THE VOICE FROM THE OPEN DOOR (1805-1811)
HOW IT TRAVELED THROUGH THE LAND
In the battle of the Fallen Timbers, when General "Big Wind" broke the
back of the Ohio nations, two young warriors fought against each other.
One was Lieutenant William Henry Harrison, aged twenty-one, of the
Americans. The other was Sub-chief Tecumseh, aged twenty-six, of the
Shawnees.
They were the sons of noted fathers. Benjamin Harrison, the father of
Lieutenant Harrison, had been a famous patriot and a signer of the
Declaration of Independence in 1776. Puck-ee-shin-wah, the father of
Tecumseh, also had been a patriot--he had died for his nation in the
battle of Point Pleasant, in 1774, when Chief Cornstalk fought for
liberty.
At the Fallen Timbers, Lieutenant Harrison was an aide to General
Wayne; young Tecumseh was an aide to Blue-jacket. The two did not
meet, but their trails were soon to join.
The name Tecumseh (pronounced by the Indians "Tay-coom-tha") means
"One-who-springs" or "darts." It was a word of the Shawnees' Great
Medicine Panther clan, or Meteor clan; therefore Tecumseh has been
known as "Crouching Panther" and "Shooting Star."
He was born in 1768 at the old Shawnee village of Piqua, on Mad River
about six miles southwest of present Springfield, Ohio. His mother may
have been a Creek or Cherokee woman, who had come up from the South
with some of the Shawnees. The Shawnees were a Southern people, once.
The mother's name was Me-tho-a-tas-ke.
Tecumseh had five brothers and one sister. Two of his brothers were
twins, and at least two, besides his father, fell in battle while he
was still young.
He had not been old enough to go upon the war trail with his father and
Head Chief Cornstalk; but his elder brother Chee-see-kau went, and
fought the Long Knives at Point Pleasant. When he came back he took
little Tecumseh in charge, to train him as a warrior.
When Tecumseh was nineteen, he and Chee-see-kau, with a party of other
braves, went upon a long journey of adventure south to the Cherokee
country of Tennessee. It is said that the mother, Me-tho-tas-ke,
already had left, to return to the Cherokees. Likely enough the two
brothers planned to visit her.
They swung far into the west, to the Mississippi, and circled to the
Cherokees. Here Ohee-see-kau was killed, while helping the Cherokees
fight the whites.
He was glad to die in battle--"I prefer to have the birds pick my
bones, rather than to be buried at home like an old squaw."
Tecumseh stayed in the South three years, fighting to avenge his
brother, who had been a father to him, and whose spirit still urged him
to be brave. He got home to Ohio just in time. In league with the
Little Turtle Miamis, War Chief Blue-jacket's Shawnees had defeated the
American general Harmar, and every warrior was needed.
Tecumseh had left as a young brave; he returned as a young chief. He
was sent out with a party to spy upon the march of the gray-haired
general, Saint Clair. He did good work, but he missed the big battle.
But he was at the Fallen Timbers.
Here, in the excitement when the American infantry came scrambling and
cheering and stabbing, through the down trees, he rammed a bullet into
his rifle ahead of the powder, and had to retreat.
"Give me a gun and I will show you how to stand fast," he appealed, to
the other Indians. He was given a shot-gun. The white soldiers were
too strong, his younger brother Sau-wa-see-kau was killed at his side,
and he must fall back again.
This hurt his heart. When the treaty with General Wayne was signed,
the next year, he did not attend. Blue-jacket, his chief, afterwards
sought him out and told him all about it: that the Indians had
surrendered much land.
For some years the peace sun shone upon the Ohio country. Tecumseh was
careful to cast no red shadow. He bore himself like an independent
chief; gathered his own band of Shawnees, married a woman older than
himself, lived among the Delawares, and spent much time hunting. He
became known for his ringing speeches, in the councils; no Indian was
more eloquent.
