Ohio History Journal

TECUMSEH AND HIS DESCENDANTS

BY C. B. GALBREATH

Much has been written of the famous Shawnee

Indian chief Tecumseh who was born in Clark County,

Ohio, in a village near the site of Springfield, and who

died leading his braves in the battle of the Thames,

Canada, where the Americans under William Henry

Harrison signally defeated the combined forces of the

British and their Indian allies. Nothing remains to

be said of this natural born leader of his race, but those

who have read the story of his exploits will be interested

to know something of his descendants.

Sprague, in his description of the American Indians,

made familiar to the schoolboy of Ohio sixty years

ago, declared, "As a race, they have withered from the

land," and the casual reader will be a little surprised

to learn that there are numerous descendants of Tecum-

seh still living and that the present chief of the Ab-

sentee Shawnees is the great-grandson of Tecumseh.

Through the kindness of Thomas Wildcat Alford,

another great-grandson of Tecumseh, who was present

at the dedication of the George Rogers Clark monument

on the old battlefield of Piqua near Springfield last

August, we are able to present in outline some basic

information in regard to the descendants of Tecumseh,

together with illustrations that will be of special in-

terest to Ohioans because of the intimate relation of

this Shawnee chieftain and his tribe to the pioneer his-

tory of the Northwest Territory and the first state

carved from it. Following is the outline as furnished

by Mr. Alford:

(143)

Tecumseh and His Descendants           149

fusal of the Government to recognize this principle, he undertook

the formation of a great confederacy of all the western and south-

ern tribes for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as the perma-

nent boundary between the two races. In pursuance of this ob-

ject he and his agents visited every tribe from Florida to the

head of the Missouri river. While Tecumseh was organizing

the work in the south his plans were brought to disastrous over-

throw by the premature battle of Tippecanoe under the direction

of the Prophet, Nov. 7, 1811. On the breaking out of the War of

1812, Tecumseh at once led his forces to the support of the

British, and was rewarded with a regular commission as brigadier-

general, having under his command some 2,000 warriors of the

allied tribes. He fought at Frenchtown. The Raisin, Ft. Meigs,

and Ft. Stephenson, and covered Proctor's retreat after Perry's

decisive victory on Lake Erie, until, declining to retreat Meigs,

he compelled Proctor to make a stand on Thames river, near the

present Chatham, Ontario. In the bloody battle which ensued

the allied British and Indians were completely defeated by Har-

rison, Tecumseh himself falling in the front of his warriors, Oct.

5, 1813, being then in his 45th year. With a presentiment of death

he had discarded his general's uniform before the battle and

dressed himself in his Indian deerskin.  He left one son, the

father of Wapameepto, alias Big Jim (q. v.)  From all that

is said of Tecumseh in contemporary record, there is no reason to

doubt the verdict of Trumbull that he was the most extraordinary

Indian character in United States history. There is no true por-

trait of him in existence, the one commonly given as such in

Lossing's War of 1812 (1875) and reproduced in Appleton's

Cyclopedia of American Biography (1894) and Mooney's Ghost

Dance (1896), being a composite result based on a pencil sketch

made about 1812, on which were mounted his cap, medal, and

uniform.

In the same work is found a brief sketch of his

grandson,

BIG JIM

Big Jim. The popular name of a noted full-blooded Shawnee

leader, known among his people as Wapameepto, "Gives light as

he walks."  His English name was originally Dick Jim, cor-

rupted into Big Jim. He was born on the Sabine reservation,

Texas, in 1834, and in 1872 became chief of the Kispicotha band,

commonly known as Big Jim's band of Absentee Shawnee. Big

Jim was of illustrious lineage, his grandfather being Tecumseh

and his father one of the signers of the "Sam Houston

Tecumseh and His Descendants          151

E. O. Randall says: "A grandson of Tecumseh, son

of Pugeshashenwa was known as Big Jim.          He was

chief of the Absentee Shawnees, located in Oklahoma.

He died in Mexico, August, 1901. A great-grandson

of Tecumseh, grandson of Pugeshashenwa (by a sister

of Big Jim) was Thomas Washington, who was also

an Absentee Shawnee chief. He visited the President

at Washington in 1901."

It will therefore be seen that there is something of

a confusion in regard to the name of the son of Tecum-

seh from whom those named in this contribution trace

their descent.

It is interesting to learn from Mr. Alford that To-

tom-mo, or Little Jim, the son of Big Jim and the great-

grandson of Tecumseh is at present the chief of the

Absentee Shawnees.

