Resilience Through Adversity
A Companion Guide for Educators and Researchers
The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is losing its historical knowledge, which has led to a loss of cultural identity among the tribal community.
Shawnee people survived the worst ravages of settler colonialism. Many tribal members do not know that their ancestors came from Ohio, and that they migrated every 25 years, every generation, from roughly 1630 to 1832. Two hundred years of constant movement ended with the Eastern Shawnees were forcibly removed to Oklahoma. The Shawnee people withstood virgin-soil epidemics, slaver, and land loss – and yet the Eastern Shawnee tribe remains.
This loss of history is something the Eastern Shawnee share with other American Indian tribes, and the primary issue is that a shortage of historical documents makes it difficult to share that rich and vibrant knowledge. However, the pieces of this history are not forever lost. Those stories of resilience, resistance, and survival remain archived in various places across the United States. This project was created to recover written sources, language recordings, oral histories, and other sources relating to the Shawnee and make those materials available in a digital collection, addressing a request by tribal citizens to develop activities and opportunities that re-establish native culture and arts.
In addition to the digital collection, the book “The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma: Resilience through Adversity” was created to share the work and insight of American Indian historians and begin to bridge this crucial gap in history. This website is a companion to the book. It serves as a guide for educators and researchers to use the book along four key themes – Telling Your Story, Movement, Leadership, and Identity – and includes an overview of chapters pertaining to each theme, as well as primary sources and educational activities.