Chief Tecumseh 20 x 16 inches Acrylic on Panel 2019
Chief Tecumseh (1768 - 1813), one of the most celebrated Native American chiefs, was born in a Shawnee village in what is now Ohio to Pukeshinwa, a minor war chief of the Kispoko band. Tecumseh’s name means “blazing comet”, “shooting star,” or something to that effect. It is commonly, but erroneously believed that he was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. It is more likely that his birthplace was Old Piqua on the Mad River in west central Ohio.
In 1774 when Tecumseh was still a small child, his father Pukeshinwa participated in the Battle of Point Pleasant, the major engagement of Lord Dunmore’s War. Scotsman James Murray, the Earl of Dunmore was the royal governor of Virginia and hoped to extend the colony’s territory westward into the Ohio Valley. This was permitted by a treaty recently made with the Iroquois. But the Shawnee tribe, which actually lived in the area, was not consulted and objected to abandoning land they considered ancestral hunting grounds. To lay claim to the territory and to protect the white settlers who had already moved there, the English/Virginians mounted an invasion. They approached from two directions. Lord Dunmore himself commanded the force that departed from Fort Pitt (now rechristened Fort Dunmore), located at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, the source of the Ohio River and the site of modern Pittsburgh. Another force of 1000 men led by Colonel Andrew Lewis, a veteran of the earlier French and Indian War, came from the southeast and made its way down the Kanawha River, a tributary of the Ohio River flowing through the central part of what is now West Virginia. The Shawnee found few allies in their opposition to the Virginians, but mustered a fighting force of maybe 500 men commanded by Hokoleskwa, or Cornstalk. Cornstalk, hoping to avert the meeting of the two Virginian armies, attacked Colonel Lewis’ force before it could cross the Ohio River. On October 10, 1774, at Point Pleasant a day-long battle consisting mostly of hand-to-hand combat raged. The Virginians suffered over 200 casualties, with 75 men killed, but the Shawnees were eventually driven from the field with greater losses. Among the dead was Pukeshinwa. Chief Cornstalk acknowledged defeat and signed a treaty ceding control of the Ohio River to the Virginians, paving the way for white settlement of Ohio and Kentucky.
During the American Revolution Cornstalk maintained neutrality, even as many of his people sought to use the war between white men as an opportunity to exact vengeance and reclaim lost lands. When, in the autumn of 1777, he visited Fort Randolph, now Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to parlay, he was arrested without cause or authorization by the fort’s commander. Some soldiers in the fort, outraged by the murder of a militiaman by some unidentified Indians, brutally murdered Cornstalk, his son, and two other Shawnees. This was a great loss not only to the Shawnee, but to the white men who had admired Cornstalk and had been impressed by his dignity, judgment, and oratorical ability. Patrick Henry, governor of a now independent Virginia, was outraged and put the assassins on trial. However, their fellow soldiers would not testify against the killers and the guilty men were shamefully acquitted.
There is a legend that Point Pleasant, West Virginia, was supposedly cursed by Cornstalk before his death, though there is no contemporary account of this. At any rate, the area has long been a place of misfortunes and disasters. In late 1966 and throughout 1967 there were a large number of sightings of a large man-like, red-eyed anomalous flying creature dubbed the Mothman. Never satisfactorily explained, it was seen as an omen of disaster, a harbinger of the collapse of Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge, which spanned the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant WV and Gallipolis OH. The disaster, which occurred on December 15, 1967, resulted in the death of 46 people. It is connected by some with the Mothman appearances and the curse of Cornstalk.
It was the death of his father and the assassination of Chief Cornstalk that colored Tecumseh’s whole life and spawned his inimical attitude toward the white man. After the death of Pukeshinwa, his wife Methoataske joined Shawnees that journeyed West to settle in Missouri. Her son Tecumseh was left to be raised in the family of his older sister. He was taught to be a hunter and a warrior by his older brother Chiksika. They lived first in a village of Chillicothe (in Ohio) under Chief Blackfish, who had defied Chief Cornstalk and refused to accept the terms of the treaty he had made with the Virginians. After the murder of Cornstalk, Blackfish had made raids upon white men living in Kentucky and had captured the famous frontiersman Daniel Boone. Boone, though, a great hunter, was admired by the Shawnee and actually made a member of the tribe, even as he was kept a prisoner. After a few months, Boone escaped when he found out that Blackfish was planning an attack upon Boonesborough. (This was a village Boone had founded, one of the first permanent white settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains). Blackfish laid siege to Boonesborough in September 1778, but despite the advantage of numbers, the siege was woefully ineffective, and he was unable to defeat Boone’s force, which consisted of only a dozen white men, but more than 400 Indian allies. In retaliation for the attack on Boonesborough, Kentucky militiaman raided Chillicothe in spring of 1779 and left Blackfish with a leg wound that would eventually cause his death.
