Originally southern Ohio, West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania. The Shawnee were driven from this area by the Iroquois sometime around the 1660s and then scattered in all directions to South Carolina, Tennessee's Cumberland Basin, eastern Pennsylvania, and southern Illinois. By 1730 most of the Shawnee had returned to their homeland only to be forced to leave once again - this time by American settlement. Moving first to Missouri and then Kansas, the main body finally settled in Oklahoma after the Civil War. Population Estimates of the original Shawnee population range from 3,000 to 50,000, but a reasonable guess is somewhere around 10,000.
Shawnee comes from the Algonquin word "shawun" (shawunogi) meaning "southerner." However, this referred to their original location in the Ohio Valley relative to other Great Lakes Algonquin rather than a homeland in the American southeast. Shawnee usually prefer to call themselves the Shawano - sometimes given as Shawanoe or Shawanese. South Carolina colonists knew them as the Savannah or Savannuca. Other names: Ani-Sawanugi (Cherokee), Chaouanons (Chauenon) (French), Chaskpe (Chaouesnon) (French), Chiouanon (Seneca), Cumberland Indians, Ontwagnnn (Iroquois "one who stutters"), Oshawanoag (Ottawa), Satana (Iroquois), Shawala (Lakota), and Touguenha (Iroquois).
