Ohio History Journal

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            419

tered by his European enemy. Volumes have been written upon

this subject in vain. Unlike the ancient Greeks and Romans

and the earlier Egyptians, they left no monuments of marble, no

brazen tablets, no tale-telling temples, no records of parchment;

their only legacy to their civilized successors are the countless

and conflicting traditions that grow more and more vague as

the vista lengthens into the past.

Should you ask me, whence these stories?

Whence the legends and traditions,

With odors of the forest,

And the dew and damp of meadows,

With the curling smoke of wigwams,

With the rushing of great rivers,

With their frequent repetitions

*     *     *

I should answer, I should tell you,

I repeat them as I heard them.

THE OHIO INDIANS.

It is not the purpose of this sketch to treat of the origin

and classification of the American Indian; the subject is

broached only to give fitting historic perspective to the hero of

our story. During the historic period covered by our recital,

the number of distinct tribes inhabiting North America, east of

the Mississippi, could have been no less than forty. One of the

principal stock families of these people was known as the Al-

gonquin, which was estimated to have constituted half of the

aboriginal population at the time of the foreign settlements of

this country and to have numbered not less than one hundred

thousand. The numerous tribes of the Algonquin family were

scattered from the Atlantic to the great plains beyond the "Father

of Waters" and from Hudson's Bay to Pamlico Sound. This

vast division was interrupted by the "terrible Iroquois" group, a

separate stock gathered mainly about the shores of Lakes Erie

and Ontario. The Iroquois were "the Romans of the New

World," and comprised the confederated "five nations"-the

Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, to which

was added later (1713) the sixth nation, the Tuscarawas. The

420       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

center of the Iroquois confederacy was about the beautiful inland

lakes of New York. Of the Iroquois stock, but not of the con-

federacy, was the Neuter nation on the Niagara River, the

Hurons on the north shore of Lake Erie and the Eries or the

1Cat Nation on the south shore of the same waters. The im-

placable and irresistible Iroquois confederacy, early in the seven-

teenth century, subjugated the Neuter nation; destroyed the

Hurons, dispersing their survivors to distant dwellings in the

west and south; and annihilated the Eries or Cat Nation so com-

pletely "that inquiring historians have earnestly sought them in

other tribes and under other names in vain."² As early as 1650

the Iroquois pre-empted by conquest and more or less occupied

the northern portion of Ohio. From this time for a century

succeeding, the movements of the Redmen in the Ohio country,

that is within the territory now comprising Ohio, are more or

less wrapped in obscurity.

There is every reason to believe that it was the ambition and

effort "of the five nations to subdue, disperse or assimilate all

the tribes of the Ohio Valley."* But they seemed to have been

successful only along the lake shore. In the hundred years

preceding 1750, it is certain that many Indian tribes were grav-

itating towards the navigable rivers, rich valleys and fertile fields

of Ohio. That was the most accessible and advantageous ter-

ritory between the Great Lakes and the "beautiful rivet." There

were easy portages connecting the sources of the rivers emptying

into the Erie and those debouching into the Ohio; short trans-

fers from the Cuyahoga to the Tuscarawas; the Sandusky to

the Scioto; the Maumee to the Miami or to the Wabash. Thus

the canoes of traffic and travel from the St. Lawrence to the

Mississippi would traverse the natural water channels of the

Ohio country. All roads led to Rome. All rivers led to and

from Ohio. The cunning Redman selected in peace and war

these avenues of least resistance. Hence the Ohio country was a

chosen center for the western tribes and in the early half of the

1Called by the French "Nation du chat" by reason of their cats,

a sort of small wolf or leopard, from skins of which robes were made.

2Cyrus Thomas.

* Dodge, "Indians in the Ohio Valley."

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.           421

eighteenth century the tide of permanent settlement was Ohio-

ward. The Miamis, chief occupants of Indiana and portions of

Illinois, spread into the valleys of the Maumee and the Miamis.

They were divided into three tribes: the Twigtwees, or Miamis,

the Piankeshawes and the Weas. Their limits were well de-

fined and doubtless correctly described by Little Turtle: "My

father kindled the first fire at Detroit; from thence he extended

his lines to the head-waters of the Scioto; from thence to its

mouth; from thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wa-

bash, and from thence to Chicago, over Lake Michigan. These

are the boundaries within which the prints of my ancestor's

houses are everywhere to be seen." The Miamis, who belonged

to the Algonquin family, were a powerful nation and were un-

doubtedly among the earliest immigrants into Ohio. In their

prime they could command two thousand warriors, and it is

claimed were the forces that met and repelled the inundating

waves of the Iroquois. The Wyandots were a remnant portion

of the dispersed Hurons and were found mainly in the northern

and central portions of the Ohio country, on the rivers run-

ning into the lake, especially the Sandusky. They were noted for

their peaceful disposition and friendliness to the whites. Tarhe,

the Crane, their wisest and mightiest chief, was one of the noblest

characters that adorn the annals of the Ohio Indians. The Del-

awares were originally located on the river that bore their

name, whence they pushed west into the Ohio, occupying the

valley of the Muskingum as far east as the Scioto. They ranked

among the most historic and dominant of aboriginal tribes and

were called the Lenni-Lenapes, or "Men." They professed to

be the progenitors of the Algonquin family and always took

precedence in Indian councils and were styled "Grandfathers."

They addressed in turn all other tribes as "Grandchildren."

They were conquered by the relentless Iroquois, who for many

years held them in vassalage and compelled their warriors to

"wear petticoats," that is, to carry the burdens like women.

There were minor groups, at various times in this territory,

representing other tribes, not pertinent to our theme, notably the

Ottawas, who were immortalized by the great Pontiac, mem-

bers of which tribe were found on the rivers emptying into

422       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

the western and southern shores of Lake Erie. Their settle-

ments were neither numerous nor influential. The Mingos were

a branch of the Iroquois, probably the Cayugas, and inhabited

the extreme eastern portion of Ohio. Their chief, Logan, was

the author of the famous oration so well known to every school-

boy. It must be kept in mind that the settlements of these

various tribes, which came into the Ohio country, were not per-

manent, but were more or less shifting as tribal wars, white

immigration and changing conditions required. The Indian above

all else is migratory, and if he did not descend from the lost

tribes of Israel, as many ethnologists claim, he certainly had

the characteristics of the "wandering Jew." This was especially

true of the tribe we now consider-

THE SHAWNEES.

Restless and fearless, wary, warlike and nomadic, they

were the vagrants of the trackless forest, the aboriginal Arabs,

ever seeking new fields for conquest and opportunity. "At the

period when western Virginia began to see the light of dawning

civilization, they (Shawnees) were the possessors of that wilder-

ness garden, the Scioto Valley, occupying the territory as far wast

as the Little Miami and head-rivers, having been invited thither

by the Wyandots, at the instigation of the French. Wanderers as

are all savages, this tribe, of all their family or race, bears off

the palm for restlessness as well as undying hostility to the

whites. From the waters of the northern lakes to the sandy

beach washed by the temperate tides of the Mexican Gulf - from

the Valley of the Susquehanna to the gloomy cotton-wood

forests of the Mississipi -in forests grand and gloomy with

the stately growth of ages--in the prairie, blossoming with

beauty, and fragrant with the breath of a thousand sweets--

by mountain torrents, or shaded springs, or widespread plains

- the Shawnee sought the turkey, the deer, and the bison; and,

almost from the landing of the whites at Jamestown, his favorite

game was the cunning and avaricious pale-face."³

3Dodge "Indians in the Ohio Valley."

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            423

The Shawnee⁴ realized and felt his prowess; proud to a su-

perlative degree, haughty and sagacious, he regarded himself as

superior to his fellow-stock in all the natural and acquired quali-

ties of the Indian. The Shawnees boasted in a tradition "that the

Master of Life, the Creator himself, the originator of all peoples,

was an Indian. He made the Shawnees before any other human

race. They, the Shawnees, sprang from his brain. He gave

them all the knowledge he himself possessed and placed them

upon the great island (America) and all the other red people

descended from the Shawnees. After the Creator had made

the Shawnees, he made the French and English out of his breast,

the Dutch out of his feet, and the 'Long Knives' (Americans)

out of his hands." All these inferior races of men he made

and placed beyond the "Stinking Lake;" that is, the Atlantic

ocean. Parkman says of this tribe: "Their eccentric wander-

ings, their sudden appearances and disappearances, perplex the

antiquary and defy research." They were doubtless among the

tribes met by Captain John Smith and his colony on the banks

of the James. One of the first definite mentions of them is by

De Laet in 1632, who places them at that date on the Dela-

ware. We catch many glimpses of them in the recorded ob-

servations of the early French voyagers, one of whom was

Nicolas Perrot, who sojourned many years among the Indians of

the northwest and relates that while in the Illinois country

(1685) he met a band of Chaouanons (Shawnees) who had

immigrated thither from the Valley of the Cumberland. Mar-

quette and La Salle speak of the Chaouanons coming under their

notice in the far northwest. Jesuit Relations make frequent men-

tion of the existence of this tribe in separate parts of the coun-

try previous to 1700. They were found on the Delaware, the

Cumberland. Tennessee, Illinois, and Mobile rivers; they were

located in scattered spots from the northwest to the southeast,

showing their roving and venturesome proclivities. There is

a probable tradition that they were in Ohio and on the shore

of Lake Erie before 1670 and about the latter date succumbed

4They were called Satanas by the Iroquois; Chaouanons by the

French; Shawanees, Shawanos, Shawnees and similarly spelled names

by the English. We employ the simplest form Shawnee.

424       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

to the invincible Iroquois and later recoiled to their chief cen-

ters south of the Ohio.⁵ The Shawnees were a party to the

famous Penn treaty held under the great elm in 1682, and for

many years thereafter were the custodians of a parchment copy

of that treaty, thus evidencing their prominence in that event;

the "only treaty," says Voltaire, "never ratified by an oath and

never broken," for "not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed

by an Indian," is the testimony of Bancroft. A sifting of the

varied statements, more or less reliable, leads to the conclusion

that, at the beginning of historic times in America, the Shawnees,

a populous and aggressive tribe, erratic and pugnacious, were

chiefly located in the valleys of the Tennessee and the Cum-

berland, whence they migrated in all directions. They took per-

manent residence in Ohio, first settling along the Scioto, and

later in the Miami Valley, in the early part of the eighteenth

century.  The Ohio Shawnees, it is generally claimed, were

energetic migrants from the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida,

having been expelled from the sunny South by the Seminoles,

Cherokees and other southern tribes to whom the querelous and

imperious disposition of the Shawnees had become unbearable.

This migration, according to some authorities, was under the

guidance of the Shawnee chief Black Hoof.⁶

Christopher Gist in his journey (1750) through this country,

in behalf of the first Ohio Company, found villages of the Shaw-

nees on the Scioto, one at the mouth containing 140 houses and

300 men.   Bouquet, in the report of his expedition (1764)

against the Ohio Indians, says the Shawnee on the Scioto could

muster 500 warriors.  Certain it is that the Shawnees were

an influential and well established people in central and western

Ohio previous to the French and Indian War. Their arrogant

and autocratic disposition, coupled with untempered ferocity,

made the Shawnees the most formidable and most feared of all

the savage tribes with which the Western settlers had to contend.

5 Parkman and Cyrus Thomas.

6 Black Hoof was born in Florida about 1740. Shawnees were

doubtless in Ohio before his arrival.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.          425

TECUMSEH A SHAWNEE.