In 1774 when Tecumseh was still a small child, his father Pukeshinwa participated in the Battle of Point Pleasant, the major engagement of Lord Dunmore’s War. Scotsman James Murray, the Earl of Dunmore was the royal governor of Virginia and hoped to extend the colony’s territory westward into the Ohio Valley. This was permitted by a treaty recently made with the Iroquois. But the Shawnee tribe, which actually lived in the area, was not consulted and objected to abandoning land they considered ancestral hunting grounds. To lay claim to the territory and to protect the white settlers who had already moved there, the English/Virginians mounted an invasion. They approached from two directions. Lord Dunmore himself commanded the force that departed from Fort Pitt (now rechristened Fort Dunmore), located at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, the source of the Ohio River and the site of modern Pittsburgh. Another force of 1000 men led by Colonel Andrew Lewis, a veteran of the earlier French and Indian War, came from the southeast and made its way down the Kanawha River, a tributary of the Ohio River flowing through the central part of what is now West Virginia. The Shawnee found few allies in their opposition to the Virginians, but mustered a fighting force of maybe 500 men commanded by Hokoleskwa, or Cornstalk. Cornstalk, hoping to avert the meeting of the two Virginian armies, attacked Colonel Lewis’ force before it could cross the Ohio River. On October 10, 1774, at Point Pleasant a day-long battle consisting mostly of hand-to-hand combat raged. The Virginians suffered over 200 casualties, with 75 men killed, but the Shawnees were eventually driven from the field with greater losses. Among the dead was Pukeshinwa. Chief Cornstalk acknowledged defeat and signed a treaty ceding control of the Ohio River to the Virginians, paving the way for white settlement of Ohio and Kentucky.
During the American Revolution Cornstalk maintained neutrality, even as many of his people sought to use the war between white men as an opportunity to exact vengeance and reclaim lost lands. When, in the autumn of 1777, he visited Fort Randolph, now Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to parlay, he was arrested without cause or authorization by the fort’s commander. Some soldiers in the fort, outraged by the murder of a militiaman by some unidentified Indians, brutally murdered Cornstalk, his son, and two other Shawnees. This was a great loss not only to the Shawnee, but to the white men who had admired Cornstalk and had been impressed by his dignity, judgment, and oratorical ability. Patrick Henry, governor of a now independent Virginia, was outraged and put the assassins on trial. However, their fellow soldiers would not testify against the killers and the guilty men were shamefully acquitted.
There is a legend that Point Pleasant, West Virginia, was supposedly cursed by Cornstalk before his death, though there is no contemporary account of this. At any rate, the area has long been a place of misfortunes and disasters. In late 1966 and throughout 1967 there were a large number of sightings of a large man-like, red-eyed anomalous flying creature dubbed the Mothman. Never satisfactorily explained, it was seen as an omen of disaster, a harbinger of the collapse of Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge, which spanned the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant WV and Gallipolis OH. The disaster, which occurred on December 15, 1967, resulted in the death of 46 people. It is connected by some with the Mothman appearances and the curse of Cornstalk.
It was the death of his father and the assassination of Chief Cornstalk that colored Tecumseh’s whole life and spawned his inimical attitude toward the white man. After the death of Pukeshinwa, his wife Methoataske joined Shawnees that journeyed West to settle in Missouri. Her son Tecumseh was left to be raised in the family of his older sister. He was taught to be a hunter and a warrior by his older brother Chiksika. They lived first in a village of Chillicothe (in Ohio) under Chief Blackfish, who had defied Chief Cornstalk and refused to accept the terms of the treaty he had made with the Virginians. After the murder of Cornstalk, Blackfish had made raids upon white men living in Kentucky and had captured the famous frontiersman Daniel Boone. Boone, though, a great hunter, was admired by the Shawnee and actually made a member of the tribe, even as he was kept a prisoner. After a few months, Boone escaped when he found out that Blackfish was planning an attack upon Boonesborough. (This was a village Boone had founded, one of the first permanent white settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains). Blackfish laid siege to Boonesborough in September 1778, but despite the advantage of numbers, the siege was woefully ineffective, and he was unable to defeat Boone’s force, which consisted of only a dozen white men, but more than 400 Indian allies. In retaliation for the attack on Boonesborough, Kentucky militiaman raided Chillicothe in spring of 1779 and left Blackfish with a leg wound that would eventually cause his death.
Subsequently, Tecumseh’s family settled in another Shawnee village, which, worse luck, was destroyed in 1780 by forces under the commander of the Kentucky militia, George Rogers Clark. Tecumseh was witness to the Battle of Piqua, a large Shawnee settlement of 3000 persons. The fierce battle and the din of artillery frightened the 12-year old boy and he fled. He would never be frightened or run away again.
The family of Tecumseh next moved to Sanding Stone, but Clark followed and attacked the village in November 1782. Next they relocated to another Shawnee village near what is now Bellefontaine, Ohio in west central Ohio.
At the end of the Revolutionary War many Shawnee were still determined to evict the white man from their country. At age 15 Tecumseh joined a band of fellow Shawnee warriors who attacked flat boats proceeding down the Ohio River and became a bane to river traffic. By 1788 Tecumseh, who began to show leadership skills, headed his own guerrilla band. Mentored by his older brother Chiksika, he joined him in journeying south to join the Chickamauga Cherokee who were waging war against the new United States of America. On the trip south Tecumseh fell off his horse and broke his leg. It never mended properly and he sported a limp for the rest of his life. During his two years with the Cherokee, Tecumseh took a wife. She bore him a daughter, but he did not stay with them.
