American Tribal issued coins

Daggarjon · May 7, 2009

Im not sure who else, if anyone here, collects the tribal coins of the Shawnee nation, but i have since the first year of issue. The Sovereign Nation of the Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma has been issuing coins since 2002. The uncirculated and proof silver coins have a face value of one dollar, while the gold coins have a face value of 5 dollars. The coin's common reverse side contains 12 stars representing the original 12 tribes of the Shawnee Indian Nation.

The coins themselves have some interesting designs, and carry with them some intriquing history

I added the 1st 5 issues from this series starting with 2002 up until 2006 ..

2002 Chief "Shooting Star" Tecumseh

Tecumseh (TekoomsÄ“: "Shooting Star" or "Crouching Panther") is believed to have been born on March 9, 1768 just outside the current town of Xenia, Ohio, to the "Dancing Tail" (Panther) clan. His father was Pucksinwah, a Shawnee war chief who was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmores War in 1774. His mother was named Methoataske. Displaced by encroaching white settlers, many Shawnees, including Tecumsehs mother, moved westward first to Indiana, then Illinois, and finally to Missouri. Though only eleven, Tecumseh loved the land of his birth and stayed to be raised as a warrior by his eldest brother Chiksika and his sister Tecumpease. He was one of seven children.

In his early manhood, he travelled to the Missouri River country with his brother Chiksika and eleven other warriors on an extended hunting trip that lasted eight months. In early 1789, the band arrived at Dragging Canoe's town of Running Water on the Tennessee River, where Chiksika's Cherokee wife and daughter lived, after first visiting a nearby Muscogee town to look for their mother.

Their mother, a Muscogee, had left the north (her husband died at the Battle of Point Pleasant, the only major action of Dunmore's War, in 1774) and gone to live in her old town because without her husband she was homesick. Their mother had died, but since Chiksika's wife and his daughter were living nearby, they stayed.

They were warmly received by the Cherokee warriors, and, based out of Running Water, they participated in and conducted raids and other actions, in some of which Cherokee warriors participated. Chiksika was killed in one of the actions their band took part in April, resulting in Tecumseh becoming leader of the small Shawnee band, gaining his first experiences as a leader in warfare.

The band remained at Running Water until late 1790, then returned north.

Tecumseh eventually settled in what is now Greenville, Ohio, the home of his younger brother Tenskwatawa, perhaps best known simply as The Shawnee Prophet.
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2003 Lewis, Clark and Drouillard expedition

We all know about the Lewis and Clark expedition, being themselves commemorated on the United States commemorative of 2004. How much is known about an indian guide Drouillard?

George Drouillard was a 28-year-old son of a French Canadian father and Shawnee Indian mother. He was recruited by Captain Meriwether Lewis upon reaching Fort Massac in November of 1803. Captain Daniel Bissell, who had been ordered by the US War Department to recruit volunteers for the Corps of Discovery, recommended Drouillard as an excellent hunter with a good knowledge of the Indians character and sign language.

In Drouillard's job as civilian interpreter, he was offered a stipend of $25 a month. He also received a $30 advance from Lewis for transporting eight volunteers from South West Point, Tennessee, to Fort Massac to join the Corps. Drouillard and York, a slave, were the only non-military members of the Corps to complete the expedition from camp Dubois to the Pacific and back. Drouillard generally accompanied Lewis on scouting missions. He was superior in situations of danger, where nerve, endurance and cool judgment were needed. Lewis praised him highly as the most skilled hunter among the men.
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2004 Lewis & Clark Voyage of Discovery

In the third coin of the Shawnee series, and for the second time, the theme is to honor that of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark headed the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. In 1803 Thomas Jefferson led the crusade to purchase the territory of Louisiana. The Louisiana Purchase, which consisted of 828,800 square miles of the French territory was bought for $11,250,000 plus cancellation of debts worth $3,750,000, for a total cost of $15,000,000 for the territory. A few weeks after the purchase, President Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of western expansion, had Congress appropriate $2,500 for an expedition. In a message to Congress, Jefferson wrote:

"The river Missouri, and Indians inhabiting it, are not as well known as rendered desirable by their connection with the Mississippi, and consequently with us.... An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men ... might explore the whole line, even to the Western Ocean..."
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Meriwether Lewis began his first journal entry on the epic 'Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean' with these words, written on August 31, 1803:

"Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 o'clock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage."
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2005 Lewis & Clark Voyage of Discovery

When the Lewis and Clark Expedition needed canoes, friendly Indians showed the explorers how to hollow logs, made from large ponderosa pines, with a method of burning and chipping. The Corps of Discovery adopted what Sergeant Patrick Gass called, "the Indian method of burning out the canoes", or Dug-Outs. After building a small fire in the area of the log to be hollowed out, the resulting charcoal was then easily chipped out. The process was then repeated, until the desired shape was obtained.
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2006 Prophet Tenskwatawa

"The Prophet" Tenskwatawa (1775-1837) and his brother Chief Techumseh (1768-1813) were among the best-known and most feared Indians of the nineteenth century. They were Shawnee leaders of a fervent movement to instill Indian unity in the Ohio Valley from 1805 through the War of 1812. Angered by the Jefferson administration's attempts to gain Indian lands through piecemeal cessions, the Prophet preached resistance. He and his brother also rejected Jeffersonian suggestions about Indian assimilation, and urged instead that Indians retain their own culture. By 1811 his resistance movement had led to sporadic warfare in the Old Northwest. But in November of that year, William Henry Harrison routed the Prophet and his allies near Tippecanoe in the Indiana Territory, which was the inspiration for Harrison's presidential campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."
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to see the Shawnee coins, just click here

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Mr. Coin Lover · May 7, 2009

Very nice. Never heard of them. How/where are these marketed?

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American Tribal issued coins

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