Tecumseh was the typical child of this tribe; he was the

embodiment and the acme of the Shawnee daring, arrogance,

restless activity, resourceful cunning, innate and intense hostility

to the whites. Measured by his environment and opportunity

there is no more remarkable and striking genius than Tecumseh;

endowed with the fortitude, endurance and energy in common

with his people, he added to those qualities, superior wisdom,

lofty sentiments, a prescience and poetry of soul, marvelous apti-

tude in diplomacy and in dealing with men both savage and civ-

ilized, rare gifts of leadership, matchless oratory, magnetism of

manner, boundless ambition, unswerving loyalty and devotion to

his race, a keen realization of their capabilities, their limitations,

their aspirations, with the overshadowing intuition of their in-

evitable annihilation. He studied the past, he comprehended the

present, he foresaw the future. He was the incomparable pa-

triot and hero of his people. He perished a martyr in a most

dramatic and desperate struggle to redress the wrongs of his

race and delay, if he could not prevent, the final overthrow and

obliteration of the American aborigine. The Shawnees were

originally divided into twelve tribes or bands⁷ each of which was

subdivided into families, known as the eagle, the turtle, the

panther, etc., animals constituting their totems or religious em-

blems. Of the twelve sub-tribes of the Shawnee but four re-

mained in existence at the time of our history, the others hav-

ing become extinct; these four were the Mequachake, the Chilli-

cothe, the Kiscapocoke, and the Piqua. In all these tribes except

the Mequachake, the chiefs won their office by merit, but in the

last named the office was hereditary. Tecumseh was born of the

Kiscapocoke clan, of which his father Puckeshinwau or Puck-

ishenoah was the chief. His mother was Methoataska, meaning

a "turtle laying eggs in the sand." It is generally claimed that

she was a member of the Creek tribe, though the interpretation

of her name would indicate that she belonged to the Shawnee;

she became the wife of Puckeshinwau, either before their de-

7Benjamin Drake.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            427

situation is upon an elevated plain on the north banks of the Mad

river which here gracefully curves and winds its course south-

westerly till it unites with the Great Miami near Dayton. This

old Shawnee town of Piqua like a narrow band extended some

three miles along the ridge of the upland and down into the plain

below. It contained in its limits a sort of citadel or stockade in

the shape of a large rude log hut surrounded by pickets. The

view from the higher portions of Piqua, in its prestine primitive-

ness, must have been of unusual beauty; in front and below,

stretching away to the west and south, was the spacious and fer-

tile valley, whose green center was cut by the gentle flowing

stream; the eastern horizon was fringed by a range of low rising

hills; in the immediate background of the town were the broad

areas of cornfields, which in harvest season gave to the wigwams

and huts a golden setting, beyond which lay an expanse of lofty

forest almost impenetrable in its density.

Such was the scene of Tecumseh's birthplace9 when in

the spring of 1768 his eyes first opened to the light of

heaven. And here he spent his childhood days until the sum-

mer of 1780, when the village of his nativity and the loved home

of his youth was burned and utterly destroyed by the Kentucky

frontiersmen in the expedition of George Rogers Clark against

the Shawnees. Piqua was never re-built, thereby belying the

prophesy of its name. Tecumseh was the fourth child; he had

one sister, Tecumapease, for whom he ever displayed great re-

gard and tenderness and by whom in turn he was affectionately

considered and admired. He had five brothers, Cheeseekau, the

eldest, who filled the part of a father to Tecumseh and was

most watchful of his education. Cheeseekau died in battle in an

expedition to the south; Sauwaseekau, a warrior of distinction,

killed in the battle of Fallen Timber, fighting by the side of

Tecumseh; Nehaseemo, third brother of Tecumseh, seems to

have left no record of his deeds. The two remaining brothers

and youngest children of the family were Kumskaukau and

Laulewasikau, generally stated to be twins. The latter became

the famous Prophet, whose notoriety in Indian history is second

9For authority on data and place of birth see Addenda at close of

this article.

428       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

only to the fame of Tecumseh. The boy Tecumseh, whose name

in the native language signified a "shooting star" or meteor, was

early dedicated to a distinguished career.

In 1774 hostilities broke out on the Ohio frontier between

the Indians of the Northwest territory and the frontiersmen in

Virginia. The English government had reserved this territory,

after the French and Indian War, for the exclusive occupation of

the Indians. The latter resented any encroachments by the white

colonists. The Virginians claimed part of this territory by its

charter right. The Earl of Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia,

raised an army for the purpose of subduing the Indians. This

army was organized in two divisions. Lord Dunmore commanded

one division, of some fifteen hundred men, and proceeded from

Wheeling down the Ohio to the Hocking and thence northward to

the plains on the Scioto. The other division was under the com-

mand of Gen. Andrew Lewis. It mustered in the interior of Vir-

ginia and advanced along the Kanawah to its mouth on the Ohio.

There on October 10th, 1774, these Virginia backwoodsmen,

some eleven hundred in number, unexpectedly met the combined

Indian forces from Ohio under the famous Shawnee chief and

king of the confederacy, Cornstalk. The Indian command was

about equal in number to the army of Lewis, and consisted of

the chosen young braves of the Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wy-

andot, Cayuga, and minor tribes. Many famous chiefs were aides

to Cornstalk, viz: Logan, Red Hawk, Red Eagle, Blue Jacket,

and Puchishenoah, the Shawnee chief and father of Tecumseh.

It was a most bitterly contested combat. "Such a battle with the

Indians, it is imagined was never heard of before," says the

writer of a letter in the government reports:

A thousand warriors, strong and brave--

Of many tribes the chosen pride--

A thousand fearless foes defied.

From breaking morn till gathering night,

An Autumn day, was urged the fight:

The bloody field at set of sun,

Virginia's deadly rifles won.

It is poetically related that on this field of battle, really the,

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            429

initial battle of the American revolution,10 Puchishenoah upon

receiving his mortal wound addressed his eldest son Cheeseekau,

who was fighting by the side of his chief and sire, and com-

mitted to his keeping the promising young brother Tecumseh

then but six years old. Cheeseekau was admonished to rear his

youthful ward to nobility of character and deeds of bravery.

That the fraternal guardian faithfully executed his sacred trust

the subsequent career of his pupil gave ample testimony. Certain

it is that Cheeseekau carefully trained the apt brother to

expertness in the chase, magnanimity toward friend and foe,

wisdom and valor in war, and fortitude in suffering and defeat.

The youthful Tecumseh developed an unusual passion for war-

fare. It was the field of vent for his tireless energy and daring

courage. His boy pastime, like that of Washington and Napo-

leon, said his companion Ruddell, was the sham battle field.

He was the natural and favorite leader of his youthful associates

in all their sports, dividing them into contending parties, one of

which he would lead for the purpose of engaging in a mimic

fight, in which he would outdo his play-fellows by his activity,

agility, strength and skill. His dexterity in the use of the bow

and arrow exceeded that of all the other Indian boys of his

tribe, by whom nevertheless he was loved and respected and

over whom he ever exercised great influence. The little Tecum-

seh was scarcely past the papoose period when the American

revolution began. Its rumblings on the Atlantic coast echoed

across the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia and reverber-

ated in the Ohio valley. The quick and keen ear of the Indian

caught the sound, and apprehended its significance. In the war

between Great Britain and France (1756-63) both sides had

sought the alliance and assistance of the Indians. The Ohio

Shawnees with other tribes cast their lot with the persuasive

Frenchman.   In this new  international contest between the

Briton and the American, England assiduously strove to attach

the Indians to her cause against the colonist. The argument

was plausible with the British, for it was the American colonist

10 See account of Dunmore War by the writer in vol. XI, p. 166,

Publications of Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society.

430        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

that was crowding upon the hunting ground of the aborigine.

Tecumseh, with a mental foresight and acuteness of intuition

beyond his people, almost prematurely realized that in these con-

flicts between the white nations his red race would slowly be

ground as the corn beneath the upper and nether stone. He saw

that the European civilization was entering in the north from

beyond the Great Lakes; that to a more alarming extent the

New Englander was approaching in a steady and widening col-

umn, like the irresistible avalanche, across the mountains from

the east, pushing his frontier line toward the setting sun.

HOME OF TECUMSEH DESTROYED.

Tecumseh was but twelve when occurred the attack on the

capital city of his people, Piqua, by the army of Clark11, and he

witnessed the destruction of his own home and devastation of

his pretty city and the ripening crops, a havoc brought to his

people by the invading forces of the paleface. His intense In-

dian nature was aroused. The bitterest and most irradicable

hatred of the white man took possession of his whole being. As

Hannibal swore eternal enmity to the Romans, so Tecumseh amid

the ashes of his home, vowed implacable vengeance upon the

colonists. In the graphic poem on Tecumseh by George H. Col-

ton, the son is represented as visiting the grave of his chieftain

father Puckishanoah and there appealing to the spirit of his sire

to harden the heart of his son against the whites.

Tecumseh stood by his father's grave.

What ere they were, deep musings gave

To his stern face a saddened look;

And oft his bosom heaved, as shook

By some strong grief; till, calmer wrought,

His very life seemed bound in thought,

As he were sculptured thus, with mind

To one eternal woe resigned;

He knelt besides the moldering earth,

From which had sprung his living birth;

"⁰ spirit of my sire! if e'er,

Leaving thy blissful dwelling place,

11Expedition of George Rogers Clark in Summer of 1780.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            431

Leaving the dance and bounding chase,

Thy once-loved form thou comest near,-

Oh! now be hope and counsel one,

Thou spirit for thy father's son!

How wise, how brave how good thou wert!

Be such my tongue, my hand, my heart,

That I by speech and deeds may be

Their vengeance, fame and destiny."

AFTERMATH OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered to Washing-

ton at Yorktown. The cause of the colonists had triumphed and

peace was restored in New England. But not so in the western

country. In the Ohio valley the contest was still continued. The

British western stations were not abandoned nor were the Brit-

ain's allies, the Indians, subdued. Detroit still remained the

British western headquarters, and the purveying depot of sup-

plies for the hostile and unyielding Redmen. The British, from

their post at Detroit, strained every nerve to prolong the war-

fare in the Ohio country and entice into the war the entire

Indian people. The indomitable Briton hoped the northwest

might yet be saved to British domain. It was estimated that

some twelve thousand savages, meaning twenty-five hundred

warriors, were immediately tributary to Detroit. They must

be incited to further action.

The year 1782 was the year of blood and flame for the Ohio

country. In March of this memorable year occurred the hor-

rible massacre of the hundred disarmed, peaceful and guiltless

Delaware Indians at Gnaddenhutten, at the hands of the band

of Virginians and Pennsylvanians under Colonel David William-

son. It was followed in May by the expedition of Colonel William

Crawford, at the head of some five hundred American volunteers,

who proceeded from the Mingo Bottom to the Sandusky Plains,

where they were defeated by the British and Indians under Cap-

tainWilliam Caldwell. The expedition ended in that awful holo-

caust, the burning at the stake of Captain Crawford by the In-

dians. In this battle of the American revolution the Shawnees

took conspicuous part as aides to the British. The victory of the

British and Indian allies was followed in the month of August

432       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

by the expedition of Captain William Caldwell across Ohio, down

the Miami valleys, over the Ohio river and into the Kentucky

country as far as Blue Licks on the Licking (Ky.) river. The

Kentucky backwoodsmen, led by Daniel Boone and other vet-

eran Indian fighters, rushed to the rescue. It was a fierce and

merciless onslaught. The Kentuckians were overpowered and

routed. Seventy of their number were killed outright and many

captured and horribly tortured by the infuriated Indians. The

best and bravest blood of Kentucky was shed like water. The

victorious British and Indians, glutted with vengeance, re-crossed

the Ohio, the Canadian rangers returning to Detroit and the

Indians dispersing to their Miami homes. That was the last and

most successful British and Indian invasion of Kentucky. The

western settlers were panic stricken, and cried aloud for aid from

Virginia and  Pennsylvania.  Again  George Rogers Clark

emerged from his pioneer home and hurried runners over the

country summoning the brave and undaunted backwoodsmen for

another Ohio raid. In November (1782) the forest freemen

poured forth from the hills and dales south of the Ohio and

gathered at the mouth of the Licking. At the head of a thou-

sand and fifty mounted riflemen Clark crossed the Ohio and

struck off northward through the forest to the Miami towns.

The Indians were surprised and fled, their towns and crops

were destroyed. The Detroit authorities tried to rally the In-

dians for defence, but to no avail. Captain Benj. Logan, in

command of one of Clark's divisions, pushed on to the head of

the Miami and burned the post and stores of the British traders.

