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CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
Volume 17
TECUMSEH
A Chronicle of the last Great Leader of his People
By ETHEL T. RAYMOND
TORONTO, 1915
CONTENTS
I. THE BOYHOOD OF TECUMSEH
II. THE BAPTISM OF FIRE
III. A LEADER AMONG HIS PEOPLE
IV. THE PROPHET
V. A GIFTED ORATOR
VI. THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE
VII. UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG
VIII. FIGHTING ON AMERICAN SOIL
IX. THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE
X. TECUMSEH'S LAST FIGHT
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER I
THE BOYHOOD OF TECUMSEH
Three Indian figures stand out in bold relief on the background of
Canadian history--the figures of Pontiac, Brant, and Tecumseh. The
Ottawa chief Pontiac was the friend of the French, and, when the
French suffered defeat, he plotted and fought to drive the English
from the Indian country. Brant, the Mohawk, took the king's side
against the Americans in the War of Independence, and finally led
his defeated people to Canada that they might have homes on British
soil. And Tecumseh threw in his lot with the British in the War of
1812 and gave his life in their service. But, while Pontiac fought
for the French and Brant and Tecumseh for the British, it was for
the lost cause of their own people that all three were really
fighting; and it was for this that they spent themselves in vain.
Tecumseh, whose story we are to tell in this volume, sprang from
the Shawnees, an energetic and warlike tribe of Algonquian stock.
The Algonquins, whose tribal branches were scattered from Labrador
to the Rockies and from Hudson Bay to North Carolina, believed that
a deity presided over each of the four cardinal points of the
compass. Shawan was the guardian spirit of the South; and, as the
tribe to which Tecumseh belonged formerly lived south of the
other tribes, its members became known as Shawanoes, or
Shawnees--that is, Southerners.
Little is known of the history of the Shawnees, for they were
restless bands, greater wanderers even than the generality of
Indians, and their continual change of settlement baffles historical
research. Upon the southern shores of Lake Erie, on the banks of the
Ohio, and along the broad Mississippi, at different times they pitched
their tents. The name of the river Suwanee, or 'Swanee,' corrupted from
their own, marks their abode at one time in Georgia and Florida.
The Shawnees were originally divided into twelve clans, each clan
adopting as its totem a reptile, bird, or animal that at some time
had been regarded as a benign spirit. As a result of continual
wars and wandering, however, the twelve clans had dwindled to four.
Only the Mequachake, Chillicothe, Piqua, and Kiscopoke remained. In
the first of these, which conducted all tribal rites, the chiefship
was hereditary; in the other three it was the reward of merit.
To the Kiscopoke clan belonged Tecumseh's father, Puckeshinwau
('something that drops'). He had been elevated to the rank of chief
by his brother-warriors, and at the time of Tecumseh's birth was
a powerful leader among his people. The panther was the totem of
his clan. Tecumseh's mother, named Methoataske ('a turtle laying
eggs in the sand'), is said to have been noted for wisdom among
the women of her tribe, and her name shows that she belonged to
the clan having the turtle as its totem. After much wandering,
Puckeshinwau settled down in the Ohio country with his family and
the band that accompanied him in his migrations. It was in the old
Indian village of Piqua, about six miles south-west of the site of
the present city of Springfield, Ohio, and within sound of the
rushing waters of the Mad River, that he set up the wigwam in which,
in the year 1768, Tecumseh first opened his eyes. We are told that
a rich, wide plateau, gemmed with wild flowers, extended between
the village and the river, and that precipitous cliffs rose on one
side, while rolling hills crowned with tall trees completed the
circle of the village.
Tecumseh was the fourth child of a family of seven. His elders
were Cheeseekau, the eldest son, Tecumapease, the only daughter,
and Sauwaseekau; the younger children were Nehasumo, Laulewasikaw,
and Kumshakaw. The two last were twins; and twins were held
in superstitious awe by the Indians, who feared them as
possessed of occult power, and frequently put one or both to
death. In this instance no such fate befell the children.
Kumshakaw evinced none of the dreaded attributes, and lived
to a ripe old age, but Laulewasikaw, by his practice of magic
and claims of supernatural knowledge and power, as we shall
see later, bore out the ancient belief.
