In total, they occupied and traveled through lands ranging from Canada to Florida, and from the Mississippi River to the eastern continental coast.

Descendants of the traditionalist Big Jim Band have kept cultural traditions and ceremonies; they have their primary community in the Little Axe, or Norman area.

It owns a gas station, two smoke shops, two casinos, and the AST Health Center and Plus Care, in Norman or Shawnee, Oklahoma.

[4] The Absentee Shawnee Tribe has all the inherent powers of sovereignty held prior to the Constitution of the United States.

However, prior to the treaty, a group of Shawnee (later known as the Big Jim band) had already left the region to migrate to Texas Territory, then controlled by Spain.

In the late 19th century, an Indian Agent of the US government brought soldiers from Fort Reno to force the traditionalist Big Jim band of Absentee Shawnees out of the Deep Fork River area, southward to Hog Creek and Little River area near present-day Lake Thunderbird, Norman.

[10][11] In the late 19th century, the communal land was allotted to individual households in an effort to force the tribes to adopt subsistence farming and assimilate to mainstream European-American ways.

[15] George Blanchard, Sr, Governor of the Absentee Shawnee from 2009 to 2013, has more recently also been working on language programs and teaching both children and adults.

Since 2014 he has worked as a language specialist at the Eastern Shawnee Cultural Preservation Department in Seneca, Missouri, near the Oklahoma border.

At Seneca, he teaches Headstart and elementary grade classes, as well as adults two evenings a week, to encourage families to use Shawnee at home.

[16] The official emblem was designed by Leroy White (October 4, 1928 – July 25, 2002), a great-grandson of Big Jim and direct descendant of Chief Tecumseh.

In 1974, with the encouragement of his family, White had entered the contest sponsored by the Absentee Shawnee Tribe for design of a tribal logo.