Recently a writer living in Oklahoma has thus de-

scribed one branch of the ancestry of Thomas Wild-

cat Alford:

Many, many years ago a wandering band of Indians stole

a little girl from an English settlement in the east. The child

was adopted by the wife of the chief, who had no children of

her own, and treated kindly. After a time she learned to love her

captors dearly and played happily with the little Indian children.

After a period of years when a peace treaty with the Gov-

ernment compelled the Indians to relinquish all their prisoners,

the child was restored to her own people. She was then a maiden

of fourteen years and she pined for her foster parents and the

wild free life of the Indians.

Finally she ran away from her own people, and using all

the cunning she had learned during her life with the Indians,

traveling only at night, hiding during the day, eating whatever

food she could find, swimming streams, enduring unspeakable

hardships, after many weary weeks she reached the Indian vil-

lage again.

Her foster mother, the wife of the chief, had grieved so

bitterly over the loss of her adopted daughter that she was

152       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

prostrated. For many days she had refused to partake of food,

and faithful watchers beside her couch believed that she was

quite near death, when the young girl returned and they were

happily reunited. The foster mother became well at once.

That little English girl was the great-grandmother of Thomas

Wildcat Alford.

He was born in the Indian Territory, near Sasakwa, in the

year 1860.  When about twelve years old he was sent to the

Shawnee Mission school, then under the supervision of the

Society of Friends, to whose religious training and influence Mr.

Alford attributes the principles that have guided his life.

His father and mother died when he was quite young and

he was left to the guardianship of his uncle, Big Jim, who was

then chief of the Shawnee tribe, and like many other Indian

chiefs, had a deep respect for learning and wisdom and en-

couraged the lad in his pursuit of learning. When he was nine-

teen years old, through the influence of the Philadelphia organi-

zation of the Society of Friends and by the advice of the mis-

sionary to the Indians, he was sent to a military academy at

Hampton, Virginia.

In a letter just received from Mr. Alford he states

that the sketch from which the above quotation is made

is essentially correct. His statement in regard to the at-

titude of Big Jim is interesting and is here quoted al-

most entire:

Big Jim during his lifetime was always opposed to any change

from the old Indian ways of life, was always wide awake to the

thoughts of the white man in regard to the Indian, so as to en-

able him to resist or to answer him in all things.  He at times

undoubtedly realized that he was handicapped for lack of the

white man's education, for he had to have an interpreter when-

ever he talked to a white man.

So when the good people from the east, together with the

trader who was then among these Indians, discussed education

and urged the chiefs to send their children east to be educated,

two boys were selected from  each of the two principal clans

of the Shawnees and sent to Hampton Institute, Virginia, to be

educated. One of these two boys was John King of the Thah-

we-gi-lah clan and the other was myself of the Peck-ku-we-tha

clan. Just a few days before we started for the east, Uncle

Big Jim and Uncle Joe Ellis, chiefs of the Shawnees, visited us

Tecumseh and His Descendants           153

about dusk. John and I were rather startled, because we sensed

that they undoubtedly came on our account and at such a time

with no one with them. They came silently in single file from

the west. After repast -- and it was then quite dark -- they

called us under a large tree where we sat down on the ground,

There they recalled to us their desire to send us to school and

encouraged us to do the best we could to learn all the wisdom

of the white man, in order that when we came back we should

know how to answer every attempt of the white man to ruin the

Indian, when we should occupy the seats that they then occupied

and direct the interests of our people as they were now doing,

But under no circumstances were we to accept the white man's

religion. Uncle Big Jim addressed me directly and Uncle Joe

my friend John King. John King and I accepted the obligation

which tended to hold us back and cost us much misery during

our school days, as you may judge, until we conquered by the

light of God through the good and earnest efforts of our teach-

ers who were so anxious to improve the Indian in a higher

life. So, strange to say, we both violated our obligation, and

others became chiefs in our stead, but without any regret on our

part.

Now this was long ago and my bosom friend John King

left me twenty-five years ago and went to the happy hunting

ground -- a friend truly he was--and left a wife and one little

girl nine months old whom I took as my own and raised to

womanhood. The name of this little girl--the only descendant

living of my friend--is Etta King, now Etta King Stacey, hav-

ing been married after completing her education in the city of

Shawnee, Oklahoma.   She lives in the state of Arizona at the

present time.

As will be seen from the group picture on another

page Thomas W. Alford has a large and interesting

family. Four sons and four daughters are shown in

the group. Three sons were absent at the time it was

taken. He therefore has all told eleven children. Two

of his sons are World War veterans.