Tecumseh and Chiksika were a small part of a widespread uprising of Native American tribes that instigated the Northwest Indian War, lasting from 1785 to 1795. In the treaty with Great Britain granting its independence, the United States was given sovereignty over Ohio and Illinois, what was then called the Northwest Territory. But its authority was not accepted by the Indian tribes. President George Washington ordered military action to subjugate the Northwest Territory. The native tribes, though, were able to unite as never before and were still aided by the mischief-making British who sought to undermine the new nation they had reluctantly acknowledged. The ill-trained United States Army, a collection of ragtag militias, and its uncertain Indian allies were at first an ineffectual fighting force, but after 1792, when General “Mad” Anthony Wayne took charge of the army, the tide turned.
In September of 1792 Tecumseh’s brother Chiksika was killed in a raid. Tecumseh filled his place and assumed leadership of a band of Shawnee and Chickamauga raiders. Back in Ohio, he participated in many of the battles of the Northeast Indian War, including the last one, the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794. Near what is now Toledo, Ohio, United States forces under General Wayne, supported by Kentucky militiamen, 3000 men, faced warriors of the Indian confederacy and a company of British troops, about 1300 men, on land recently ravaged by a tornado. Although the battle lasted only an hour and only about 75 men were killed, it was a decisive victory for the United States. The subsequent Treaty of Greenville (which Tecumseh refused to sign or honor) and further treaties affirmed American control over the Northwest Territory. Indian tribes ceded most of Ohio and areas of Indiana for what amounted to $20,000 in goods. There was peace in the area for a time.
Tecumseh married and in 1796 had a son who would be reared by Tecumseh’s sister when the marriage failed. Tecumseh nurtured his grievance against the white man and hoped for the opportunity to fight against them again.
It would be Tecumseh’s younger brother Lalawethika who would now have a profound impact upon his life. Lalawethika, as a young man, was an aloof and troubled introvert, a failure and an alcoholic. Somehow he turned his life around and became a prophet, assuming the name Tenskwatawa, meaning “open door.” He preached that the Indian should reject the outsiders and return to a traditional way of living, eschew the customs of the white men, their manner of dress, as well as firearms and alcohol. No more should he give away his lands. He also subscribed to the view of earlier Native American prophets, that if the Indian remains uncorrupted by the Europeans and their ways then the Great Spirit will send an apocalypse to wipe them out. The Prophet Tenskwatawa set up a settlement for his followers near what is now Greenville, in southwest Ohio. Tecumseh was skeptical at first, but joined the group when Tenskwatawa accurately predicted the solar eclipse of June 16, 1806.
Tenskwatawa, a fanatic, was a stern and brutal leader who demonized anyone who did not accept his teaching. He caused tensions not only between the Native Americans and the white settlers, but among the Shawnee themselves. The Shawnee chief Black Hoof, once a fierce warrior who had fought against the Americans at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, realized that it was futile to make war against the white man and that survival was contingent upon accepting his culture. His best efforts to preserve peace, however, were being undermined by Tenskwatawa’s radicalism. In 1808 he demanded that Tenskwatawa and his people move away. They did and settled just north of what is now Lafayette, Indiana, at the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers. The settlement was called Prophetstown (by Europeans). The community was a great success and attracted not only Shawnees, but members of the Delaware, the Potawatomi, and many other tribes. Its size, 3000 inhabitants, soon became a source of alarm to the white settlers. Of concern as well was Tecumseh himself, the obvious military leader of the community, and his professed scheme of forming a pan-Indian alliance that would expel the white man from the country.
After the governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison, negotiated another treaty, the Treaty of Fort Wayne, that ceded more Indian land to the white man, Tecumseh was outraged, especially since this involved land belonging to tribes some of whose members were part of the Prophetstown community. He rightly protested the methods of negotiation: Indian representatives were often plied with alcohol before treaty talks and were frequently personally bribed. He regarded signers of the treaty as traitors to their race and excoriated them. Using his considerable skills as an orator, Tecumseh sought to persuade his fellow Indians to acknowledge that they were a single people, not just a collection of discreet tribes, that they all held the land in common ownership — and, most importantly, they should resist the white man.
In August of 1810 Tecumseh, with an entourage of 400 warriors, dressed in war paint, confronted Governor Harrison at his plantation-like home Grouseland at Vincennes, on the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana. Tecumseh (who did not speak English) demanded that he rescind the Treaty of Fort Wayne and other treaties through which the Indians were compelled to cede land. Remarkably unintimidated, Harrison, a proud Virginia aristocrat, argued that he had no business interfering with relations between the United States government and individual tribes, that the Indian tribes did not constitute a single nation, that the terms of the treaties concerned only the signatories, that the tribes in question were satisfied with the terms and resented his unwelcome interference. Tecumseh made an eloquent response that Harrison did not understand. Tecumseh’s people became agitated and seemed to threaten violence. Harrison was forced to draw his sword and his guards brandished their weapons. A chief of the Potawatomi, Winamac defused the tense situation and urged the Indian warriors to leave in peace since they had come in peace. (Tecumseh would later call him a “black dog” for taking the white man’s side). Tecumseh, with a parting shot, told Harrison he would seek an alliance with the British if the Treaty of Fort Wayne was not nullified.
There were further talks between Tecumseh and Harrison, but they were fruitless. Tecumseh insisted that he wanted only peace, but his actions invited suspicion. Harrison, remaining unimpressed and unsympathetic, felt that Tecumseh was merely spoiling for a fight.