It was a sudden and successful expedition. It lasted but a

short time, but it struck dismay to the British at Detroit and

the Indians in Ohio. In the campaign of Caldwell to the Blue

Licks, the Shawnees comprised the main portion of the Indian

contingent, and it is almost certain that Tecumseh was with the

warriors of his tribe and took part in the attack on the Ken-

tucky settlements. He must also have participated in the un-

successful Shawnee defence of the Miami towns in the retalia-

tory invasion of Clark.

In such a school of ceaseless battle and continued blood-

shed Tecumseh was educated in the art of savage warfare and

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.           433

hardened in his hatred of the whites.12  The Clark expedition

ended the British and Indian Revolutionary War in the Ohio

country. The incursions of the Indians instigated and directed

by the British, ceased for a time to harass the frontier settlers.

The Redmen, aided by the Red Coats, had been unable to drive

the Americans back beyond the Alleghanies. The western immi-

gration began. The Virginian, the Pennsylvanian, the patriots

of New England, turned their faces toward the "promised land"

of the Northwest Territory. But the Ohio settler was not yet

to possess his home in peace and security.

As before noted, Tecumseh's first taste of war was when he

witnessed the destruction of his Piqua home. As a young warrior

he doubtless received his "baptism of fire" in the campaigns of

Caldwell and Clark, in the latter one of which his brother Chee-

seekau was wounded, and it is related's that Tecumseh at the com-

mencement of the action became frightened and ran. That is dif-

ficult to believe, and if true was the only instance in his life when

he betrayed timidity or fright. In the next action recorded in

which Tecumseh was engaged, his conduct was that of both

bravery and humanity. Thoroughly imbued with animosity to

the whites, he early took part in the attacks constantly made by

the Indians on the frontier immigrants as they came clown the

Ohio on the flat boats. In these attacks, though yet in his teens,

he evinced great cunning and total absence of fear. It was the

cruel custom of his people after capturing these boats, to seize

the property and then torture and often burn the prisoners.

When he first witnessed this revolting act, he expressed his ab-

horrence and disgust in a fiery and forceful speech, declaring

he would never take part in or permit, if he could prevent,

such barbarous cruelty. He rigidly adhered to that resolve. His

instructions to his warriors were, when entering battle, "Kill

the enemy if possible and leave none to be captured, but if pris-

oners fall into your hands, treat them humanely." That prin-

ciple, far above the usual sentiment of his savage people, he

ever fearlessly enforced. What an incident for the brush of the

painter. The youthful champion of his race, in the forest wilds.

12 Draper manuscript.

13 Benjamin Drake.

Vol. XV.-28.

434        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

upon the banks of the Ohio, pleading in his fiery eloquence with

his savage warriors that they treat a prisoner with the humanity

of civilized warfare. It was the fearless expression of the nat-

ural instinct of a noble character, the spark of the divine kindled

in the bosom of the untaught and unrestrained barbarian.

FIRST JOURNEY SOUTH.

Thus early enured to frontier warfare, a new phase of edu-

cation was opened to him in wide travel among foreign tribes,

which broadened his knowledge and expanded his fame and

power. In the year 178714 Tecumseh started from the Mau-

mee¹⁵ with his brother Cheeseekau and a party of Kiscopocokes

on a westward "hunting and predatory expedition." They made

a stay of some months in the Mississinaway¹⁶ region, a country

inhabited by the Miami tribes. Thence the party moved west

through Illinois onto the Mississippi on the Missouri side of

which, near the mouth of the latter river, they encamped eight or

nine months. They then proceeded south toward the Cherokee

country. While in the neighborhood of Fort Massac¹⁷ they en-

joyed a Buffalo chase, during which Tecumseh was thrown from

his horse and had his thigh broken. The accident detained them

some months, when they continued to the Southeast, the coun-

try of the Cherokees¹⁸. The Cherokees were at war with the

Whites and the Shawnee party, ready for adventure and hostile

to the frontiersmen, gladly joined in the contest. In an at-

tack upon a frontier fort¹⁹ Cheeseekau lost his life and Tecum-

seh his best brother, companion and friend. In this Cherokee

campaign Tecumseh exhibited great skill and courage, being en-

gaged in numerous dangerous encounters and daring adventures.

14Anthony Shane.

15Shane says Fort Wayne which was erected on the Maumee

near its source at the confluence of the St. Joseph and the St. Mary.

The Fort was not built (by Wayne) till 1794. Its site was a favorite

Indian center.

16 River in North Central Indiana, a branch of the Wabash.

17 On the Ohio near its entrance into the Mississippi.

18Western portions of North and South Carolina and Eastern Ten-

nessee.

19 Benjamin Drake.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.          435

Several times he narrowly escaped being captured or killed.

Many palefaces were the victims of his unerring rifle or his

bloody tomahawk. He widely traversed the South. The tribes

of Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi were visited by

him and learned of his skill as a huntsman and valor as a

warrior. He returned home through western Virginia, crossed

the Ohio near the mouth of the Scioto, visited the country of

his boyhood days on the Mad river, reaching the Auglaize in the

Fall of 1790, having been a wanderer for three years. He must

have found his native land to his liking, for Ohio was in a

warlike condition. There had been "doings" in the Ohio coun-

try during his absence.

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY ESTABLISHED.

The year of his departure (1787) had been a remarkable

one in the new republic, memorable for three great national

enactments. They were (1) the "Ordinance of 1787" creating

the Northwest Territory; (2) the sale by the continental con-

gress in New York of the apportioned land to the Ohio Com-

pany; and (3) the adoption of the Federal Constitution by the

convention in Philadelphia. The arrival of the Mayflower at

Marietta (April, 1788) was the advent of the new civilization

in the Northwest Territory.  Ohio was bing settled by the

heroes and veterans of the War for Independence. The Ohio

Valley had indeed passed to the United States and had been

opened to the pilgrims from the New England colonies. But

the Indians were still the chief occupants, and with no feeble

title, its claimants. Not yet was the recent enemy of the Amer-

icans, the British, entirely subdued or expelled.  Great Brit-

ain still retained and occupied many of her military posts

within the territory ceded to the United States.²⁰ Among these

retained posts were those at Mackinac, Detroit and the Ohio

posts at the mouths of the Sandusky and the Maumee.21 One of

20 See article on Ohio in the American Revolution by the writer in

Ohio Centennial Celebration.

21Great Britain held these posts under pretense of regarding them

as a guarantee by the Americans to carry out the agreement in the

Paris treaty of 1783, that the debts owing from the Americans to the

British creditors would be paid.

436       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

the motives, if not the main one, on the part of England for

unwarrantably holding these posts, was to keep in touch with

the Indian of the West and goad him on to continue the warfare

against the Western colonist. Great Britain hoped the newly-

formed league of American states would soon prove a "rope of

sand" and dissolve, or at least that the Western country might be

regained and restored to colonial independence. The Indians were

assured of the continued sympathy and support of their former

British patrons. The Indian, with this "moral" support at his

back, was not slow to renew his protest at the occupation by

the American of his hunting grounds in the Northwest. The

Revolution was still to be continued in the Ohio country. The

British beguiled the Redman into the belief that the American

had no right the tribes of the forest were bound to respect. The

Indian, urged on by British agents, began at once to commit

depredations and to destroy the property and take the lives of the

settlers in Ohio:

All along the winding river

And down the shady glen,

On the hill and in the valley,

The voice of war resounds again.

The darkness of night was made lurid by the flames of the burn-

ing cabin and the solitude of the forest was broken by the rifle

crack of the stealthily approaching savage and the groans of the

dying frontiersman and the shrieks of his homeless and defence-

less wife and children.

INDIAN TROUBLES AND TREATIES.

This is not the place to attempt to thread the way through

the labyrinthian history of treaties between the white invader and

the Indian for title to the territory occupied by the latter. We

shall refer only to those bearing directly upon our narrative.

Ever since the civilized nations of the world began to occupy

lands peopled by savages, they have based their claims upon the

right of discovery, followed by occupation. This principle has

been judicially affirmed by the United States Supreme Court,

which declared "that discovery gave an exclusive right of occu-

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            437

pancy, either by purchase or conquest," and also to sovereignty.²²

It was not a custom with the French, at any time, at any points

of their settlements in the West to make large purchases of land

from the Indians.²³  Small tracts about their posts invariably

served to supply their wants. At the Treaty of Paris (1763)

these small tracts about the forts of Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskas-

kia, Cahokia, etc., were all the French ceded to the British. Fol-

lownig this treaty came the conspiracy of the great Ottawa chief

Pontiac, who at the head of eighteen combined tribes, undertook

to exterminate the conquering British from the Western country.

His effort, brilliant and bloody, was a failure and in ¹⁷⁶8-year

of the birth of Tecumseh - the Treaty of Fort Stanwix21 was

made in which the Iroquois Six Nations yielded to England their

claim to all territory south of the Ohio as far as the Cherokee

or Tennessee river. The Ohio river was at the same time fixed

as the boundary line between the Whites on the South and East

and the Indians on the North and West. The Ohio thus became

the established barrier to separate the two conflicting races.

Thus matters stood until the close of the Revolution when

England in the Treaty of Peace (Paris, 1783) transferred her

Western claims to the United States. But she conveyed only

what she had previously received from France, excepting the

guarantee of the Iroquois Six Nations and the Southern tribes to

a part of the land south of the Ohio.²⁵ No part of the Northwest

territory claimed by the Miamis, Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots

or Hurons and other tribes west and north was ceded by England

to the United States. But Congress assumed that the interna-

tional treaty (1783) bestowed upon the United States the full

right to all territory then transferred and regarded the right of

the Indians to the territory as forfeited by their acts of warfare

against the colonial government during the Revolution. Congress

therefore made no attempt to purchase the land from the Indians,

but began to form treaties of peace with them and to suggest its

22Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheaton 543.

23 Brice, Fort Wayne.

24 Fort Stanwix was erected by General Stanwix in 1758 on the

present site of Rome, N. Y.

25 Brice, Fort Wayne.

438        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

own boundary lines. The government also determined to enter into

pacts, tribe by tribe, rather than to deal with them in a mass.

The Indians were to be regarded as being divided into so many

separate and distinct nations and powers having respective rights

over separate territorial limitations. In pursuance of this policy

the government concluded a treaty at Fort Stanwix in October,

1784, with the Iroquois Six Nations in which the latter relin-

quished their claim to the Western territory north and west of the

Ohio. By this agreement the Iroquois, who had been pressing

west along the southern shores of Lake Erie, were in fact shut

out from any further advance in that direction. The pretension

of the Six Nations to make a sale of this territory (Ohio)

angered the Western tribes, who claimed it as within their own

jurisdiction. Nor were the Iroquois unanimously in favor of the

treaty. Red Jacket, the eloquent chief of the Senecas, Joseph

Brant, the distinguished statesman chief of the Mohawks, and

other chiefs protested against the validity of the Fort Stanwix

treaty, claiming that all the tribes must concur in any treaty with

the government.

In January, 1785, the Americans completed a treaty at

Fort McIntosh26 with the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas

and Ottawas. It was then agreed for a satisfactory consider-

ation that the northwest portion of what is now Ohio "should

remain inviolably in the Indian possession, except that the whites

should be allowed tracts, six miles square, about any military post

which was within the territory."²⁷  This treaty secured thirty

million acres to the entering settlers.²⁸ In January, 1786, a

treaty was held at Fort Finney, mouth of the Great Miami, with

the Delawares, Wyandots and Shawnees, but chiefly to secure the

Shawnees, "the most conceited and warlike of all the aborigines,

the first in battle and the last at a treaty."²⁹

26 Built by Gen. Lachlin McIntosh on the Ohio, thirty miles below

Fort Pitt and near the mouth, of Beaver Creek.

27The region thus reserved was on Lake Erie from Cuyahoga to

the Maumee, south of Portage connecting Maumee and Miami, east to

Tuscarawas at Fort Lawrence; north to the Lake.