Tecumseh in his early days was left largely to the care of his
sister, Tecumapease. Thus between the two there arose a strong
attachment which lasted until Tecumseh's death. From the well-known
Indian practices in relation to the bringing up of young children
we can imagine how the days of his infancy were passed. When not
rolling on the ground, the child would be closely confined in his
curious cradle, a sack made from the skin of an animal and bound
to a thin, straight board, somewhat larger than his body. Great
care would be taken to keep straight the infant limbs, that their
symmetry might be preserved in later life. This was the first stage
in the making of an Indian stoic. Every part of the cradle was
symbolical. That the child's life might be preserved, the heart
of a tree was used for the cradle board. Along the wooden bow above
the child's head, which symbolized the sky, zigzag furrows were
cut to represent lightning, the power of which was designated by
suspended arrows. Through holes in the upper part of the board was
threaded a leather thong, or burden-strap, which Tecumapease passed
about her forehead when carrying the papoose on her back, or which
the mother fastened to the pommel of her saddle when making long
journeys. It served also to hang the cradle to the branch of a
tree, when the child swayed backwards and forwards with the motion
of the bough while the wind crooned him to sleep. The cradle would
sometimes be placed upright against a tree-trunk, so that Tecumseh's
eyes might follow Tecumapease as she helped to grind the corn in
a hollow stone or sift it through baskets; or, again, while she
mixed the meal into cakes, and carefully covered them with leaves
before baking them in the ashes.
Sometimes Tecumapease would carry Tecumseh on her back to where
Methoataske worked in the field with the other women of her tribe.
Like them, from bearing heavy burdens and doing the drudgery of
the camp, Tecumapease was strong and sturdy rather than graceful.
Her hair, black and glossy as a raven's wing, hung below her waist
in a heavy braid. The short, loose sleeves of her fringed leather
smock gave freedom to her strong brown arms. A belted skirt,
leggings, and embroidered moccasins completed her costume. On
special occasions, like other Indian women, she adorned herself
with a belt and collar of coloured wampum, weaving strands of it
into her hair; and sometimes a necklace of polished elk-teeth
gleamed on her dusky throat. When Tecumseh had learned the use of
his legs, he would romp about the camp with the other black-eyed
children of his tribe. He watched his father, Puckeshinwau, make
the flint arrow-head and split the wooden shaft to receive it, bind
it firmly with a thong, and tip the other end of the shaft with a
feather to wing it on its flight; and saw the men build the birch
canoe, so light that one man could shoulder it, yet strong enough
to carry a heavy load.
During Tecumseh's childhood the Indians north of the Ohio were in
a state of unrest. They had been subdued by Bouquet, [footnote:
See _The War Chief of the Ottawas_ in this Series.] but the leniency
of that humane leader, in merely exacting that they should return
their white prisoners and remain at peace, was looked on by the
tribes as a mark of weakness; and, while no open war broke out,
young warriors occasionally attacked traders and settlers. By the
Treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, the Six Nations had ceded to the
whites the land between the Ohio and the Tennessee. But this was
the common hunting-ground of all the tribes, and the Indians both
south and north of the Ohio resented the action of the Six Nations
and opposed the entrance of white settlers into this region. They
were encouraged in their opposition by the action of the British
government in proclaiming the territory west of the Alleghanies
Indian country and forbidding settlers to enter it. But the hardy
Virginians could not be kept out, and slowly but surely ever westward
the smoke of their woodland huts ascended, and the forests of what
are now Kentucky and Tennessee were falling beneath the axe of the
frontiersmen. Resentful of the encroachments of the Virginians on
their hunting-grounds, frequent war-parties of Shawnees, Delawares,
Mohicans, Cherokees, and Mingoes crossed the Ohio and crept stealthily
on some unguarded settlement, to slay and scalp the inhabitants
and carry off their horses and cattle. The chiefs disclaimed
responsibility for these raids, but in words which made the settlers
in a sense responsible for them.
It was we [they said] who so kindly received Europeans on their
first arrival into our own country. We took them by the hand
and bade them welcome, to sit down by our side and live with us
as brothers; but how did they requite our kindness? They at
first asked only for a little land on which to raise bread for
their families and pasture their cattle, which we freely gave
them. They saw the game in the woods which the Great Spirit had
given us for our subsistence, and they wanted it too. They
penetrated into the woods in quest of game, they discovered
spots of land which they also wanted, and because we were loath
to part with it, as we saw they already had more than they had
need of, they took it from us by force and drove us to a great
distance from our homes.
At this time there was not community of interest or united action
among the colonies. Pennsylvania and Virginia each claimed authority
in the Indian country. The Pennsylvanians viewed the country from
a trading point of view; the Virginians viewed it as a field for
settlement. So bitter was the feud between the two colonies that
for a time civil strife was imminent. And while this family quarrel
was at its height, the Indian scalping raids grew in frequency and
violence; and the memory of the Pontiac War was still fresh in the
minds of the frontiersmen. Many Pennsylvanians in the west became
alarmed, and soon the passes of the Alleghanies were filled with
fugitive settlers returning to their former homes. The Virginians
of Kentucky were made of sterner stuff. Lord Dunmore, the royal
governor of Virginia, was ambitious for his colony, and determined
to make good by the sword Virginia's claim to the region of which
Fort Pitt was the centre; and, under leaders like the veteran
borderers, Michael Cresap and Daniel Boone, and the youthful and
audacious hunter and surveyor, George Rogers Clark, the Virginians
strengthened their fortified villages and led successful raids
against the tribes north of the Ohio.