Tecumseh traveled south to try to recruit to his side the so-called civilized Indian tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminoles, who tended to favor at least some assimilation into European culture. It was a failure. Although Tecumseh was indeed a persuasive orator, he possessed an abrasive arrogance that turned off some Native American leaders. In particular the great Choctaw chief Pushmataha strongly rebuffed his scheme and argued the cause of the United States government. Only a break-off faction of the Creeks, the so-called Red Sticks, were receptive to his message of resistance and war. The Red Sticks would incite the Creek War of 1813, which involved the United States and Great Britain, but which was primarily a civil war among the Creeks. The Red Sticks were eventually defeated by state militias commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson and Choctaws led by Pushmataha at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in east central Alabama, on March 27, 1814. The Creeks were forced to cede more territory to the United States government and, later, most of the tribe was transported across the Mississippi to be settled in Indian Territory.
William Henry Harrison secured approval from the Department of War to take military action against the Shawnee when it was learned that they had formed an alliance with the British and had smuggled in firearms from Canada — in contradiction to Tenskwatawa’s former prohibition on using white man’s weapons. Knowing that Tecumseh was absent, Harrison marched a force of 1000 men to Prophetstown to intimidate the Shawnees into abiding by the peace. He arranged to parlay with Tenskwatawa on November 6, 1811. Instead of going to the conference, Tenskwatawa, in direct contradiction to Tecumseh’s orders, launched a preemptive strike upon Harrison’s force. Tenskwatawa commanded 500 warriors of the Shawnee and other tribes, but the prophet was no general and exercised imperfect control over his diverse forces. The attack was foiled when Harrison’s army held its ground. Harrison lost 62 men, the Indians probably less. Tenskwatawa had promised his people that a spell he had cast would render the red men invincible. It hadn’t worked. Tenskwatawa blamed his wife for the ineffective spell and promised to cast another, while urging his men to make another attack. They, however, would have none of it. Instead, the Indians abandoned Prophetstown. Harrison’s forces burned it to the ground and destroyed stored food supplies — but did spare an elderly Indian woman who had been left behind.
This engagement, though hardly decisive, was the beginning of the end for Tecumseh’s confederation and his dream of expelling the white man from Indian lands. It was later ballyhooed as the Battle of Tippecanoe when the presumed military hero William Henry Harrison ran for President in 1840. (He even called himself “Old Tippecanoe”). The battle resulted in Tenskwatawa losing prestige and enraging his brother. It’s a moot question how important a role he would continue to play in the Indian Confederation. Scorned and ostracized, he moved to Canada. Nature did come to Tecumseh’s aid, though, when the New Madrid earthquake of December 1811 and the appearance of the great Comet of 1811, visible in the fall of that year, were interpreted by some as signs that Tecumseh was fulfilling the will of the Great Spirit.
In June of 1812 the United States and Great Britain formally took up arms and the conflict with Tecumseh, a British ally, merged with this war. When a British force Under Major-General Sir Isaac Brock invaded the Northwest Territory from Canada, Tecumseh, with 400 warriors, joined it. At the siege of Fort Detroit the appearance of Tecumseh’s Indians created great alarm. The impression that there was a greater force than there was caused the fort commander, Brigadier General William Hull, to surrender Detroit in August 16, 1812. (Hull, a hero of the Revolutionary War, was court-martialed for cowardice and sentenced to death, but President Madison commuted the sentence to dismissal from the service). Tecumseh was either made a brigadier general in the British army or at least regarded as such. He did not, however, wear the British uniform, although the most famous depiction of him shows him doing so.
In April 1813 British forces, supported by Tecumseh and his strong supporter Wyandot Chief Roundhead with their 1250 warriors, besieged Fort Meigs. The fort in northwestern Ohio across the Maumee River from the site of the Battle of the Fallen Timbers, had been newly constructed and was commanded by William Henry Harrison, now a Major General in command of the Army of the Northwest. Harrison’s forces suffered heavy casualties, but the British were unsuccessful in taking Fort Meigs and raised the siege on May 7th. Afterwards, American prisoners, who were supposed to be exchanged, were being killed by the Indians. It is reported that Tecumseh, who apparently disapproved of unnecessary cruelty (unlike, sadly, most of his race), berated the British commander, Major-General Henry Proctor, for not stopping it. He put an end to it himself, supposedly telling Proctor, “I conquer to save, you to kill.” This act is seen as evidence to support the later contention that Tecumseh was a “noble savage.”
On September 10, 1813 American naval commander Oliver Hazard Perry scored a victory at the Battle of Lake Erie and accepted the surrender of an entire British squadron. He reported to Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” This disaster, from the British perspective, left control of the lake in the hands of the Americans and imperiled General Proctor’s position and supply lines. The British commander, therefore, decided to withdraw to Canada and not risk any further engagements. Like the British soldiers who served under Proctor, Tecumseh had little use for him and strongly disagreed with the decision. Tecumseh wanted to press the fight against the Americans and retake tribal lands, but he reluctantly followed the British in their retreat. He and his ally Roundhead could do nothing else. But at Tecumseh’s insistence, the British, with their troops ill-fed and demoralized, did make a defensive stand, at Moraviantown, an Indian settlement on the Thames River in southwestern Ontario.
General Proctor had only 800 troops, supported by 500 Indian warriors. Harrison, who was in pursuit of the British, commanded a force numbering over 3700 men, including 1000 cavalry, mostly Kentucky volunteers under Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson, a member of the House of Representatives. He had support as well from the United States Navy on nearby Lake Erie.