28 Justin Winsor; the Western Movement.

29 They were "the most deceitful in human shape." Article on Shaw-

nees in Encyclopedia Americana.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.         439

Three hundred of this obstinate tribe were present and they

agreed to confine themselves to the territory between the Great

Miami and the Wabash and "to relinquish to the United States

all title or pretense of title they ever had to lands east, west and

south of the east, west and south lines described, etc." But the

other tribes west refused to recognize this Shawnee bargain and

the Shawnees themselves paid little attenion to its binding force

and broke over the lines and continued hostile incursions. It

became necessary for George Rogers Clark in the summer of the

same year (1786) to lead an armed force of a thousand men

against the Wabash Indians, while Colonel Benjamin Logan at

the head of five hundred mounted riflemen crossed the Ohio (at

Maysville) and penetrated the Indian country as far as the head

waters of Mad river, burning eight large Indian towns, destroy-

ing many fields of corn, taking many prisoners and killing many

Shawnee warriors, among them a distinguished chief.³⁰

These treaties caused great discontent among the non-

assenting tribes, and great councils were held at Detroit and

Niagara for the purpose of uniting the tribes against the en-

croachments of the whites and the repudiation of attempted

t_reaties. In the councils the British agents were active in

"egging on" the Redmen. Meanwhile (1786) Joseph Brant had

gone to England and appealed to the British authorities in behalf

of the whole Indian race, complaining that England should have

protected the Indian in the Treaty of Peace (1783) and should

now use its efforts to keep the Americans south of the Ohio. He

was met with deaf ears and returning made a protest against the

congressional policy of the government of treating with separate

tribes, instead of covenanting with the entire body of Indians.

On the 9th of January, 1789, General St. Clair, the territorial

governor of the Northwest,31 succeeded in assembling at his Fort

Harmar headquarters, mouth of the Muskingum, a great number

of representative members of various tribes. Two treaties were

concluded. The first with the Six Nations, except the Mohawks,

whom Brant had led off to Detroit. This treaty confirmed the

30 Dillon's Indiana.

31St. Clair was elected by Congress governor of the territory

northwest off the Ohio River, on October 5th, 1787.

440       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

provisions of the one made at Fort Stanwix (1784). The second

Harmar treaty was with the Wyandot, Delaware, Ottawa, Chip-

pewa, Pottawattamie and Sac tribes. This treaty confirmed the

grants made by the tribes named at the treaties of Fort McIntosh

and Fort Finney (1785). It will be noticed that the Shawnees

were conspicuous for their absence at the Harmar treaty.

These treaties of St. Clair, especially the second one, were

ignored by the Indian tribes not participating and were more or

less ignored by the tribes who were parties to the agreements,

"the Shawnees being particularly insolent and renewing their

restless maraudings.32  Little was needed to start them on the

warpath. That the British were more or less at the bottom of the

Indian discontent the proof is ample and conclusive.

In the spring of 1790 Antoine Gamelin was sent by Major

Hamtramck as a peacemaker, under instructions of Governor St.

Clair, to the Miami villages. At one of these Gamelin showed the

Shawnees and Delawares the treaty concluded at Fort Harmar by

St. Clair with the various tribes. In his journal Gamelin says:

"Blue Jacket, chief warrior of the Shawnees, invited me to go to

his house and told me: 'My friend, by the name and consent of the

Shawnees and Delawares I will speak to you. We are all sensible

of your speech, and pleased with it; but, after consultation, we

cannot give an answer without hearing from our father at De-

troit ;33 and we are determined to give you back the two branches

of wampum, and to send you to Detroit to see and hear the chief;

or to stay here twenty nights for to receive his answer.' " Again

(May 3) Gamelin got to the Weas on the Wabash: "They told

me that they were waiting for an answer from their eldest breth-

ren. 'We approve very much our brethren for not giving a

definite answer without informing of it all the lake nations; that

Detroit was the place where the fire was lighted; then it ought first

to be put out there; that the English commander is their father,

since he threw down our French father. They could do nothing

without his approbation.'"

32 Justin Winsor - The Western Movement.

33 British Commander.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.          441

EXPEDITIONS OF HARMAR AND ST. CLAIR.

General Josiah Harmar, a Revolutionary veteran, was ap-

pointed commander-in-chief of the United States army September

29, ₁789, and was at once directed to proceed against the Indians.

He centered a force of some fifteen hundred men at Fort Wash-

ington (Cincinnati). His army consisted of some three hundred

regulars and eleven hundred "militia," which really meant indis-

criminate volunteers, mostly from  Kentucky, aged men and

inexperienced boys, many of whom had never fired a gun; "there

were guns without locks and barrels without stocks, borne by men

who did not know how to oil a lock or fire a flint." With this

"outfit" General Harmar proceeded (September 30, 1890), into

the heart of the Indian country, around the headwaters of the

Maumee and the Miami. The Indians under the British had

made ample preparations for the reception of General Harmar's

forces. Arms, ammunition and stores had been issued to the

Indians in great abundance by Chief Joseph Brant and Alexander

McKee, and Captains Bunbury and Silvie of the British troops.

The Indians thus equipped in parties of hundreds set out for the

upper Miami towns, whither they understood the forces of the

United States were bending their course. The Indians, in far

less numbers than the American army, were led by the renowned

Miami chief, Me-che-cannah-quah, better known as Little Turtle.

who by wily strategy divided Harmar's army and defeated and

routed the expedition. Harmar, chagrined and humiliated, re-

treated to Fort Washington, after suffering great loss of men.

It was a stunning blow for the young republic, and created havoc

and terror among the Ohio settlers.

It was just after the defeat of Harmar that Tecumseh re-

turned from his long journey and absence from home.³⁴ He

found the entire Indian population of the Northwest, estimated to

be at that time about thirty thousand, and particularly those of

Ohio, in a terribly agitated and inflammable state. Moreover,

flushed with their victory over Harmar, they were highly elated

and emboldened to further and aggressive attacks upon their

34 Benjamin Drake.

442       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

white enemies. It was now evident to the government that large

measures must be taken to establish the authority of the United

States among the Indians and protect the Ohio settlements.

Washington called Governor St. Clair to Philadelphia, and with

the approval of Congress placed him in command of an army to

be organized for a formidable Indian expedition.

In order to distract the attention of the tribesmen while

preparations were being made by General St. Clair, two in-

cursions into the heart of the Indian country were effected in

the summer of 1791. General Charles Scott, a Revolutionary

hero, who had settled in Kentucky, led (June) an expedition of

seven hundred and fifty Kentucky recruits from the mouth of the

Kentucky river to the Indians towns on the Wabash. Four

months later. General James Wilkinson, another distinguished

Revolutionary officer, with five hundred and twenty-five men

proceeded from Fort Washington by way of the Miami country,

in passing through which they threatened and alarmed the Ohio

(Indians), to the Indian settlements on the Eel river³⁵ where they

destroyed the Indian villages. These two sudden and bold dashes

of Scott and Wilkinson did little real damage to the Ohio In-

dians, though they did avert attention from St. Clair's prepara-

tions as was intended. By the first of October (1791) St. Clair

was ready with an army of about twenty-five hundred men, in-

cluding regulars sent from the east and the Kentucky militia, to

leave Fort Washington. He advanced cautiously northward to

the Great Miami where he built Fort Hamilton; thence he picked

his way to the site of Fort Jefferson which he also erected.³⁶

The news of St. Clair's invasion of the Miami country soon

reached the Indians of the interior.

Tecumseh was chosen to lead a small party of spies or scouts

with orders to watch and report the approach, when sighted, of

the American army. He discharged this duty with characteristic

skill and faithfulness. While concealed on Nettle creek, a small

tributary of the Little Miami, he and his party descried St. Clair's

troops passing on the way from Fort Jefferson to the north. Te-

35 Branch of the Wabash.

36 Brice - Fort Wayne.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            443

cumseh's prompt report to the chiefs enabled them to quickly and

stealthily prepared to make an unexpected attack.³⁷ The main ad-

vance of St. Clair's army consisting of about fourteen hundred

men under General Butler, arrived at a favorable camping point

on one of the headwaters of the Wabash, where Fort Recovery

was later built. Here a temporary encampment was made with

the intention of soon proceeding to the head of the Maumee and

there erecting a fort. But the Indians to the number of twelve

hundred, under the shrewd and fearless leadership of Chiefs Lit-

tle Turtle (Miami), Blue Jacket (Shawnee) and Buck-ong-a-he-

las (Delaware), were lying in wait and just before sunrise sprang

with terrific whoops and indescribable yells upon the surprised

soldiers. The story of the dire result is a tale that has often been

rehearsed. It was a desperate, irregular combat, the troops were

completely demoralized and stampeded. They sought refuge in

hasty flight, but less than half escaped; the camp and artillery

were all abandoned; not a horse was left; the soldiery threw

away their arms and accoutrements as they fled, strewing the

roads for miles.  Some six hundred men were killed, besides

thirty-five officers; while twenty-five officers and two hundred

and fifty men were wounded. The tortures inflicted by the infuri-

ated Indians upon the wounded and the prisoners, among the lat-

ter of whom were many women who had followed the fortunes

of their soldier husbands, were too awful to relate. This dis-

aster, in the extent of its loss, was equal to, while its frightful

details far exceeded, the defeat of the Continental army under

Washingon at Germantown, which was one of the worst repulses

the colonists received.³⁸ Great public odium rested on St. Clair

because of this repulse and the administration of Washington was

criticised as being too weak and incompetent to cope with the

Indian uprisings.

37 Fort Jefferson was forty-four miles north of Fort Hamilton and

six miles south of present city of Greenville. Fort St. Clair was a little

north of midway between Forts Hamilton and Jefferson and was built in

the winter of 1791-2, after St. Clair's defeat.

38In January, 1792, General Wilkinson conducted a small force from

Fort Washington to the battle-ground of St. Clair's defeat and gave

decent burial to the bodies of the slain, which were interred in great

pits amid the snow and ice of an excessively cold winter.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.           445

tude. They had heard of Wayne. Upon the announcement of

his selection, Mr. George Hammond, the British minister to the

American Government, wrote home that Wayne was "the most

active, vigilant and enterprising officer in the American army,

but his talents were purely military." Mr. Hammond here in-

dulges in some unconscious British humor. It is generally sup-

posed that military talents are the chief qualification for a cam-

paign leader. Wayne's were found to be sufficient. If he were

"mad" there was incomparable method in his madness.

But more than a year intervenes before Wayne arrives on the

scene of action. Meantime, the Ohio tribes, "drunk with victory,"

terrorized the Ohio country and committed untold atrocities upon

the frontiersmen. In these Tecumseh was much in evidence.

He diversified his hunting pastimes with forays upon the whites.

He especially delighted in placing himself at the head of small

bands of Shawnee braves and in skirmishing the country for the

purpose of capturing or destroying the property of the settlers,

of burning their cabins and if possible braining the inmates.

Drake, his biographer, relates some of these warlike incidents at

length.39 In the years 1791 and 1792 he had perilous encounters

and hair-breadth escapes. One of these was at Big Rock, be-

tween Loramie's creek and Piqua, where he was surprised and

attacked by a party of some sixty whites, narrowly escaping with

his life. In these marauding escapades he several times came in

contact with the great Indian hunter Simon Kenton; twice at

least within the years above noted; once on the banks of the east

fork of the Little Miami and again on the waters of Paint Creek

in the Scioto valley.⁴⁰ Nor were the predatory feats of Tecumseh

confined to Ohio; one of his boldest was committed in Virginia

in the woods of the Little Kanawha, where he stole some cattle

and killed their owners.⁴¹ But he was soon called from this life

of a savage bandit to the nobler field of racial warfare.

Wayne arrived at Fort Washington, April, 1793, and nearby

established his recruiting and drilling camp, which he called

"Hobson's Choice," it being the only suitable place for the pur-

39 Others are to be found in the Draper manuscript.

40Collins' Kentucky and McDonald's Sketches.

41 Hildreth's Pioneers.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            447

which he erected. Thence he sent forward several companies of

infantry and one of artillery to the site of St. Clair's defeat,

where the advance division constructed a strong fortification

which was appropriately called Fort Recovery.

