Everything around here is "Osage" or "Cherokee" with a sprinkling of other eastern latecomer Indian place names.
The Shawnee were the earliest mass-migration across the Mississippi that we note, and that was in the 1770's, fully half the tribe leaving the Ohio Country and decamping to Missouri. I believe some Cherokees were already in Texas by 1800.
The tribal situation thoughout our history was a lot more dynamic than we commonly allow. Even though we never question that White guys up and travelled all over the place during those same years.
For example those Keechais who stole Noah Smithwick's horses outside of Bastrop were technically Pawnees.
And Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" were guided halfway across the continent by an illiterate teenage girl carrying an infant.
...and when it came to just average Joes exploring vast distances of unknown territory without the subsequent fanfare of popular American history, we Americans ourselves were clearly skunked by the French, by as much as a 100 years in some instances.....
Birdwatcher