After dawn on October 5, 1813 the British attempted to draw a line of battle around a single 6-pound canon they had, while Tecumseh’s forces more astutely assembled in a swamp. At the first charge of the Americans the British forces either threw down their weapons or fled, having the opportunity to fire their canon only once. The Indian forces fought valiantly on, but futilely. Both Tecumseh and Roundhead were killed. When word was received that their chiefs had been lost, the Indians gave up the fight. The Americans had won the battle.
There were differing reports as to casualties, but they were light, a handful of Americas and few dozen of the enemy. Harrison’s forces captured almost 600 British soldiers, though. Despite the scale of combat the Battle of the Thames was a pivotal engagement in the War of 1812 and a decisive engagement in the war against the Tecumseh confederation.
How Tecumseh came to his death is not known, but there were several who claimed to be his slayer and several contradictory accounts of his death. Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson, while on horseback, had fired a fatal pistol shot at an Indian who was attacking him with a tomahawk. He boasted that this had been Tecumseh, although the dead man was more likely a Potawatomi brave. The reputation for being the man who killed Tecumseh was helpful to Johnson in his election to the Vice Presidency of the United States in 1836.
After the battle Harrison marched back to Fort Detroit. There he received the surrender of demoralized Indians that had opposed him. He simply told them to go home. With the death of Tecumseh the Indian Confederation had collapsed, never to be resurrected. The conclusion of the War of 1812 found the United States of America in control of the Northwest Territory with most of its Native American inhabitants soon to be banished beyond the Mississippi River.
While William Henry Harrison was immediately proclaimed a hero for his defeat of the British and the Indian Confederation, he quarreled with President Madison and resigned his commission as major general.
Later, apologies were made and Harrison was awarded a gold medal by Congress. Continuing in public life, William Henry Harrison ran unsuccessfully for President as a Northern Whig in 1836, but he and his running mate John Tyler won in landslide against President van Buren and Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson in 1840. Harrison, the wealthy southern aristocrat, portrayed himself in the campaign as a humble frontiersman and used the log cabin as a symbol of his candidacy. He particularly emphasized his military career and his role as the heroic vanquisher of Tecumseh. “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” is still remembered as his winning campaign slogan. At his March 4th inauguration the hale and hardy 68-year-old refused to wear a hat or an overcoat as he delivered a long, two-hour address in cold, miserable weather. Later, on March 26 he was caught in a heavy rain and came down with a cold which worsened to what doctors thought was pneumonia. Medical treatments, which included bloodletting, only exacerbated his weakened condition, which was probably due to typhoid from the bad drinking water in Washington. William Henry Harrison died on April 4, 1841 after only a month in office, serving the shortest term of any American President. He was succeeded by his Vice-President, John Tyler. Harrison left a large family and one of his grandsons, Benjamin Harrison, would be elected the 23rd President in 1888.
Tenskwatawa remained in Canada for some time after the defeat of Tecumseh. At the request of the government, he return to the United States to assist in the removal of the Shawnee people to a new reservation in Kansas, near Kansas City. Though unable to regain his stature as a revered prophet, he lived there until he died in 1836 at the age of 61. George Caitlin, who specialized in Native American subjects, painted his portrait from life in 1830. Although he had exercised considerable influence for a time, he was generally regarded not only by the white men but by most of his own people as a charlatan and an opportunist.
In death Tecumseh became a legendary figure. With his Indian Confederation no longer in existence and no longer a threat, white people found it comfortable to admire him. For example, a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court, Charles Robert Sherman, named his son, the future Civil War general, “William Tecumseh Sherman.” Although Chief Tecumseh was a great orator, the speeches attributed to him are mostly bogus. A political as well as a military leader in more than a tribal sense, Tecumseh was unique among Native American chiefs in the 19th Century. He possessed a vision that was more than parochial, a world-view that was vaguely modern. While his ambitions failed, they can be regarded as, if not noble, at least understandable and worthy of sympathy.
As part of the Tecumseh legend, it has been theorized that he put an Indian curse on William Henry Harrison and his Presidential successors. The curse demands that Presidents elected in years ending in zero (every 20 years) will die in office. Curiously, the curse has been accurate: William Henry Harrison (1840) died of illness. Abraham Lincoln (1860) James Garfield (1880), and William McKinley (2000) were all assassinated. Warren G. Harding (1920) died of a heart attack and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940) passed away of a cerebral hemorrhage. John F. Kennedy (1960) was also assassinated. The curse eventually lost its potency, though. Ronald Reagan (1980) was shot by a would-be assassin, but survived, and George W. Bush (2000) was unharmed when a dud grenade was thrown at him, a little-known assassination attempt made in the Republic of Georgia in 2005. Only Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in office, does not fit the pattern. However compelling the supposed curse, there is no evidence whatsoever that either Tecumseh or Tenskwatawa was connected with it.
The family of Tecumseh next moved to Sanding Stone, but Clark followed and attacked the village in November 1782. Next they relocated to another Shawnee village near what is now Bellefontaine, Ohio in west central Ohio.
At the end of the Revolutionary War many Shawnee were still determined to evict the white man from their country. At age 15 Tecumseh joined a band of fellow Shawnee warriors who attacked flat boats proceeding down the Ohio River and became a bane to river traffic. By 1788 Tecumseh, who began to show leadership skills, headed his own guerrilla band. Mentored by his older brother Chiksika, he joined him in journeying south to join the Chickamauga Cherokee who were waging war against the new United States of America. On the trip south Tecumseh fell off his horse and broke his leg. It never mended properly and he sported a limp for the rest of his life. During his two years with the Cherokee, Tecumseh took a wife. She bore him a daughter, but he did not stay with them.
