian Territory, infecting the Shawnee, Delaware, Stockbridge, and Munsee communities that had arrived several years before. Smallpox and other diseases had a disastrous impact. A government census in 1842 recorded 887 Shawnees, meaning that the tribe had experienced a total population decline of more than 59% in a ten year period. The people Parkman observed “fluttering in calico frocks and turbans” were the survivors of an Indian holocaust which produced severe stress upon the remaining members of the tribe. Missionary Influence While the Ohio and Missouri Shawnees disputed with each other over leadership roles on the reservation, the arrival of missionaries further complicated these power relationships. The missionary organizations that flocked to Kansas in search of a harvest of souls had clashing perspectives and methods. On the Shawnee reservation, three major groups competed for attention: Methodist, Baptist, and eventually Quaker missionaries hoped to Christianize the tribe. Noted Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy was an instrumental figure in Andrew Jackson’s quest for the removal of the eastern tribes. McCoy trumpeted his vision of the Indian territory—calling it an “Indian Canaan” in which the emigrant tribes would be safe from the negative effects of frontier whites. McCoy became a noted speaker on Indian reform and was frequently absent form the reservation while “pleading on behalf of the Indians.” The Methodist approach was to train the Indians in both Christianity and manual labor with the establishment of a boarding school for girls and boys. Each missionary organization carried with it a particular regional flavor in addition to their unique perspectives on Christianity. One major difference centered on the issue of slavery. The Methodists arrived from southeastern Missouri and brought slaves with them to work on the reservation. By contrast, the Quakers and Baptists were largely opposed to slavery and rankled at the influence of the “peculiar institution” among the emigrant tribes. Shawnee leaders manipulated these differences to their own advantage, forging partnerships to increase their political leverage. The influence of missionaries on the reservation was enhanced for two reasons. First, the disastrous effect of poorly planned and executed removals increased Shawnee resentment of the government. Second, the Shawnees solicited missionary aid because of the habitual lack of government provisions. In both cases, the missionaries could serve as advocates for the tribe. As a result, members of the tribe sought affiliations with whites that would enhance their standing on the reservation. The Shawnees’ affiliation with the missionaries was a mixed blessing. Partnerships with the Americans came at the expense of rival groups within the tribe. Neither the Missouri or Ohio Shawnees ultimately won a decisive leadership role for the tribe in part because of the confused partnerships with the missionaries. Attempts to Appease the United States Government The Shawnees made numerous efforts to appease the American government and establish their sovereignty. In the 1830s, many Ohio Shawnees volunteered to fight on behalf of the U.S. government against the Seminoles in Florida. Still more Shawnees fought for the Union army in the Civil War. Sadly, the consistent efforts of the