Shawnee

Shawnee, self-designated Saawanwaatoweewe, is a Central Algonquian language of the Algic family, closely related to Mesquakie-Sauk and Kickapoo. Its speakers' precontact homeland probably lay in southern Ohio, where some connect the Shawnee with the Fort Ancient culture that flourished along the Ohio River from about 1000 to 1650.

In the seventeenth century the Shawnee dispersed across Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and later scattered again. A polysynthetic language, Shawnee packs much information into its verbs and distinguishes animate from inanimate nouns.

The Shawnee fought a succession of wars to hold their lands, from the French and Indian War of 1754 to Tecumseh's War of 1810 to 1813. Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 the United States began moving them west of the Mississippi, carrying the language into Missouri and Kansas.