Tecumseh and Chiksika were a small part of a widespread uprising of Native American tribes that instigated the Northwest Indian War, lasting from 1785 to 1795. In the treaty with Great Britain granting its independence, the United States was given sovereignty over Ohio and Illinois, what was then called the Northwest Territory. But its authority was not accepted by the Indian tribes. President George Washington ordered military action to subjugate the Northwest Territory. The native tribes, though, were able to unite as never before and were still aided by the mischief-making British who sought to undermine the new nation they had reluctantly acknowledged. The ill-trained United States Army, a collection of ragtag militias, and its uncertain Indian allies were at first an ineffectual fighting force, but after 1792, when General “Mad” Anthony Wayne took charge of the army, the tide turned.
In September of 1792 Tecumseh’s brother Chiksika was killed in a raid. Tecumseh filled his place and assumed leadership of a band of Shawnee and Chickamauga raiders. Back in Ohio, he participated in many of the battles of the Northeast Indian War, including the last one, the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794. Near what is now Toledo, Ohio, United States forces under General Wayne, supported by Kentucky militiamen, 3000 men, faced warriors of the Indian confederacy and a company of British troops, about 1300 men, on land recently ravaged by a tornado. Although the battle lasted only an hour and only about 75 men were killed, it was a decisive victory for the United States. The subsequent Treaty of Greenville (which Tecumseh refused to sign or honor) and further treaties affirmed American control over the Northwest Territory. Indian tribes ceded most of Ohio and areas of Indiana for what amounted to $20,000 in goods. There was peace in the area for a time.
Tecumseh married and in 1796 had a son who would be reared by Tecumseh’s sister when the marriage failed. Tecumseh nurtured his grievance against the white man and hoped for the opportunity to fight against them again.
It would be Tecumseh’s younger brother Lalawethika who would now have a profound impact upon his life. Lalawethika, as a young man, was an aloof and troubled introvert, a failure and an alcoholic. Somehow he turned his life around and became a prophet, assuming the name Tenskwatawa, meaning “open door.” He preached that the Indian should reject the outsiders and return to a traditional way of living, eschew the customs of the white men, their manner of dress, as well as firearms and alcohol. No more should he give away his lands. He also subscribed to the view of earlier Native American prophets, that if the Indian remains uncorrupted by the Europeans and their ways then the Great Spirit will send an apocalypse to wipe them out. The Prophet Tenskwatawa set up a settlement for his followers near what is now Greenville, in southwest Ohio. Tecumseh was skeptical at first, but joined the group when Tenskwatawa accurately predicted the solar eclipse of June 16, 1806.
Tenskwatawa, a fanatic, was a stern and brutal leader who demonized anyone who did not accept his teaching. He caused tensions not only between the Native Americans and the white settlers, but among the Shawnee themselves. The Shawnee chief Black Hoof, once a fierce warrior who had fought against the Americans at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, realized that it was futile to make war against the white man and that survival was contingent upon accepting his culture. His best efforts to preserve peace, however, were being undermined by Tenskwatawa’s radicalism. In 1808 he demanded that Tenskwatawa and his people move away. They did and settled just north of what is now Lafayette, Indiana, at the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers. The settlement was called Prophetstown (by Europeans). The community was a great success and attracted not only Shawnees, but members of the Delaware, the Potawatomi, and many other tribes. Its size, 3000 inhabitants, soon became a source of alarm to the white settlers. Of concern as well was Tecumseh himself, the obvious military leader of the community, and his professed scheme of forming a pan-Indian alliance that would expel the white man from the country.
After the governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison, negotiated another treaty, the Treaty of Fort Wayne, that ceded more Indian land to the white man, Tecumseh was outraged, especially since this involved land belonging to tribes some of whose members were part of the Prophetstown community. He rightly protested the methods of negotiation: Indian representatives were often plied with alcohol before treaty talks and were frequently personally bribed. He regarded signers of the treaty as traitors to their race and excoriated them. Using his considerable skills as an orator, Tecumseh sought to persuade his fellow Indians to acknowledge that they were a single people, not just a collection of discreet tribes, that they all held the land in common ownership — and, most importantly, they should resist the white man.
In August of 1810 Tecumseh, with an entourage of 400 warriors, dressed in war paint, confronted Governor Harrison at his plantation-like home Grouseland at Vincennes, on the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana. Tecumseh (who did not speak English) demanded that he rescind the Treaty of Fort Wayne and other treaties through which the Indians were compelled to cede land. Remarkably unintimidated, Harrison, a proud Virginia aristocrat, argued that he had no business interfering with relations between the United States government and individual tribes, that the Indian tribes did not constitute a single nation, that the terms of the treaties concerned only the signatories, that the tribes in question were satisfied with the terms and resented his unwelcome interference. Tecumseh made an eloquent response that Harrison did not understand. Tecumseh’s people became agitated and seemed to threaten violence. Harrison was forced to draw his sword and his guards brandished their weapons. A chief of the Potawatomi, Winamac defused the tense situation and urged the Indian warriors to leave in peace since they had come in peace. (Tecumseh would later call him a “black dog” for taking the white man’s side). Tecumseh, with a parting shot, told Harrison he would seek an alliance with the British if the Treaty of Fort Wayne was not nullified.
