Players starting new games of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII have a chance to simulate — and remix — a little bit of Oklahoma and Native American history with one of the game’s featured leaders and historical societies.
Civilization VII is the latest in a series of historical grand strategy titles developed by Maryland-based studio Firaxis Games. In it, players can choose renowned world leaders to head up civilizations across different eras, referred to as “Ages.”
With this edition of Civilization, Firaxis has included legendary Native American leader Tecumseh and the Shawnee Tribe among its playable roster. (The Shawnee Tribe is currently headquartered in Ottawa County.)
While indigenous American nations have featured in Civilization games before, the studio worked in close partnership with the Shawnee Tribe, including Shawnee voice actor Dillon Dean, Chief Ben Barnes and the tribe’s dedicated Shawnee Language Immersion Program, to portray Tecumseh and the tribe accurately and respectfully.
In return, Firaxis and publisher 2K Games have contributed to the Shawnee Tribe’s “Decade of Shawnee,” a language revitalization initiative started by the tribe in 2020, by helping renovate and fully equip the George “Fife” Blanchard Yaatakciitonooteeki (recording studio), which celebrated its grand opening Feb. 3.
“We wanted some kind of indigenous North American representation but wanted to do it right,” said Andrew Johnson, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Stockholm and Firaxis historian during Civilization VII development. “There were a few possibilities there that I listed but realized that we needed buy-in from modern-day communities for everything past Mississippian times.”
According to 2K Games, Firaxis began reaching out to the Shawnee Tribe in 2021. Chief Ben Barnes, who coincidentally loved Firaxis strategy titles like Civilization and XCOM, enthusiastically agreed to the partnership.
“Keeping language education going is something that I believe very strongly in, and I saw that that the Shawnee language was in a dangerous state,” Johnson said. “So I got Firaxis to offer to help fund their language revitalization programs; we came to them with that, too, and we were just absolutely blown away by the enthusiasm that Chief Barnes and Karl Meyer had for the idea.”
In the nearly four ensuing years, developers consulted with the tribe on everything from the Shawnees’ in-game aesthetics and architecture to the inclusion of Shawnee-language poetry and music and the tribe’s historic leader, Tecumseh.
“The inherent challenge in working with any non-Native individual or organization is overcoming the inherent biases that stem from Indigenous histories being overlooked or altogether erased for centuries,” Shawnee-language technical specialist and tribal Civilization VII project manager Karl Meyer said. “However, Firaxis made a real effort to consider our perspectives and let us influence the powers and functions of the Shawnee and Tecumseh in the game. Patience on our part and their team’s empathy and genuine desire to understand led to a meaningful collaboration.”
According to Meyer, one of the main challenges of the collaboration was finding a suitable voice actor to portray Tecumseh.
“We auditioned several folks and initially hired a Native actor from a different tribe who had a very commanding voice, but he just couldn’t quite wrap his tongue around the Shawnee language in such a short amount of time,” Meyer said. “We were all sad to see him go, but that opened an opportunity to search closer to home, and we started seeking someone who is primarily a Shawnee speaker with coachable voice acting skills. Luckily, we didn’t have to compromise on much, if anything, because Dillon Dean, a Shawnee screen and stage actor and part of our language program, had a great audition and secured the role of Tecumseh.”
For Dean, a Shawnee language class participant and experienced actor, playing Tecumseh was a chance to connect with his tribal history.
“I had a couple of weeks to learn the lines, and it was really a joy to get to dive into that character and to learn more about Tecumseh,” he said. “Growing up in Oklahoma, you hear stories about Indian leaders. And even being a Shawnee, you know, I’m ashamed to say that a lot of my understanding of Tecumseh came from stories I heard being in Boy Scouts. We would go visit these places and hear about the ‘Indian Chief Tecumseh’. And, you know, so I had all of these sort of misconceptions about who Tecumseh was. So doing the research about this person, to get into the character and get into the mind of the character, it was a wonderful experience, getting to learn more about my own tribe and my own history and culture. And it was really special for me as an actor.”
Dean was impressed by Firaxis’s commitment to getting Tecumseh and the Shawnee correct.
“I had envisioned Tecumseh much in the same way as my audition: this powerful, bass-voiced warlord,” Dean said. “And [Firaxis] were like, ‘Actually, based on these historic interviews with Tecumseh, he’s intelligent, and he’s humorous and he’s unafraid, even in the face of great danger. He can be threatened, and he’ll respond with a chuckle, you know. And we want to really capture this spirit with with the performance of Tecumseh.’ And it was so cool to learn their vision through the character and how they had developed it by talking to tribe historians and looking at his literal words that we have written down from his speeches and different interactions with him. It was really, really, really cool all around.”
Language activists
Behind the partnership with Firaxis and in-game representation of the Shawnee Tribe lies a dedicated push to preserve and revitalize the Shawnee language orchestrated by Chief Barnes, language activist and first-language specialist George “Fife” Blanchard and the rest of the tribe’s expert language team. This effort is part of a wider movement to ensure indigenous languages and cultures around the world not only survive, but thrive into the latter half of the 21st century.
On a global scale, in 2019, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the years 2022 through 2032 to be the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, calling on participating nations to organize awareness-raising events and educational campaigns geared toward language preservation. Chief Barnes issued an executive order in January 2020 declaring a State of Emergency for the Shawnee language in response to UNESCO’s call.
“I say this all the time but it’s important to continue repeating: I couldn’t be more proud of the work our language team has accomplished in such a short amount of time and how many Shawnee people we have attending weekly classes,” Chief Barnes said. “Our language is still officially in a state of emergency, but it’s inspiring to see how dedicated our staff, teachers and students are to strengthening the language and building a community with each other through that work.”
According to Barnes, in addition to the collaboration with Firaxis, the language team has been working on development of immersive language curricula for early childhood development all the way through advanced learners.
“We are not quite halfway through the decade of the Shawnee language, and they’ve done so much in the four short years they’ve had,” Barnes said. “I’m very excited to see where we are in another couple of years.”
Dean sees the fruits of the partnership as a sign for a bright future for the Shawnee language and the tribe writ large.
“Our language, in the face of everything that happened to our indigenous tribes in America, the Shawnee went through it very, very tough with relocation, and our language being wiped out through boarding schools and things like that,” Dean said, “and with the help of this recording studio, this is our tool to ensure that we will never, ever again be in a position where our language is at risk of being wiped out.” As of 2020, there were around 20 remaining fluent speakers. With the help of the language program, Approximately 200 students benefit from the program, most of whom would be at a beginner level of ability.
This article appears in Alcoholmanac 2025.