r decimated ranks fled to Canada and the lands west of the Mississippi. The areas in the Appalachian wilderness which they inhabited were "a sort of no man's land, a hunting ground and battlefield open to all" (Brandon, 1974, p. 186).
Prior to the late 18th century when many of them turned to agriculture, the Shawnee depended on hunting and fishing for
their sustenance. According to Eckert, "they were extremely
bellicose and not infrequently mercenary" [and] "reveled in
the sheer joy of fighting and were masters in the art of
warfare" (p. 5). The French explorer Lasalle considered them "the
best, finest, most intelligent and skilled warriors in America"
(Eckert, 1992, p. 10). A relatively small tribe, never numbering more than the low tens of thousands, the Shawne
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