He was handsome, too--a true prince: six feet tall and broad
shouldered, of active and haughty mien, quick step, large flashing
eye's, and thin, oval Indian face, with regular features. His face was
the kind that could burn with the fire of his mind.
In 1800 the Northwest Territory of which General Saint Clair had been
the first governor was divided. The name Northwest Territory was
limited to about what is now the state of Ohio; all west of that, to
the Mississippi River, was Indiana Territory.
Captain William Henry Harrison, who had resigned from the army, was
appointed governor and Indian commissioner, of Indiana Territory. He
moved to Vincennes, the capital, on the lower Wabash. Chief Tecumseh
was living eastward on the White River. Their trails were pointing in.
Two master minds were to meet and wrestle.
The name of one of the two twins, brothers of Tecumseh, was
La-la-we-thi-ka, meaning "Rattle" or "Loud Voice." He was not
handsome. He was blind in the right eye and had ugly features. He was
looked upon as a mouthy, shallow-brained, drunken fellow, of little
account as a warrior. His band invited Tecumseh's band to unite with
them at Greenville, in western Ohio where General Saint Clair's Fort
Jefferson and General Wayne's Fort Greenville had been built.
Then, almost immediately, or in the fall of 1805, "Loud Voice" arose as
the Prophet.
While smoking his pipe in his cabin he fell backward in a pretended
trance, and lay as if dead. But before he was buried, he recovered.
He said that he had been to the spirit world. He called all the nation
to meet him at Wapakoneta, the ancient principal village of the
Shawnees, fifty miles northeast, and listen to a message from the
Master of Life.
The message was a very good one. It was a great deal like the message
of the Delaware prophet, as used by Pontiac. The Indians were to cease
white-man habits. They must quit fire-water poison, must cherish the
old and sick, must not marry with the white people, must cease bad
medicine-making (witch-craft) and tortures; and must live happily and
peacefully, sharing their lands in common.
As for him, he had been given power to cure all diseases, and to ward
off death on the battle-field.
He changed his name to Ten-skwa-ta-wa--the "Open Door," but is
generally styled the Prophet. His words created intense excitement.
Shawnees, Delawares and other Indians came from near and far to visit
him. Tecumseh was very willing. It was a great thing to have a
prophet for a brother--and whether this was a put-up job between them,
is to this day a mystery. But they were smart men.
The Prophet enlarged his rant. To the whites he proclaimed that he,
the Open Door, Tecumseh, the Shooting Star, and the other twin brother
all had come at one birth. He asserted that their father had been the
son of a Shawnee chief and a princess, daughter of a great English
governor in the South.
Anybody whom he accused of witch-craft was put to death. They usually
were persons that he did not like. The Delawares and Shawnees killed
old chiefs who were harmless, and friends of the settlers.
Although the Open Door's teachings seemed to be for peace and
prosperity among the Indians, they brought many Indians together, and
aroused much alarm among the settlers of Ohio and Indiana Territory.
Moreover, the gatherings at Greenville were upon ground that had been
sold to the United States, under the treaty after the battle of the
Fallen Timbers.
Governor Harrison sent a message to the Delawares, in the name of the
Seventeen Fires--the United States.
"Who is this pretended prophet who dares to speak for the great
Creator? If he is really a prophet, ask of him to cause the sun to
stand still, the moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow,
or the dead to rise from their graves!"
And--
"Drive him from your town, and let peace and harmony prevail amongst
you. Let your poor old men and women sleep in quietness, and banish
from their minds the dreadful idea of being burnt alive by their own
friends and countrymen."
The Delawares listened, even the Shawnees were sickening of the
witch-craft fraud--but the Prophet seized upon an opportunity.
In this 1806 an eclipse of the sun was due, and he knew, beforehand.
Perhaps he was told by British agents, for the war of 1812 was looming,
and there was bad feeling between the two white nations.
"The American governor has demanded of me a sign," he proclaimed. "On
a certain day I will darken the sun."