At the deliberate but intrepid advance of Wayne, the Indians

began to exhibit signs of uneasiness and sent him a "speech" ask-

ing for a peace parley. The day for parleying was past. The In-

dians had spurned that alternative. Wayne would fight it out. The

Indians, finding war must come, took the initiative and (June,

1794), about fifteen hundred strong, under their puissant gen-

eral, Little Turtle, attacked Fort Recovery. It was a vicious

assault, but the Redmen were repulsed with heavy loss and com-

pelled to retreat.⁴² Tecumseh was with his Shawnee braves in

this attack. It was the introduction of the Indians to the troops

of Wayne and their first serious check. At last, they had met

foemen worthy their savage warfare.

BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBER.

The confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee was the heart

of the hostile Indian population. The banks of the two beautiful

rivers named "appeared like one continuous village for miles up

and down the streams; while for immensity the fields of corn

were unrivaled by any from Canada to Florida." In August

(1794) Wayne marched his dauntless "Legion," as his army was

called, to this river confluence and boldly built there " a strong

stockade fort, with four good stock-houses, by way of bastions."

He fittingly named it Fort Defiance, for it was defiantly placed

in the very midst of the Indian country, whose warriors discretely

withdrew  down the river.  Leaving the Defiance stronghold

thoroughly guarded, Wayne deliberately advanced along the

north bank of the Maumee to the shallow, stony section of the

stream, known as the "Rapids," a few miles below which, on

the same side, was located the new British Fort Miami, just

42In this assault Little Turtle was assisted by British Rangers and

French-Canadian volunteers in all a force of nearly two thousand.

448         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

erected under the direction of General Simcoe, lieutenant-gov-

ernor of Canada.⁴³

Wayne's army took its position along the left river bank op-

posite the Rapids; their front line, facing down the stream, ex-

tended to the left some two miles; before them lay a stretch of

fallen trees which had been blown down by a severe storm. The

night before the battle the leaders on either side held a council of

war. Lieutenant William Henry Harrison, scarcely twenty-one,

was second aid-de-camp to the commander in chief, Wayne, and

at this conference submitted the plan of battle.⁴⁴ The intrepid

Wayne was impatient for the fight. Neither the Indian host of

warriors nor the threatening guns of the British Fort Miami,

daunted the hero of Stony Point. Thus reads the quaint and

rare poem of Coffinberry:

As in the centre of his train,

In moody revery rode Wayne;

His visage scowled as does the storm,

As from his zeal his breast grew warm;

And to the braves that circled round

Said he, "If still no face be found

'Tween this and the old British fort,

When there, by George, you shall see sport.

For if the British rascals show

The slightest favor to the foe,

I'll prostrate all their blasted works,

And cut their throats like bloody Turks.

The devils can't evade our search,

Or yet escape by rapid march,

Unless it be from their protection,

Then, blast their hearts, I'll show them action."

43About 1680 the early French travelers established a fort, generally

called Fort Miami, on the St. Marys river near its entrance into the

Maumee. In 1750 the French built a Fort Miami on the north bank

of the Maumee near the confluence of the St. Joseph. The Fort Miami

of Simcoe was built in the spring of 1794, in anticipation of Wayne's

campaign against the Indians. It was erected by the order of Lord

Dorchester, governor-general of Canada. It was a direct military and

hostile invasion of the United States by England. The erection of this

fortress gave new assurance to the Indians and roused great indignation

among the American people and on the part of Washington.

44 Volume 14, p. 222, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society

publications.

450        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

savages. They called him the "Tornado" and the "Whirlwind."

He was mettlesome as the eagle, swift and unerring as the arrow,

destructive as the hurricane. The Indian courage and resist-

ance was shattered. The Redmen's hope was blasted. More-

over, the Indians were crushed and incensed beyond measure at

the falsity of the British, who not only failed to come to their

assistance with troops from Detroit as they had promised, but

barred to them the gates of Fort Miami, the goal of their retreat,

in the hour of their sorest defeat.

In this battle Wayne had in the neighborhood of a thou-

sand soldiers; the force of Blue Jacket amounted to some four-

teen hundred warriors and perhaps two hundred British volun-

teers and regulars.⁴5 Tecumseh led the Shawness in this mem-

orable contest, occupying at first an advanced position in the bat-

tle, fighting with his accustomed ferocity and exerting every ef-

fort to rally his faltering warriors. While attempting to load

his rifle he put in a bullet before the powder and was then unable

to use his gun. Hotly pursued by the enemy, he fell back with

his party till they met another detachment of his tribe. He

urged them to stand fast and fight, saying that if anyone would

lend him a gun he would show them how to use it. A fowling-

piece was handed him, with which he fought for some time,

till again forced to give ground. In his retreat he met another

party of Shawnees and induced them to make a stand in a thicket,

from which in the shelter of the brush he gallantly returned the

fire of the foe, until again driven back by the irresistible columns

of the Wayne victors.⁴⁶   "It was the most complete and im-

45Delawares 500, Shawnees 350, Wayandots 300, Tawas 250; Fort

Miami is said to have contained 250 militia and 200 regular troops and

that from a third to a half of the fort contingent took part in the battle

with the Indians. Brice says that about 70 British soldiers aided the

Indians.

46Anthony Shane, quoted in Brice's Fort Wayne, says, Tecumseh's

second brother, Sauwaseekau, a brave warrior, was with Tecumseh and

was killed at his side in the thickest of the fray. The Indians suffered

heavily in the loss of their leaders, many chiefs gave their lives in the

struggle of Fallen Timbers; among them Me-sa-sa, or Turkey Foot,

whose memorial, a huge bowlder bearing the prints of a turkey foot, still

stands upon the alleged spot where the Ottawa chief fell.

452       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

of the Indian tribes and destroyed the hope of retrieving their

fortunes. There was naught to be done but to yield to their

conquerors on the best possible terms. The surrender was for-

mally acknowledged in the Treaty of Greenville, held in the

council house of Fort Greenville. General Wayne represented

the fifteen fires (states) of the American government and a host

of sachems, war chiefs and warriors acted for the different tribes

of the Northwest. The tribesmen began to gather early in June,

but it was not until the third of August (1795) that an unanimous

agreement was reached and ratified. It was a great event in

American history. The ceremonies were long and elaborate after

the most formal manner of the tribes. Many lengthy speeches

were delivered by the orators of the forest. Between eleven and

twelve hundred warriors were present to participate in the pro-

ceedings. The tribes subscribing to the treaty were the Wyan-

dots, Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pot-

tawattamies, Weas, Piankeshaws, Kickapoos and Kaskaskias.⁴⁸

The representative delegates of these tribes were headed by the

greatest chiefs and sachems, such as Little Turtle, Blue Jacket,

Tarhe (the Crane), New Corn (Chief of the Pottowattomies),

Buck-on-ge-las, Te-ta-bosksh-ke (king of the Delawares), Mas-

sas, Red Pole, Black Hoof, Mash-i-pi-nash-i-wish, Asi-me-the,

Sha-tay-ya-con-yah (Leatherlips), Tey-yagh-tah, and many others,

prominent in Indian warfare. Ninety-three chiefs of greater or

less distinction signed the treaty in behalf of the tribes above

mentioned and subdivisions of the same. Leading up to the sign-

ing, there were many great speeches by the orators of the tribes,

in which they set forth their wrongs and sufferings and the in-

validity and unfaithfulness of previous treaties. But all finally

acquiesced in the solemn covenant to keep the peace; and they

agreed to surrender to the whites all of what is now southern

and eastern Ohio and southern Indiana, and various reserva-

tions elsewhere, as at Fort Wayne, Fort Defiance, Detroit and

Michilimakinac, the lands around the French towns and the

hundred and fifty thousand acres near the falls of the Ohio,

which had been alloted to George Rogers Clark and his soldiers.

48 See Greenville Treaty by Frazer E. Wilson.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.             453

The government, in its turn, acknowledged the Indian title to the

remaining territory and agreed to pay the tribes annuities ag-

gregating nine thousand five hundred dollars.  Such in short

was the Treaty of Greenville.   No longer could the Redmen

claim the Ohio as the boundary of their domain. The barrier

was set farther west, the first step in the westward recession.

By the Greenville Treaty nearly two-thirds of the Ohio terri-

tory became the possession of the United States, and was lost

forever to the defeated Indian. The result of Wayne's victory

was not only the subjugation of the hostile aborigines, but it ef-

fectually estopped the British endeavors in behalf of the Red-

man; England was without pretense for its continued warfare

against the Americans.

BRITISH POSTS ARE SURRENDERED.

By the treaty with England, negotiated by John Jay,⁴⁹ the

British government agreed to evacuate the American posts she

had so unlawfully and arrogantly retained for more than ten

years. The provisions of the treaty were carried out in the sum-

mer of 1796, when for the first time the British ceased to float

their flag in the territory of the United States. The hope of

the Red Coats departed with the defeat of the Redmen.

Tecumseh was not at the meeting for the Greenville Treaty.

Though conquered, he was not subdued. He refused to bow in

obedience to his vanquishers.  He haughtily declined to sub-

scribe to his subjugation. He ever "hated the Greenville Treaty."

He held that the treaty was the "effect of force and not of jus-

tice." He still maintained that the Ohio river was the boundary

line between the two inimical races, as had been determined by

the Stanwix Treaty of 1768. Instead of yielding to the inevit-

able as did the other chiefs, Tecumseh rededicated his life and

energies to the cause of his race and the abrogation of the Green-

ville Treaty. He would still deny the right of the white man west

49 The ratifications of the Jay Treaty were exchanged October 28,

1795, and on February 26, 1796, and proclamation was made of the

treaty's binding force. In the summer of this year the British sur-

rendered the posts they had contrived to occupy contrary to the treaty

of 1783. Fort Miami was surrendered Jully 11, 1796.

454       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

of the Ohio, and when chance should come, defy with every

power at his command the white intrusion.

The Greenville Treaty gave the tide of western immigration

renewed impetus and the settlements of Ohio progressed without

serious hindrance for some fifteen years, until the War of 1812

gave the Indians the final hazard in the destiny of their race.

Meanwhile Tecumseh, with sweeping foresight and stupendous

fortitude, was patriotically preparing for that hazard.

TECUMSEH IN THE PEACE INTERVAL.

Wayne's war ended, Tecumseh's occupation was gone, and

he chafed under the restrictions of peaceful pursuits. The hunt

was tame excitement for him. It was purely business. He did

not care for game, for peltry, for property or its acquisition.

He was not avaricious and his generosity was proverbial. The

game and furs he secured or the goods he got by exchange he

always dispensed to the needy and to his friends with a boun-

tiful hand. This was one of the secrets of his great popularity

with his people. Yet he was as great a hunter as he was a

warrior. Indeed, in the chase he was pre-eminent. It is re-

lated that while encamped on Deer creek⁵⁰ in 1795, one of his

brothers and several of the young Shawnees made a wager with

Tecumseh that they could kill as many deer in three days as he

could. Tecumseh accepted the challenge and all repaired to the

woods. When the three days were up the contestants returned

with their deer skins to award the palm to the winner. None

of the party had more than twelve skins except Tecumseh, who

had thirty, nearly three times as many as any one of his com-

petitors. From this time he was acknowledged the champion

hunter of his nation. But the ambition of Tecumseh was be-

yond the honors of the huntsman. In the summer of this same

year (1795) while the tribesmen were gathering for the Green-

ville Treaty, Tecumseh was initiating his reactionary movement.

He began to style himself a chief and commenced to raise a

party of his own. He remained on the Deer creek until the spring

of 1796, when he moved with his party to the Great Miami near

50 Near where Urbana is now located.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.          455

Piqua, where they raised a crop of corn. In the autumn of this

year he again changed his rendence and went over to the head

branch of the White Water, west of the Miami, where he spent

the winter and in the following spring (1797) raised another

crop of corn, the chief if not almost the exclusive production of

Indian agriculture.