There were further talks between Tecumseh and Harrison, but they were fruitless. Tecumseh insisted that he wanted only peace, but his actions invited suspicion. Harrison, remaining unimpressed and unsympathetic, felt that Tecumseh was merely spoiling for a fight.
Tecumseh traveled south to try to recruit to his side the so-called civilized Indian tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminoles, who tended to favor at least some assimilation into European culture. It was a failure. Although Tecumseh was indeed a persuasive orator, he possessed an abrasive arrogance that turned off some Native American leaders. In particular the great Choctaw chief Pushmataha strongly rebuffed his scheme and argued the cause of the United States government. Only a break-off faction of the Creeks, the so-called Red Sticks, were receptive to his message of resistance and war. The Red Sticks would incite the Creek War of 1813, which involved the United States and Great Britain, but which was primarily a civil war among the Creeks. The Red Sticks were eventually defeated by state militias commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson and Choctaws led by Pushmataha at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in east central Alabama, on March 27, 1814. The Creeks were forced to cede more territory to the United States government and, later, most of the tribe was transported across the Mississippi to be settled in Indian Territory.
William Henry Harrison secured approval from the Department of War to take military action against the Shawnee when it was learned that they had formed an alliance with the British and had smuggled in firearms from Canada — in contradiction to Tenskwatawa’s former prohibition on using white man’s weapons. Knowing that Tecumseh was absent, Harrison marched a force of 1000 men to Prophetstown to intimidate the Shawnees into abiding by the peace. He arranged to parlay with Tenskwatawa on November 6, 1811. Instead of going to the conference, Tenskwatawa, in direct contradiction to Tecumseh’s orders, launched a preemptive strike upon Harrison’s force. Tenskwatawa commanded 500 warriors of the Shawnee and other tribes, but the prophet was no general and exercised imperfect control over his diverse forces. The attack was foiled when Harrison’s army held its ground. Harrison lost 62 men, the Indians probably less. Tenskwatawa had promised his people that a spell he had cast would render the red men invincible. It hadn’t worked. Tenskwatawa blamed his wife for the ineffective spell and promised to cast another, while urging his men to make another attack. They, however, would have none of it. Instead, the Indians abandoned Prophetstown. Harrison’s forces burned it to the ground and destroyed stored food supplies — but did spare an elderly Indian woman who had been left behind.
This engagement, though hardly decisive, was the beginning of the end for Tecumseh’s confederation and his dream of expelling the white man from Indian lands. It was later ballyhooed as the Battle of Tippecanoe when the presumed military hero William Henry Harrison ran for President in 1840. (He even called himself “Old Tippecanoe”). The battle resulted in Tenskwatawa losing prestige and enraging his brother. It’s a moot question how important a role he would continue to play in the Indian Confederation. Scorned and ostracized, he moved to Canada. Nature did come to Tecumseh’s aid, though, when the New Madrid earthquake of December 1811 and the appearance of the great Comet of 1811, visible in the fall of that year, were interpreted by some as signs that Tecumseh was fulfilling the will of the Great Spirit.
In June of 1812 the United States and Great Britain formally took up arms and the conflict with Tecumseh, a British ally, merged with this war. When a British force Under Major-General Sir Isaac Brock invaded the Northwest Territory from Canada, Tecumseh, with 400 warriors, joined it. At the siege of Fort Detroit the appearance of Tecumseh’s Indians created great alarm. The impression that there was a greater force than there was caused the fort commander, Brigadier General William Hull, to surrender Detroit in August 16, 1812. (Hull, a hero of the Revolutionary War, was court-martialed for cowardice and sentenced to death, but President Madison commuted the sentence to dismissal from the service). Tecumseh was either made a brigadier general in the British army or at least regarded as such. He did not, however, wear the British uniform, although the most famous depiction of him shows him doing so.
In April 1813 British forces, supported by Tecumseh and his strong supporter Wyandot Chief Roundhead with their 1250 warriors, besieged Fort Meigs. The fort in northwestern Ohio across the Maumee River from the site of the Battle of the Fallen Timbers, had been newly constructed and was commanded by William Henry Harrison, now a Major General in command of the Army of the Northwest. Harrison’s forces suffered heavy casualties, but the British were unsuccessful in taking Fort Meigs and raised the siege on May 7th. Afterwards, American prisoners, who were supposed to be exchanged, were being killed by the Indians. It is reported that Tecumseh, who apparently disapproved of unnecessary cruelty (unlike, sadly, most of his race), berated the British commander, Major-General Henry Proctor, for not stopping it. He put an end to it himself, supposedly telling Proctor, “I conquer to save, you to kill.” This act is seen as evidence to support the later contention that Tecumseh was a “noble savage.”
On September 10, 1813 American naval commander Oliver Hazard Perry scored a victory at the Battle of Lake Erie and accepted the surrender of an entire British squadron. He reported to Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” This disaster, from the British perspective, left control of the lake in the hands of the Americans and imperiled General Proctor’s position and supply lines. The British commander, therefore, decided to withdraw to Canada and not risk any further engagements. Like the British soldiers who served under Proctor, Tecumseh had little use for him and strongly disagreed with the decision. Tecumseh wanted to press the fight against the Americans and retake tribal lands, but he reluctantly followed the British in their retreat. He and his ally Roundhead could do nothing else. But at Tecumseh’s insistence, the British, with their troops ill-fed and demoralized, did make a defensive stand, at Moraviantown, an Indian settlement on the Thames River in southwestern Ontario.