For some time the Shawnees had been at peace, but in the latter
part of April 1774, when two Indians suspected of horse-stealing
were put to death near Wheeling, on the Ohio, they threatened war.
A little later a party of Virginians fired upon a band of Indians,
and killed several. Again, thirty-two white men, hitherto friends
of the Indians, set out to attack a hunting-party of warriors camped
on the Ohio. A friendly squaw warned them to return, as the Indians,
who were carousing, had vowed vengeance for the death of their
tribesmen. But the white men had determined to destroy the band;
and by the promise of more rum they enticed a number of the Indians
to cross the river to their camp, where they put all to death, with
the exception of one child, not even sparing the kindly counsellor.
Other Indians across the river, alarmed by the sound of shooting,
sent two canoes to the rescue, but the whites drawn up on shore
fired upon their occupants, killing twelve and wounding several
more. The Indians were further incensed by the murder of Bald Eagle,
a sachem of the Delawares, who was attacked and scalped while
returning from a visit to a fort at the mouth of the Great Kanawha,
and whose body, placed in an upright position in his canoe, was
found drifting down the Ohio by his enraged followers. Even Silver
Heels, a favourite Shawnee chief, barely escaped death. While
guiding some white settlers along unfamiliar trails on their way
to safety, he was severely wounded by the bullets of other whites
waiting for him in ambush.
Such deeds as these urged on the inevitable war, for which the
Indians now openly prepared. Even the mighty Mingo chief, Logan,
who had ever extended the hand of friendship to the white man, now
appeared with uplifted tomahawk to avenge the unprovoked murder of
his friends. Some eight hundred warriors were soon assembled,
thirsting to avenge these recent murders, and eager to establish
their right to the disputed territory. Logan, Elenipsico, Red Eagle,
and Puckeshinwau were to lead the Indians, with Cornstalk, 'the
mighty sachem of the Shawnee, and king of the northern confederacy,'
in supreme command.
So it happened that in 1774, when the eastern colonies were on the
verge of revolution, the west was in the throes of an Indian war.
When Lord Dunmore learned that the Shawnees had declared war, he
at once proceeded to raise in Virginia an army of fifteen hundred
men; and he instructed General Andrew Lewis to go to Kentucky and
recruit among the borderers there an army of the same numerical
strength, and march to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, where the
two armies would meet. Meanwhile Dunmore advanced to Fort Pitt;
but here he changed his plan, marched to the Scioto, and entrenched
his force not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe. [Footnote:
On Paint Creek, near the present city of Chillicothe, Ohio.]
The 9th of October found Lewis with his troops encamped at Point
Pleasant, where the Great Kanawha pours its waters into the Ohio,
when a messenger arrived with new orders directing him to cross
the Ohio and join Dunmore on the Scioto for an advance against the
Indian towns to the north. Next morning the camp was astir at
daybreak, and the soldiers were busily preparing for their intended
march, when a scout returned with news that, about a mile away, a
large body of Indians lay in ambush.
These were Cornstalk's warriors, who had arrived at the Great
Kanawha the night before. Advised by active scouts of every movement
of the enemy, Cornstalk's Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, and Ioways
had crossed the Ohio on the 9th and had lain all night ambushed in
the wet woods, impatiently awaiting the dawn. Shortly after sunrise
they perceived the Americans advancing to the attack in two
detachments, one at some distance from the Ohio, the other along
its bank. Presently Cornstalk gave the signal to attack both bodies
simultaneously, and the piercing war-cry resounded through the
forest as the Indians rushed upon the advancing foe. In the first
furious onset the Americans were beaten back, several of them being
killed and an officer fatally wounded. Cornstalk's commanding voice
rose high above the clash of arms, cheering on his followers; but
the Americans, reinforced from their camp, and fighting desperately,
finally drove the Indians from the field. Tecumseh's father,
Puckeshinwau, and others among the ablest warriors, had fallen in
the early onrush.
Cornstalk led his defeated warriors to the valley of the Scioto.
Here a council-fire was kindled and the chiefs gathered about it.