In the year 1798 the Delawares, then residing in part on

White river, Indiana, invited Tecumseh and his followers to

remove to that neighborhood. Tecumseh accepted this friendly

overture, made the removal and retained his headquarters in

the vicinity named for seven years, during which he engaged

in the ordinary pursuits of Indian life, the quest of game,

raising crops of corn, and wandering about the country. In

all this time, however, he was gradually extending his influ-

ence among the different tribes and adding to his band of fol-

lowers. It was also during his residence on the White river

that occurred perhaps the most romantic episode in the life

of the great warrior. In his wanderings he came frequently to

the white settlements on the Miamis, among others to one about

four miles north of the present town of Xenia. Here Tecumseh

was a frequent and welcome guest at the home of the pioneer

James Galloway, who had a daughter Rebecca, a sweet, pretty

girl of fifteen or sixteen, to whose charms of person was added

the ability to talk to the Indians in their own language. The

heart of the Shawnee chief was smitten by the attractive pale

face. Tecumseh's was no faint heart and he would win the

fair lady. He asked Rebecca to become his squaw. She only

laughed and made fun of such a proposal, which he did not

like, saying, "I big chief, make you great squaw. I come next

moon."   He came again at his appointed time, but to no effect.

They parted good friends however, and she saw him no more.⁵¹

During the visits to this settlement it is clearly related that

Tecumseh not only indulged in love-making, but also in draughts

of "fire water." But when in the spell of a spree, he was jolly

and harmless, good naturedly laughing at the fights and pranks

of his intoxicated companions. He seemed to have "sown his

wild oats" to completion at this period, as we learn from the Eng-

54Letter of G. E. Galloway in Draper manuscripts.

456       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

lish historian James in his Military Occurrences, for after enter-

ing upon his great public and patriotic mission with his brother,

the Prophet, he abstained almost entirely if not absolutely from

the use of intoxicants and strongly urged sobriety on the part of

his own and all other tribes.

The wooing of Rebecca recalls the love and matrimonial

episodes of Tecumseh as related by Ruddell and Shane in the

Draper manuscripts. According to the strictly conventional and

common custom of his people Tecumseh easily acquired and dis-

missed his wives. His matrimonial alliances were sometimes

brief. Yet the testimony is that he was ever just and generous

to his "better halves" who were always "very fond of him-

much more so than he was of them," but he was critically exact-

ing of the acquirements of each wife and the promptness and

faithfulness with which she should discharge her domestic duties.

Should she prove remiss in her responsibilities, Tecumseh would

hand her some handsome presents and give her "a ticket of

leave." During his stay with the Creek nation, in the South, it

is related he took a wife by whom he had children, but the latter

part of the statement at least, cannot be verified. Shane says,

however, that during the southern trip "overtures of marriage

were made him, but he declined, being unwilling to encumber

himself with a wife. Upon his return to the Ohio country "He

married after a short courtship, one of the most beautiful women

in the Shawnee nation, Mamate by name, she being half white."

He lived with her but a short time, until one day desiring her

to make a paint pouch from the materials which he furnished.

She replied she could not make it herself, but would procure

some one to do it for her. Tecumseh at once asked for the re-

turn of the materials, remarked he would save her the trouble

of seeking assistance, for he could do it himself. He then made

her some farewell presents and sent her off. It was the Indian

divorce. Mamate, however, was the mother of the only child

Tecumseh is reported to have had. It was a boy called Puge-

shashenwa, born about 1796. He was cared for by his divorced

mother until he was seven or eight years of age, when Tecumseh

took him. The boy was carefully reared by his fond father and

his aunt Tecumsapease. He survived his father and became an

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.             457

officer in the British army. A subsequent uxorial alliance as

related by Shane is equally illustrative of the Indian custom and

the character of Tecumseh. While residing on the White river,

the chief "had a beautiful woman (Indian) living with him in

the capacity of a wife." Returning one day from a hunting trip,

he brought home a fine turkey which he had killed. He gave it

to his wife to dress and cook, and as usual, invited in some friends

to dinner. When the unfortunate wife brought in the dressed

turkey, the fastidious Tecumseh discovered some feathers on it.

"He said nothing until the meal was over and his friends de-

parted, when he presented his wife with a bundle of clothes and

told her she must depart and drove her out." The same author-

ity says Tecumseh's last wife was Wa-be-le-ga-ne-qua, or the

White Wing, a Shawnee, with whom he lived longer than any

other, marrying her in 1802 and parting from her in 1807.

INDIAN OUTBREAKS.

While the crushing defeat of Fallen Timber quelled any

further combined or extended warfare by the Indians, they

nevertheless continued to sullenly and silently nurse their griev-

ances and hopefully await an opportune time for redress. Trou-

bles of minor importance were incessantly breaking out, vent-

ful ebullition of illy restrained volcanic fires. A serious out-

breaking having occurred between the settlers and neighboring

Indians on the Mad river, a council was held in 1799 just north

of the present site of Urbana. Several chiefs were present, Te-

cumseh being the main speaker, and on this occasion display-

ing in an unusual degree great gifts of oratory, holding his au-

ditors of both races, at times spellbound with his flights of elo-

quence. Again in 1803 (spring) we find Tecumseh in a coun-

cil at Chillicothe, then the capital of the new state of Ohio,

endeavoring to allay by his persuasive arguments a threatened

clash between the whites and Indians over the massacre of Cap-

tain Thomas Herrod.⁵²

52 General McArthur and a party of whites had previously met

Tecumseh and the Indians at a gathering at Fort Greenville over the

Herrod affair. To reassure the whites,, Tecumseh agreed to accompany

McArthur back to the State Capital at Chillicothe.

458       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Governor Tiffin presided over this conference. "When Te-

cumseh rose to speak, as he cast his gaze over the multitude

which the interesting occasion had drawn together, he appeared

one of the most dignified men I ever beheld. While this orator

of nature was speaking, the vast crowd preserved the most pro-

found silence. From the confident manner in which he spoke

of the intention of the Indians to adhere to the treaty of Green-

ville and live in peace and friendship with their white brethren,

the apprehensions of the whites were allayed-the settlers re-

turned to their deserted farms, and business generally was re-

sumed throughout that region."⁵³ From this incident it is easy

to believe that Tecumseh had attained not only the first place

among his own people, but great influence over the white set-

tlers. His nobility and sincerity won the confidence of all. "He

was stamped a hero by the hand of nature and equally dis-

tinguished himself by policy and eloquence."⁵⁴ Nor was he with-

out the sense of humor, such as the Indian possessed. During

this period of our narrative, it is related an explorer from Ken-

tucky lodged one night at a settler's cabin on Bush creek. He

was not an Indian hunter, quite the contrary. He was alarmed

by information that Indians were in the vicinity. Suddenly Te-

cumseh entered to visit his friend, the host of the frightened

Kentuckian. Tecumseh, seeing the scared guest, pointed his

finger at him and in disdainful tones exclaimed, "A big baby!

A big baby!" following the contemptuous epithet by slapping

the "baby" several times over the shoulder to the greater alarm

of the Kentuckian, but great amusement of the other spectators

present.

THE PROPHET AND GREENVILLE.

The tribesmen of Tecumseh were in settlements scattered in

Ohio and Indiana. He and his immediate followers were still

on the White river. Another band was on the Mississinaway.⁵⁵

Many of them resided in the Tawa towns on the head waters of

the Auglaize. These latter Tawa Shawnees proposed to the

John McDonald, quoted by Drake.

Ruddell in Draper manuscripts.

Tributary to the Wabash.

460       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

to our hero, both in appearance and character; a figure grotesque

and unadmirable but potent and helpful, temporarily at least, to

the life purpose of Tecumseh. The Indian is pre-eminently su-

perstitious; vague as are their notions respecting the Diety, they

believe in the existence of a Great Spirit, whom they regard with

great fear and reverence. They had their Prophets or sacred

men, who were the chosen agents or interpreters of this Great

Spirit. These Prophets easily swayed, by their pretended or

sincerely alleged revelations from Heaven, the credulous minds

of the forest savage.   Laulewasikaw -meaning the "Loud

Voice" -assumed this role of the Prophet just before or at the

time of the Greenville settlement. The old Shawnee prophet,

named Penagashega, or "Change of Feathers," for many years

the inspired adviser of his tribesmen, had died. Laulewasikaw⁵⁶

donned the mantle of the departing Penagashega and assumed

his sacred calling. He changed his name to Tenskawautawan,⁵⁷

or "Open Door," because he was to reveal to the Indians the

better life which they should pursue; he was to be the way,

which had been opened for the deliverance of the red people.

The Prophet's career, though short lived was curious, dram-

atic and intensely interesting. He claimed miraculous powers!

That he could heal all diseases and "stay the arm of death

in sickness and on the battlefield."  He began to declaim

against witchcraft, the use of intoxicating liquors, the custom

of the Indian women marrying with white men, the adop-

tion by the Indians of the dress and habits of the white peo-

ple, the practice of selling Indian lands to the whites. He

urged the rejection of all influences of white civilization and the

absolute return of the Redman to his primitive and simple life.

He claimed he had "been up in the clouds" to the very gates

of Heaven and was in communication at first hand with the

Great Spirit. The Prophet was for a time eminently successful.

He was the Mohamet that was to inflame the religious pas-

56 Laulewasikaw, also called Olliwachia, was some years younger

than Tecumseh, awkward and uglly, being blind in one eye and having

rather repellant features. There is no authority for the statement often

repeated that he was the twin brother of Tecumseh.

57 Also written Ellsquatawa.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.             461

sions of his people, while Tecumseh was to stir their patriotism

and racial prejudice.  The Prophet, it is said, and doubtless

with much truth, got many of his ideas from the Shaker and

Moravian missionaries; like Peter the Hermit, he was a preach-

ing prophet to arouse the people ultimately to a great crusade

against their enemies.  He was "accepted" not only by the

Shawnees, but members of all tribes, who flocked in great num-

bers and from great distances, from the Upper Mississippi, Lake

Superior and the eastern countries, to hear and believe his pre-

tentious harangues, which were delivered in a dramatic manner

amid theatrical mummeries. It was not all comedy, for he not

only denounced witchcraft, which was common among his peo-

ple, and imitating his zealous Puritan predecessors, he put many

witches to death with horrible tortures, using the spurious charge

of witchcraft as a justification for the summary disposal of any

enemy.* How closely allied to the doctrine and doings of the

Prophet was his brother Tecumseh can only be conjectured.

The general opinion is that Tecumseh regarded the Prophet as a

sham, a "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" to attract the

ignorant and unwary. On the contrary, Mr. J. M. Ruddell states

in the Draper letters that his father (Stephen Ruddell) said the

Prophet had unbounded influence over Tecumseh, who regarded

his brother as really possessing supernatural powers.   "Te-

cumseh fully believed all the extravagant sayings of the Prophet,

although the character of the Prophet was anything but lovely

either in looks or conduct. My father was of the opinion that

Tecumseh was the tool of the Prophet and all this seemed to be

strange to father, as Tecumseh was much the smarter man in

every respect."⁵⁸ Against this testimony is the Anthony Shane

manuscript, which says "Tecumseh disbelieved in the prophecy

of his brother and was twice in the act of killing him for his

failure, once at Greenville and afterwards at Tippecanoe. Te-

58J. M. Ruddell also says "My father's opinion of the Prophet was

that he was a bad man and as father was well acquainted with him he

had every opportunity to know and while he had a real love and greatest

respect for Tecumseh, he had no confidence in the Prophet as he was

certainly a great liar and hypocrit."

* See Leatherlips, in Indian Monuments by E. L. Taylor, Vol. IX,

p. 1, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications.

462       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

cumseh was much angered and was with much difficulty pre-

vented from killing him for his false prophecies and cowardice.

After opposing him in his prophetic career for some time at

Greenville, he found that most of the Indians believed in him,

and as a matter of policy he assented and after that made use of

him to further his own designs." This latter was probably the

real attitude of Tecumseh concerning the claim of his religious

brother. Without doubt Tecumseh was by this time absorbingly

bent upon his plan of uniting all the tribes of the land into one

vast confederacy for the purpose of exterminating the whites

from the Northwest Territory and once more establishing the

Ohio as the boundary between the two races. He was politic

enough to see that the Prophet could be of great assistance in

this scheme, as through his priestly office he could play upon

the religious prejudices and superstitions of the tribesmen, while

he, Tecumseh, might arouse their patriotism and their smoulder-

ing hatred of the whites. In the spring of 1807, the Shawnee

brothers had assembled several hundred of their people, whom

through their harangues they had succeeded in rousing to the

highest pitch of excitement, with the view to make their con-

trol the stronger and prepare the way for the confederacy of all

the tribes of the Northwest.