General Proctor had only 800 troops, supported by 500 Indian warriors. Harrison, who was in pursuit of the British, commanded a force numbering over 3700 men, including 1000 cavalry, mostly Kentucky volunteers under Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson, a member of the House of Representatives. He had support as well from the United States Navy on nearby Lake Erie.
After dawn on October 5, 1813 the British attempted to draw a line of battle around a single 6-pound canon they had, while Tecumseh’s forces more astutely assembled in a swamp. At the first charge of the Americans the British forces either threw down their weapons or fled, having the opportunity to fire their canon only once. The Indian forces fought valiantly on, but futilely. Both Tecumseh and Roundhead were killed. When word was received that their chiefs had been lost, the Indians gave up the fight. The Americans had won the battle.
There were differing reports as to casualties, but they were light, a handful of Americas and few dozen of the enemy. Harrison’s forces captured almost 600 British soldiers, though. Despite the scale of combat the Battle of the Thames was a pivotal engagement in the War of 1812 and a decisive engagement in the war against the Tecumseh confederation.
How Tecumseh came to his death is not known, but there were several who claimed to be his slayer and several contradictory accounts of his death. Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson, while on horseback, had fired a fatal pistol shot at an Indian who was attacking him with a tomahawk. He boasted that this had been Tecumseh, although the dead man was more likely a Potawatomi brave. The reputation for being the man who killed Tecumseh was helpful to Johnson in his election to the Vice Presidency of the United States in 1836.
After the battle Harrison marched back to Fort Detroit. There he received the surrender of demoralized Indians that had opposed him. He simply told them to go home. With the death of Tecumseh the Indian Confederation had collapsed, never to be resurrected. The conclusion of the War of 1812 found the United States of America in control of the Northwest Territory with most of its Native American inhabitants soon to be banished beyond the Mississippi River.
While William Henry Harrison was immediately proclaimed a hero for his defeat of the British and the Indian Confederation, he quarreled with President Madison and resigned his commission as major general.
Later, apologies were made and Harrison was awarded a gold medal by Congress. Continuing in public life, William Henry Harrison ran unsuccessfully for President as a Northern Whig in 1836, but he and his running mate John Tyler won in landslide against President van Buren and Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson in 1840. Harrison, the wealthy southern aristocrat, portrayed himself in the campaign as a humble frontiersman and used the log cabin as a symbol of his candidacy. He particularly emphasized his military career and his role as the heroic vanquisher of Tecumseh. “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” is still remembered as his winning campaign slogan. At his March 4th inauguration the hale and hardy 68-year-old refused to wear a hat or an overcoat as he delivered a long, two-hour address in cold, miserable weather. Later, on March 26 he was caught in a heavy rain and came down with a cold which worsened to what doctors thought was pneumonia. Medical treatments, which included bloodletting, only exacerbated his weakened condition, which was probably due to typhoid from the bad drinking water in Washington. William Henry Harrison died on April 4, 1841 after only a month in office, serving the shortest term of any American President. He was succeeded by his Vice-President, John Tyler. Harrison left a large family and one of his grandsons, Benjamin Harrison, would be elected the 23rd President in 1888.
Tenskwatawa remained in Canada for some time after the defeat of Tecumseh. At the request of the government, he return to the United States to assist in the removal of the Shawnee people to a new reservation in Kansas, near Kansas City. Though unable to regain his stature as a revered prophet, he lived there until he died in 1836 at the age of 61. George Caitlin, who specialized in Native American subjects, painted his portrait from life in 1830. Although he had exercised considerable influence for a time, he was generally regarded not only by the white men but by most of his own people as a charlatan and an opportunist.
In death Tecumseh became a legendary figure. With his Indian Confederation no longer in existence and no longer a threat, white people found it comfortable to admire him. For example, a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court, Charles Robert Sherman, named his son, the future Civil War general, “William Tecumseh Sherman.” Although Chief Tecumseh was a great orator, the speeches attributed to him are mostly bogus. A political as well as a military leader in more than a tribal sense, Tecumseh was unique among Native American chiefs in the 19th Century. He possessed a vision that was more than parochial, a world-view that was vaguely modern. While his ambitions failed, they can be regarded as, if not noble, at least understandable and worthy of sympathy.
As part of the Tecumseh legend, it has been theorized that he put an Indian curse on William Henry Harrison and his Presidential successors. The curse demands that Presidents elected in years ending in zero (every 20 years) will die in office. Curiously, the curse has been accurate: William Henry Harrison (1840) died of illness. Abraham Lincoln (1860) James Garfield (1880), and William McKinley (2000) were all assassinated. Warren G. Harding (1920) died of a heart attack and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940) passed away of a cerebral hemorrhage. John F. Kennedy (1960) was also assassinated. The curse eventually lost its potency, though. Ronald Reagan (1980) was shot by a would-be assassin, but survived, and George W. Bush (2000) was unharmed when a dud grenade was thrown at him, a little-known assassination attempt made in the Republic of Georgia in 2005. Only Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in office, does not fit the pattern. However compelling the supposed curse, there is no evidence whatsoever that either Tecumseh or Tenskwatawa was connected with it.
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