Into the middle of the circle stepped Cornstalk with gloomy
countenance but majestic bearing. Searching the faces of those he
had led through the long day of battle, he gave voice to the question
that was in the mind of all--'What is now our course?' The only
response was the crackling of the fire as its fitful light played
on the dusky warriors. 'The Long Knives are coming upon us by two
routes,' he continued. 'Shall we fight them--Yes or No?' The only
answer was the harsh, ominous cry of a night-bird. 'Shall we kill
all our women and children and then fight until we ourselves are
killed?' The chiefs still maintained a gloomy silence. Cornstalk
wheeled suddenly about; his tomahawk gleamed in the firelight and
then sank quivering into the war-post which stood in the midst.
'Since you are not inclined to fight, I will go and make peace!'
he exclaimed.
Runners bearing belts of white wampum were at once dispatched by
the Indians to inform Lord Dunmore, who was now encamped not far
from the Shawnee settlement, of their desire for peace. A conference
was arranged, only eighteen chiefs, with unarmed escorts, being
permitted to attend. Logan, although not averse to peace, had
refused to be present. But as the consent of such an influential
chief was necessary to any Indian treaty, Dunmore sent a special
messenger to him in the person of Colonel Gibson. Gibson met Logan
in the forest, and there Logan gave vent to his pent-up feelings
with passionate eloquence.
I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's
cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and
naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long
and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate
of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen
pointed as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend of white
men. Colonel Cresap, [Footnote: Logan was mistaken: Cresap was
not the murderer. See Roosevelt's _Winning of the West_, part
ii, p. 31.] the last spring and in cold blood and unprovoked,
murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women
and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins
of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have
sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance.
For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not
harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt
fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is
there to mourn for Logan? Not one.
Gibson recorded the words of Logan, and they were duly presented
to Dunmore. A treaty of peace was drawn up, by which the Indians
agreed to give up all white prisoners and stolen horses and to
surrender all claim to the land south of the Ohio.
The effect of Lord Dunmore's war was to make peace in the hinterland,
a matter of vast importance to the Americans on the eve of the
Revolution. Great Britain by the Quebec Act had placed the country
north of the Ohio and extending to the Mississippi under the
government of Canada. But Great Britain was soon too busy with the
war in the east to pay any attention to the west, and the hinterland
posts remained as they were, feebly guarded and, except for Detroit,
administered by French creoles. The Indians, it is true, were
friendly to the British, but the crushing defeat they had received
at the hands of Lewis and the humiliating terms they were forced
to make with Dunmore left them impotent. They once more began their
raids, but they were incapable of concerted action; and when in
1778 George Rogers Clark, with a feeble force of less than two
hundred men, advanced against the British posts at Kaskaskia and
Cahokia on the Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash, they were
unable to hinder his march. These posts fell into the hands of the
Americans, and the Indians, as we shall see, were doomed.
After the battle of Point Pleasant, Cheeseekau, Tecumseh's eldest
brother, led his father's warriors back to the village of Piqua,
where the disasters of the fight were recounted. Still covered with
the stains of battle, Cheeseekau related to his mother and his
awestruck brothers and sisters the manner of his brave father's
death. The dark shadow of mourning fell upon the survivors. Throughout
the village rose the wail of the death-song, Methoataske's voice
mingling in the dirge of the widows; and so a new and tragic scene
was imprinted upon the young Tecumseh's plastic mind.
A father's task now fell upon Cheeseekau, who took much pride in
instructing his younger brother in the art of war and in hunting,
and how to endure fatigue and to perform feats of agility and
daring. He gave him lessons in woodcraft and forest lore, showing
him how to snare the fish, to stalk the wary deer, to guide the
frail canoe through treacherous rapids, and, with tightly fastened
snow-shoe, to traverse the wintry waste. Tecumseh, of course, had
learned to swim almost as soon as he could walk; in running it is
said that he could easily out-distance his companions; while his
skill with the bow excited their admiration and envy. His greatest
delight, however, was to muster his playmates into rival bands for
mimic warfare.
The history of Tecumseh's nation was not recorded in cold print
between the covers of a book; it lived in the memories of the elders
and on the lips of orators and sachems. In impassioned language
and with graphic gesture the deeds of the past were conjured up
before the minds of the listeners. By the light of the camp-fire
the stripling heard, with kindling eye and throbbing pulse, the
tales of the heroic dead; and he early formed the ambition to become
a leader of his race. Some sachem would sadly sketch the smiling
scenes of health and happiness in the days before the pale-face
came to wrest from the Indians their land, the gift of the Great
Spirit. And as the boy listened to these stories of encroachment
and oppression, a fierce impulse fired his blood and bade him check
the advance of the whites and win back the land of which his people
had been robbed. Thus was moulded his life's high purpose; thus
was fanned that spark of eloquence which later burst into flame
and fired the hearts of his race, from Florida to the Great Lakes.