Over a dozen indigenous tribes inhabited Missouri in 1800. The Osage occupied the largest area, but in eastern Missouri the Shawnee and Delaware predominated.
The Shawnee, originally from the southeastern U. S., moved into the Ohio Valley by the mid-1700s. Similarly, the Delaware, or Lenni-Lenape, first encountered the Dutch and British in the Delaware River valley. Many tribes, including the Shawnee and Delaware, moved west and allied against American settlement in the Ohio Valley.
European settlers west of the Mississippi feared the Osage. Authorities sought the Shawnee and Delaware as a buffer. Louis Lorimier, French-Canadian trader trusted by the tribes, planned to move them west of the Mississippi in 1787, and the Spanish granted land between Apple and Flora creeks in Cape Girardeau County. Defeats at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795 and the War of 1812 encouraged additional emigration from Ohio.
Shawnee-Delaware settlements varied in size and permanence, some being little more than temporary camps for a few families. Some groups came to Missouri directly from the Ohio Valley, while others relocated from other settlements in Missouri.
Lorimier’s group settled on both sides of Apple Creek in three villages. The largest, Le Grand Village Sauvage, was in Perry County about five miles from the Mississippi. A smaller Shawnee village lay in Cape Girardeau County about a mile from the river. A Delaware village sat in between the two Shawnee settlements until about 1810. These three sites comprised the largest population of the tribes, about 800 residents. Visitors noted solidly-constructed villages with log houses, fenced fields, and hospitality of the inhabitants. Residents grew crops and trapped furs in the region for trade at Lorimier’s store. The Shawnee Hills in Perry County and Shawnee Creek, Blue Shawnee Creek, and Muddy Shawnee Creek in Cape survive today, and there are Indian Creeks in both counties. A small settlement of natives, perhaps temporary while extracting salt on River Aux Vases, was at Big Shawnee Spring in Ste. Genevieve County.
Another Shawnee group came directly from Ohio in 1795 to the Bridgeton area of St. Louis County. Its leader was a white man named Rogers, taken captive by the Shawnee as a boy, and later by his mixed race son Louis. Rogerstown was about 50 houses at its peak. The band moved southwest in 1807, settled on the Bourbeuse River south of present-day Union at Shawneetown Ford, and remained until about 1818.
A group of Shawnee-Delaware lived on Huzzah and Courtois Creeks from 1809, where Ozark explorer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft noted them in 1818. Three small settlements occurred in the Bootheel—one of up to 200 people at Shawnee Ford and nearby Delaware Creek in Stoddard County from about 1810 to 1823. Additional villages were at the site of present-day Kennett and along Big Lake at the Arkansas border in the early-mid 1820s.
A final group of Shawnee-Delaware may have come directly from the Ohio Valley after the War of 1812 and settled on Current River in present-day Shannon County. Today Big and Little Shawnee Creeks mark the site.
American settlers flooded into Missouri after 1814, encroaching on native settlements. Settlers desired to move the natives off their land and committed theft and property destruction. The authorities refused to recognize the Apple Creek land grant. Villagers drifted westward, eventually to a reserve south of Springfield established by Indian agent William Clark. The Treaty of 1825 extinguished title all Missouri land and the Shawnee-Delaware moved to Kansas. Most only know their presence from the creeks, fords, and village sites in Missouri place names.
