Outgoing Eastern Shawnee Chief won reelection four times

In 2006, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma elected Glenna Wallace from nearby Missouri to serve as its first female chief. Now, 20 years later, she is moving on from the role after being reelected four times for her efforts to reconnect the tribe with its history and bring about improvements for the community.

In a recent KOSU interview, Wallace described the initial hesitation she encountered in the community when she became chief two decades ago. She said that upon her initial foray into the position, the small tribal community was very divided. Over time, Wallace said the Eastern Shawnee have found greater unity as well as a better understanding of their roots through her dedicated research into the tribe’s history.

Among her many contributions to the tribe was deep investigative work into the Eastern Shawnee’s homelands in Ohio. She explained how in 1831 the ancestors of today’s Eastern Shawnee Tribe became the first group forcibly removed from Ohio and sent some 800 miles south to Oklahoma. 

Wallace said the arduous journey over the course of four months — starting in September — decimated the tribe and left only about 60 people by the late 1800s. These days, she said, there are over 4,000 members of the tribe, and she hopes her successor continues the effort of reconnecting to their Ohio homelands.