Shawnee Mission

The Absentee Shawnee the Friends came to serve take their name from a distance. During the Revolution many peace-seeking Shawnee left Ohio for Spanish Louisiana, and after their band accepted a Kansas reservation in 1825, those who had scattered south and by 1840 lived along the Canadian River became known as Absentee, absent from Kansas. An 1872 act of Congress gave them title to land here. They divided between White Turkey's followers, who favored assimilation, and Big Jim's, who feared losing their traditions. Of Oklahoma's three Shawnee tribes, they keep the most speakers of their language.

What the plaque says

Shawnee Mission Established in 1871 The Society of Friends opened this Mission for the Absentee Shawnee, this Christian work continuing 53 years among all Indian tribes living near here. The first log house was replaced by the present church building at the same site, 1885, now a museum owned and kept by Pottawatomie County Historical Society.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center — 0.3 mi
  The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's national museum and archive in Shawnee, telling a Great Lakes people's road through Kansas to Indian Territory in the Nation's own words and objects.
• Seminole Nation Museum — 26 mi
  A community museum in Wewoka, capital of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, telling the Seminole story from Florida to Indian Territory and the town that John Horse's people founded in 1849.
• Boley Historic District — 28 mi
  The downtown of the largest of Oklahoma's All-Black towns, praised by Booker T. Washington, squeezed by Jim Crow and white land oaths, bankrupt in 1939 and still living today.

More markers nearby

• Home on the Range — 3.5 mi
• Birthsite of Jim Thorpe — 13 mi
• Mekasukey Academy — 14 mi
• Birthplace of Jim Thorpe — 19 mi