The Shawnee Indians were living in the Ohio Valley as early as A.D. 1660. The Shawnees entered Texas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Shawnees speak a form of the Algonquian Indian language and so are related to the Delaware, Miami, and Ottawa Indians. Around 1790 a major Shawnee band migrated west of the Mississippi River to the area of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. By 1815 an estimated 1,200 Shawnees were settled there. They were joined by a large band of Delawares, and the two tribes became closely associated. In 1822 a band of the Missouri Shawnees, numbering about 270 families, migrated south into Texas, which was then a part of Mexico. They settled on the south bank of the Red River near Pecan Point.

In 1859 the the Texas Shawnees were moved to Indian Territory. Today many Shawnees still reside in eastern Oklahoma. Unlike most tribes now resident in Oklahoma, the Shawnees have managed to preserve to the present day their complete cycle of ceremonial dances and other religious observances.

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