ALARM AT INDIAN ACTIVITY.

The white settlers, far and near, became alarmed. President

Jefferson directed Secretary of War Knox to address a letter

to the Indians at Greenville, reminding them they were assem-

bled within the government purchase and requesting them to

move to some other point within their own territory. This let-

ter was transmitted to Captain William Wells, the government

Indian agent stationed at Fort Wayne. Captain Wells sent

Anthony Shane⁵⁹ to Greenville to invite Tecumseh and the Pro-

phet to Fort Wayne for a conference. Tecumseh haughtily told

59Anthony Shane was a half-breed Shawnee. His father was a

Frenchman. He spoke French fluently and often acted as an interpreter.

He was intimately acquainted with Tecumseh His manuscript journal

now in the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society was one of the

main sources of information for Benjamin Drake in writing the life of

Tecumseh, and has been freely used by the writer of this article.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.            463

Shane to "go back and tell Captain Wells that my fire is kindled

on the spot appointed by the Great Spirit alone, and if he

(Wells) has anything to communicate to me, he must come

here; and I will expect him in six days from this time." Wells

then sent Shane to Tecumseh with the President's letter. Tecum-

seh was more indignant than ever. He addressed the messen-

ger and assembled Indians in a glowing and impassioned speech,

in which he dwelt upon the injuries the Indians had received

from the whites, and especially the continued encroachments

of the latter upon the lands of the red men. "These lands are

ours," he excitedly exclaimed, "no one has a right to remove

us, because we were the first owners; the Great Spirit above

us has appointed this place for us, on which to light our fires,

and here we will remain. As to boundaries, the Great Spirit

above knows no boundaries, nor will his red people acknowledge

any." This revealed the unyielding attitude of Tecumseh. These

sentiments and convictions, though at times concealed and even

denied, were ever his; his hopes, his plans, his efforts were for

their realization. The Indians at Greenville increased in num-

bers and activity; they armed themselves; the Prophet and

Tecumseh were visited by bands from every section of the coun-

try. Finally in September (1807) the Governor of Ohio⁶⁰ dis-

patched Thomas Worthington and Duncan McArthur to Green-

ville to confer with Tecumseh and his brother and learn the

object of their assembling such a warlike body of tribesmen,

and that too outside of the Indian reservation. It was a great

conference. Speeches were made by Blue Jacket, Tecumseh and

especially the Prophet, who claimed the assembling to be purely

on account of his religious mission to improve the tribesmen,

convince them of the error of their ways and persuade them

to change their lives and serve the Great Spirit. It was a

specious and plausible plea and quite deceived the state com-

missioners. To still further confirm the deception four chiefs,

Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, Roundhead and Panther returned with

60Acting Governor Thomas Kirker.

61 It was on this journey that Tecumseh pointed out as they passed

in sight of it, his birthplace on the Mad river, below Springfield, now

known as the Keifer farm.

464       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

McArthur and Worthington to Chillicothe.⁶¹  The chiefs re-

mained a week in the state capital, during which time a public

council was held. Tecumseh was the principal speaker, and at

one time spoke three consecutive hours. It was the impetuous

utterances of a burdened and sensitive soul. He reviewed the

entrance and advance of the white man upon the Indian ter-

ritory; the history and features of all the Indian treaties, with

which he revealed marvelous familiarity; he denounced the

rights of the whites in their forciful conquest; he recited the

wrongs endured by his people and their determination to recede

no further, but disclaimed any intention on their part to make

war upon the United States. It was one of the greatest speeches

from the lips of a savage.⁶² It lulled the fears of the whites and

so convinced Governor Kirker that there was no danger that he

disbanded the militia which he had called out from motives of

precaution. Shortly after the event just related a serious dis-

turbance arose over the murder of a white settler near Urbana.

The Indians were charged with the crime. A council was called

at Springfield. Tecumseh was the chief speaker. He insisted on

carrying his tomahawk with him on the plea that it was also

his pipe. A backwoodsman offered him a long-stemmed, dirty

looking earthern pipe; the chief took the miserable substitute be-

tween his thumb and finger, held it up, looked at it disdainfully

and threw it, with a sneer, over his head into the bushes. He was

permitted to retain his tomahawk pipe.

The Greenville "conspiracy" continued to thrive.  The

Prophet's fame and influence spread to the remotest tribes,

Tecumseh and the Prophet made mysterious journeys to the

Indiana and Illinois villages. Governor Harrison addressed a

letter to the Prophet again requesting an explanation of his

intentions. The Prophet returned a lengthy and adroit reply; a

diplomatic document disclaiming any evil purpose.

REMOVAL TO TIPPECANOE.

In the spring of 1808, Tecumseh and the Prophet removed

the Greenville quarters to a tract of land granted them by the

62It was interpreted by Stephen Ruddell.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.             465

Pottawattamies and Kickapoos, on the Tippecanoe, one of the

tributaries of the Wabash river. It was known as the Prophet's

Town and here the brothers gathered about them great numbers

of Northern Indians, and the Prophet's followers for the first

time began to combine warlike sports with their sacred exercises.

Tecumseh's genius gradually asserted its ascendency over the

Prophet's gift for exciting religious fanaticism. If Tecumseh did

not really sympathize with the charlatanry of the "inspired one"

he permitted its progress as a means to his end. Further nego-

tiations took place between the Prophet and Governor Harrison,

who became more and more alarmed at the progress of the

Prophet. In all these proceedings Tecumseh stood in the back-

ground, shifting the scenes, while the Prophet seemed to be the

leader and stood the apparent chief actor before the foot-

lights, but Tecumseh's greatness is shown nowhere more than

in his ability to conceal his purpose and patiently abide his time.

He more and more convinced himself that if he could succeed

in uniting all the Indian tribes so that the southern border could

be harrassed at the same time that the western frontier was being

assailed, the whites could be overcome and brought to sue for

peace and the tide of western immigration stayed, and the Ohio

be again and forever the dividing barrier. Tecumseh, though a

savage of the forest, evidenced in his character a rare combina-

tion of Italian craft, Spanish revengefulness, German patience

and Anglo-Saxon fortitude. In the winter of 1808-9 Tecumseh

visited many tribes in the Indiana territory and attended a coun-

cil at Sandusky when he endeavored to prevail upon the Wyan-

dots and Senecas to remove and join his quarters on the Tippe-

canoe, where they would be farther from the whites and could

enjoy greater game fields. Tarhe, the Crane, opposed the plan,

openly expressing his fear that Tecumseh was working for no

good purpose at Tippecanoe.⁶³ Governor Harrison decided to

63 Tarhe was always, after the Greenville Treaty, which he was the

first to sign, a steadfast friend of the whites. He was the Grand

Sachem of his tribe and the acknowledged head of all the tribes who

were engaged in the war with the United States which ended in the

Treaty of Greenville, and in that character the duplicate of the original

treaty, engrossed on parchment, was committed to his custody.

Vol. XV.-30.

466       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

trust no more to the peaceful representations of the Prophet. He

had indisputable evidence that the Indians were arming them-

selves and that the British in Canada were aiding them in every

way possible. The United States garrison at Fort Knox--a

post about two miles from Vincennes-the capital of the Indi-

ana territory -was augmented by companies of militia. Alarm

posts were established for the protection of Vincennes. Infor-

mation reached Governor Harrison that the preparation of the

Indians for a sudden uprising were wide spread and that Detroit,

St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Chicago and- Vincennes were all to be

the points for surprise and destruction. The bloody plan of

Pontiac's conspiracy was to be re-enacted. Tecumseh's hostility

to the whites had been whetted to fever heat by the treaties made

at Fort Wayne (1809), between Governor Harrison for the gov-

ernment and several Indian tribes⁶⁴ for the extinguishment of

the titles of the natives, to lands extending for some sixty miles

along the Wabash. Millions more of Indian acres for annuities

averaging the fraction of a cent an acre were added to the pos-

session of the United States and this in the very heart of the

Tippecanoe country and while Tecumseh was arousing his tribes-

men to resistence. It was a fresh and galling goad to his efforts.

Till COUNCIL OF VINCENNES.

Events were rapidly culminating when in August (1810) Te-

cumseh accompanied by some three hundred of his chosen

"braves" descended the Wabash by canoes from Tippecanoe to

Vincennes. This in response to an almost commanding invitation

from Governor Harrison for a "talk." The governor had ar-

ranged to hold the council on the broad portico of his house

which had been fitted up for the occasion. He was attended, to

make the ceremony impressive and safe, by the judges of the

Supreme Court, officers of the army, and on the spacious lawn,

canopied by the overshadowing branches of lofty trees, a com-

pany of the militia and a crowd of resident citizens. At the hour

appointed, Tecumseh with some forty chiefs and "big men" all

Delawares, Pottawattamies, Miamis, Eel River, Weas and Kicka-

poos.

Tecunseh, The Shawnee Chief.           467

attired in their most resplendent savage dress, approached with-

in a few rods of the porch. It was one of the most picturesque

scenes in Indian history. The governor invited the great chief,

through the interpreter, to come forward and take a seat with

him and his counselors, saying that was "the wish of their Great

Father, the President of the United States." Tecumseh paused

for a moment, cast his piercing eye about the scene surrounding

him, then "raising his tall form to its greatest height, and point-

ing his sinewy arm towards the heaven, with manner indicative

of supreme contempt for the paternity assigned him, said in a

voice whose clarion tones were heard throughout the assembly:

'My father? - The Great Spirit is my father - the earth is my

mother - and on her bosom I will recline.' "⁶⁵ He then in all the

native dignity of his race settled himself on the ground. He then

arose, animated by the splendor and stimulus of the occasion,

made one of his masterful speeches. "The Great Spirit," he said,

"gave this great island (America) to his red children; he placed

the whites on the other side of the big water. They were not

content with their own, but they came to take ours from us. They

have driven us from the sea to the lakes. They have taken upon

themselves to say that this tract belongs to the Miamis, this to the

Delawares, this to the Ottawas and so on. But the Great Spirit

intended it as the common property of us all. Our father (Presi-

dent) tells us that we (Shawnees) have no business upon the

Wabash; the land belongs to the other tribes; but the Great

Spirit ordered us to come here and here we will stay." He then

proceeded to say, that unless a stop was put to the further en-

croachments of the whites, the fate of the Redmen was sealed.

They had been driven from the Atlantic across the Alleghanies

and now their possessions on the Wabash and the Illinois were to

be taken from them--that in a few years they would not have

ground enough to bury their warriors on this side of the "Father

of Waters;" that the tribes were being driven towards the setting

sun, like a galloping horse; that for himself and his warriors, he

had determined to resist all further aggressions of the whites and

that with his consent or that of the Shawnees, the white man

65 Law's History of Vincennes, and A Jones, an eye-witness in the

Draper manuscripts.

