Pekowi

The Pekowi were one of the five divisions of the Shawnee, the Algonquian-speaking people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Shawnee ritual leaders were traditionally drawn from this patrilineal division, and its chiefs included Opessa Straight Tail, who signed treaties with William Penn's colony before leading his band west toward the Ohio Valley around 1727.

From 1737 the Pekowi were led by Peter Chartier, a fur trader of mixed Pekowi and French parentage. After clashing with Pennsylvania's authorities over rum, he accepted a French commission in 1745 and led about four hundred Pekowi into Kentucky, where they founded Eskippakithiki; Pekowi warriors fought for the French at Fort Necessity in 1754.

The division later shared the village of Peckuwe in Ohio with the Kispoko until its destruction in 1780. In the nineteenth century the Pekowi formed part of the Absentee-Shawnee removed to Indian Territory.