Shawnee Sun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Founder | Jotham Meeker |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Jotham Meeker, John G. Pratt |
| Editor | Johnston Lykins |
| Founded | 1835 |
| Ceased publication | 1844 |
| Language | Shawnee |
| Headquarters | Shawnee Baptist Mission |
| Country | Indian Territory |
| Circulation | 200 |
The Shawnee Sun (Shawnee: Siwinowe Kesibwi) newspaper was published in the Shawnee language from 1835 to 1844, in the portion of Indian Territory that became Kansas. The paper was founded by Baptist missionary Jotham Meeker, who created his own script for Shawnee, an Algonquian language. This missionary newspaper was intended to give the Shawnee a written language, aid in education and news, and to help convert the tribe to Christianity. It is the first newspaper published entirely in a Native American language, and the first newspaper printed in what became Kansas.
Jotham Meeker was a Baptist missionary from Cincinnati, Ohio,[1]: 243 where he had been trained as a printer. Having served at multiple western frontier missions including Carey Mission, he bought a printing press in Cincinnati for US$550 (equivalent to about $17,000 in 2024). Fluent in the closely related languages of the Pottawatomi, Ottawa, and Chippewa tribes, he devised an orthographic script using English alphabet characters to phonetically sound like tribal languages and quickly teach them to tribal children. In 1833, he moved to the eastern part of Indian Territory which since became Kansas.[2] The Shawnee had been recently removed to Indian Territory by the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and the mission attempted to convert the tribe to Christianity. He transcribed the Algonquian languages (specifically the Shawnee language),[1]: 243–244 using the English alphabet to represent Shawnee phonemes, unlike the Cherokee syllabary of Sequoyah.[1]: 249 Though their motivations are not clear, many Shawnee aided Meeker in his transcription work.[1]: 244