468       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

should never acquire another foot of land. Tecumseh argued in

this speech, which was long continued, that the Indians were as

naturally one nation as the colonists or seventeen fires (states)

were one nation. They had a right to come together and form a

confederacy precisely as the whites had formed a confederacy

and that the governor (Harrison) had no more right to suspect

the purpose of the Indian confederacy than the Indian had to

mistrust the colonial confederacy. It was a powerful, politic and

patriotic appeal with all the grace and force with which the

speaker was so rarely endowed. The Wyandot, Kickapoo, Pot-

tawattamie, Ottawa and Winnebago chiefs grunted their ap-

proval and followed in brief speeches, saying that they had joined

Tecumseh's confederacy; had made him their common leader and

would stand by him. Governor Harrison made reply that Te-

cumseh's charges of bad faith against the government and that

injustice had been done the Indians were unfounded. Instead the

United States was their friend, while all other countries had been

their enemies; that the land was not the common property of

all tribes, but only the separable property of different tribes in

possession of particular parts, and he candidly and firmly told the

chief that the President would insist upon the separate tribal allot-

ments of the land and that the division would be supported, if

necessary, by the sword. But he added that he (Harrison) would

report Tecumseh's views to the President and do what he could

to prevent a clash. "Well," said Tecumseh, "as the Great Chief,

(President) is to determine the matter, I hope the Great Spirit

will put sense enough into his head to direct you to give up this

land to us. It is true that he is so far off that he will not be

injured by the war; he may sit in his town (Washington) and

drink his wine, while you and I will have to fight it out." The

council became a discussion, acrimonious and even hostile in

its bitterness, the Indians seizing their weapons and the gov-

ernor's soldiers raising their guns. At some declaration of Gov-

ernor Harrison, Tecumseh audaciously instructed Joseph Barron,

the interpreter, to "tell him he lies." That was the end of the

council. Tecumseh was compelled to return the next day and

apologize for his rudeness. This Vincennes council continued for

several days (August 12-22), during which many "talks" were

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.          469

held. In one of his speeches Tecumseh uttered the following,

one of the most concise and logical statements of his cause, to be

found in any of his addresses, while it has also the flavor of the

loftiest sentiment: "I have made myself what I am, and I would

that I could make the red people as great as the conceptions of

my mind, when I think of the Great Spirit that rules over all. I

would not then come to see Governor Harrison to ask him to

tear the treaty, but I would say to him, Brother, you have liberty

to return to your own country. Once there were no white men in

all this country; then it belonged to the red men, children of the

same parents, placed on it by the Great Spirit, to keep it, to travel

over it, to eat its fruits, and fill it with the same race --once a

happy race, but now made miserable by the white people, who are

never contented, but always encroaching. They have driven us

from the great salt water, forced us over the mountains, and

would shortly push us into the lakes-but we are determined

to go no farther. The only way to stop this evil is for all the

red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the

land, as it was at first, and should be now -for it never was

divided, but belongs to all. No tribe has a right to sell, even to

each other, much less to strangers, who demand all and will take

no less. The white people have no right to take the land from

the Indians, who had it first; it is theirs. They may sell it, but

all must join. Any sale not made by all is not good. The late sale

is bad - it was made by a part only. Part do not know how to

sell. It requires all to make a bargain for all."

It was evident the council had not made for peace and har-

mony. The governor, however, made one final request of Te-

cumseh; that in case they came to war, the chief would put a stop

to the cruel and disgraceful mode of warfare which the Indians

were accustomed to wage against defenseless women and children.

This Tecumseh readily agreed to and his promise was sacredly

kept. The Vincennes council so spectacular in its incidents and so

significant in its proceedings closed with the firm belief both by the

Governor and the chief that war was inevitable. Tidings reached

Harrison from sections of the West and South that the Indians

were preparing for the war-path. The Indian forces continued

to increase at the Prophet's Town on the Tippecanoe.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.           471

is my boast that these hands are unstained with human blood." 66

The effect is described by an eye-witness as being "tremendous."

The result of Tecumseh's speech was nullified. Tomah, how-

ever, resumed by saying he was aware of the injustice of the

Americans in their encroachments upon the lands of the Indians

and while he would not take up the war club, his young men

might do so and follow Tecumseh if they desired.

On some of these tours of agitation among the Western na-

tions, the Prophet accompanied Tecumseh, coupling his religious

harangues and mystic ceremonies with the political exhortations

of his warrior brother. During Tecumseh's sojourn among a band

of Shawnees on the upper lakes, a messenger overtook him bear-

ing a letter of admonition from Vincennes. Tecumseh seized the

letter and, throwing it into the fire, said: "If Governor Harrison

were here I would serve him in the same way," adding, "my

cause will not die, when I am dead." He had reached the exalted

state of consecrated devotion to his cause. He was kindling the

fire of hate and resistance to the whites in every Indian village.

In the early summer of 1811, Governor Harrison wrote the

Secretary of War, concerning Tecumseh and his movement:

"There can be no doubt of his intention to excite the southern

Indians to war against us. The implicit obedience and respect

which the followers of Tecumseh pay him are really astonishing

and more than any other circumstance bespeak him one of those

uncommon geniuses which spring up occasionally to produce

revolutions and overturn the existing order of things. If it were

not for the vicinity of the United States, he would be the founder

of an empire that would rival in glory Mexico or Peru. For

years he has been in constant motion. You see him to-day on

the Wabash and in a short time hear of him on the shores of Lake

Michigan or the banks of the Mississippi, and wherever he goes,

he makes an impression favorable to his purpose. He is now

upon the last round to put a finishing touch to his work."

Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. 1, p. 53.

472       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

SECOND SOUTHERN JOURNEY.

This "last round" was a lengthy trip to the South, begun in

August (1811) and lasting some six months. He traversed

Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and the Caro-

linas, holding councils, addressing assemblies of the Creeks,

Cherokees, Seminoles, Choctaws, Osages, Chickasaws and other

tribes. His experiences on this remarkable mission would fill

a volume; recitals of his tireless labors, his wonderful endur-

ance, his rapidity of movement, his tact and courage under ad-

verse conditions and his limitless powers of oratory and persu-

asive diplomacy. He was accompanied by a band of some thirty

warrior adherents, among them several distinguished chiefs of

other tribes. The party was mounted on spirited black ponies.

The warriors all wore buck-skin shirts, leggings, breach clouts

and moccasins. Both sides of their heads were closely shaven,

there being left only a narrow ridge extending from the middle

of the forehead over the pate down to the nape of the neck. The

hair of this ridge was plaited in long cue of three plaits, hanging

down between the shoulders and the end of the cue was garnished

with hawk feathers, which dangled down the back. Across the

forehead of each extended around the head, was a band of red

flannel about three inches wide. Semi-circular streaks of red war-

paint were drawn under each eye, terminating outward on the

cheek bone. A small red spot was painted on each temple and

a large round red spot on the center of the breast.67 As the party

proceeded on its way, messengers would be sent ahead to an-

nounced the approach of the war embassy. A council would be

called for and the notified village would send out runners to

gather in the tribesmen to meet and hear the great Tecumseh.

he council would convene at the appointed date. Tecumseh

would present his plea which would be delivered in Shawnee and

be translated to the tribe by interpreter. His address to the

Choctaws, on Jim creek, in the present county of Noxubee,

Mississippi, is representative of his rhetorical repertoire. We

give the summary as reported by an eye-witness from the Draper

67 Draper manuscript.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.          473

manuscripts: The white people were a bad people and the In-

dians ought not to live at peace with them. Ever since the white

people had crossed the great waters, they had not ceased to inflict

wrongs and outrages upon the Indians. The hunting grounds of

the Redmen were fast disappearing under their advance. Year

after year they were driving the Redmen farther and farther

west. The mere presence of the whiteman was a source of evil

to the Indian. His whiskey was destroying the bravery of the

Indian warrior, and his lust corrupting the virtue of the Indian

women. The only hope for the Redman was a war of extermi-

nation against the pale face. The tribes of the north were get-

ting ready to take up the hatchet. The pale face must be de-

stroyed. Would not the Choctaws and the other southern tribes

unite with the warriors of the lakes? The great nation (Eng-

land) across the water would soon come to their help. Let all

unite and stand firm, let all get ready to strike the fatal blow,

and the pale face must go down to swift destruction. But if from

any motives of policy the leaders of the Choctaws could not

openly unite with the other tribes in this war, could they not

secretly and without the knowledge of the whites let him have

all the warriors they could spare? Would they not let him have

many young braves and not let this become known to the whites.

If they could at least do this he would be partially satisfied.

The Choctaws at this time were friendly to the whites.

Pushmatahas, chief of the Choctaws, arose and replied to Tecum-

seh, saying: "The Choctaws have never shed the blood of white

men in war, and they do not intend to begin now. The white

people are my friends. I cannot and will not fight them without

cause, and I have no cause; and if any of my people join you in

your war, Tecumseh, and they do not get killed in battle, I will

have them killed when they return home." Tecumseh was greatly

disconcerted at this rebuff. He abruptly left the council; as he

was passing out he muttered a bitter imprecation on the Choc-

taws-"they were cowards and had the hearts of women."

After his stay in Florida among the Seminoles, with whom

he seemed to meet with success, he visited the Creeks in Alabama.

He felt he would have special influence over the Creeks, as they

were the tribe of his mother and would give him a sympathetic

474       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

hearing. About one-half the Creeks accepted his war ideas and

some followed to the Ohio country. In one instance, however, he

met with no friendly response. At a Creek town called Tuckha-

batchee, on the Tallapoosa river, he entered the lodge of the chief

known as Big Warrior. Tecumseh gave him "war talk," pre-

sented the chief with a bundle of sticks, a hatchet and a piece of

wampum. Big Warrior received all in stolid indifference, where-

upon Tecumseh, comprehending the situation, looked Big Warrior

in the eye and pointing his finger disdainfully at him exclaimed:

"Your blood is white; you have taken my sticks and wampum and

hatchet, but you do not mean to fight; I know the reason, you do

not believe the Great Spirit has sent me; I leave here directly and

shall go straight to Detroit; when I arrive there I shall stamp my

foot on the ground, and shake down every house in Tuckha-

batchee." It made a great impression upon Big Warrior and

those present. They anxiously counted the days until that one

came when Tecumseh was due at Detroit. The strange predic-

tion was fulfilled, a mighty rumbling was heard, the houses in

Tuckhabatchee were shaken, some to the ground. The effect was

electrical.  "Tecumseh has got to Detroit," was the cry. The

shaking, curiously happening about the time Tecumseh was due

to reach Detroit, was the famous earthquake of New Madrid, on

the Mississippi.⁶⁸

It is thus seen that the warrior orator, in this remarka-

ble campaign as the apostle of war against the white man, was

not without opposition; his right there were many to dispute.

His southern mission was partially successful. He addressed

thousands of the various tribesmen; he stirred them with the fire

of his sentiments and the splendor and vehemence of his oratory

and his fame made him foremost of all his race from the St.

Lawrence to the Mexican gulf; from the Atlantic to the "Father

of Waters" and far beyond. In this tour he carried with him

bundles of "red sticks," the symbols of war, and in many instances

he would leave with the tribe or band, which he visited, a bundle

68 The anecdote of the Prophecy of Tecumseh and its singular

fulfillment is vouched for by authentic relators to Drake, who received

the story from many Indians resident at the time in Tuckhabatchee.

Tecumseh, The Shawnee Chief.           475

containing the number of sticks equal to the days before the date

for the universal assault on the whites. It was the savage calen-

dar; the recipient Indians were to throw away a stick each day

and when the last was reached the day of vengeance and massacre

had come. Those who accepted the "red sticks" were called the

"Red stick party," the others the peace party, and in many locali-

ties the dissension between the two parties was bitter and relent-

less.

BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE.

Meanwhile events of a direful moment were transpiring in

the Indiana country. On his departure for the south, Tecumseh

had in the most emphatic manner charged his brother, The

Prophet, to be most careful in the preservation of peace with the

whites during his absence. No hostile movements were to be made

until the confederacy of northern and southern tribes had been

accomplished and the hour was ripe for the universal uprising.

But best laid schemes o' mice and men,

Gang aft a-gley.

So it maybe with the forest savage. The pilgrimage of Tecumseh

and its hostile purpose was known to Governor Harrison and the

settlers in the Indiana Territory.69 The Prophet, "more rogue

than fool," after his brother's departure, became more bold and

demonstrative in his warlike activity. Moreover, the British

agent of Indian affairs in Canada, hoping and believing a war

between the British government and the United States to be

inevitable, began, with unusual vigor, to stir up discontent with

the United States government among the Northwestern Indians.

Governor Harrison did not propose to be taken unawares. He

reported the situation to the government at Washington and asked

for a regiment of Regulars. President Madison placed 70 the

Fourth Regiment of mounted infantry, commanded by Colonel

John P. Boyd, at the disposal of Governor Harrison. He also

received a number of volunteers from Kentucky. Governors

69 Indiana as a state was not admitted into the Union until December

11, 1816.

⁷⁰Jully 11, 1811.

476        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.