And so he did.
His fame spread like a wind. Runners carried the news of him and of
his power through tribe after tribe. He made long journeys, himself.
In village after village, from the Seminoles of Florida to the
Chippewas of the Canada border, from the Mingos of the Ohio River to
the Blackfeet of the farthest upper Missouri, either he or some of his
disciples appeared.
They bore with them a mystic figure, the size of the body of a man, all
wrapped in white cloth and never opened. This they tended carefully.
They bore with them a string of white beans, said to be made from the
Prophet's flesh.
They preached that dogs were to be killed; lodge fires were never to go
out; liquor was not to be drunk; wars were not to be waged, unless
ordered by the Prophet. Each warrior was obliged to draw the string of
beads through his fingers; by this, he "shook hands" with the Prophet,
and swore to obey his teachings.
It was rumored that within four years a great "death" would cover the
entire land, and that only the Indians who followed the Prophet would
escape. These should enjoy the land, freed of the white men.
Tecumseh bowed before his talented brother, and had his own dreams;
dreams of a vast war league against the Americans. The Prophet was in
control of eight or ten thousand warriors.
The Prophet's band at Greenville increased to four hundred--Shawnees,
Delawares, Wyandots, Chippewas, and others; a regular hodge-podge.
Captain William Wells, who was the Indian agent at Fort Wayne, asked
them to have four chiefs come in, to listen to a message from their
Great Father, the President.
On a sudden Tecumseh took the lead, as head chief.
"Go back to Fort Wayne," he ordered of the runner, a half-breed
Shawnee, "and tell Captain Wells that my fire is kindled on the spot
appointed by the Great Spirit above; and if he has anything to say to
me, he must come here. I shall expect him in six days from this time."
Captain Wells then sent the message. The President asked the Indians
to move off from this ground which was not theirs. He would help them
to select other ground.
Tecumseh replied hotly, in a speech of defiance.
"These lands are ours; no one has a right to remove us, because we were
the first owners. The Great Spirit above knows no boundaries, nor will
his red people know any. If my father, the President of the Seventeen
Fires, has anything more to say to me, he must send a big man as
messenger. I will not talk with Captain Wells."
"Why does not the President of the Seventeen Fires send us the greatest
man in his nation?" demanded the Prophet. "I can talk to him; I can
bring darkness between him and me; I can put the sun under my feet; and
what white man can do this?"
This month of May, 1807, fifteen hundred Indians had visited the
Prophet. They came even from the Missouri River, and from the rivers
of Florida. A general up-rising of the tribes was feared.
Governor Harrison worked, sending many addresses. He could not stem
the tide set in motion by the Prophet and kept in motion by Tecumseh.
"My children," appealed Governor Harrison, "this business must be
stopped. You have called in a number of men from the most distant
people to listen to a fool, who speaks not the words of the Great
Spirit, but those of the devil and of the British agents. My children,
your conduct has much alarmed the white settlers near you. They desire
that you will send away those people, and if they wish to have the
impostor with them they can carry him. Let him go to the Lakes; he can
hear the British more distinctly."
"I am sorry that you listen to the advice of bad birds," answered the
Prophet, of the one eye and the cunning heart. "I never had a word
with the British, and I never sent for any Indians. They came here
themselves, to hear the words of the Great Spirit."
Tecumseh also made speeches, at the councils. Once he spoke for three
hours, accusing the whites of having broken many treaties. Some of his
sentences the interpreter refused to translate, they were so frank and
cutting. The teachings of the Prophet his brother were apparently all
for peace, and against evil practices such as drinking and warring; and
Governor Harrison could only wait, watchfully. But he did not like the
signs in the horizon. There were too many Indians traveling back and
forth.
The war of 1812 with Great Britain was drawing nearer. The Sacs and
Foxes of the Mississippi country had accepted presents from the
British. Governor Harrison was warned that the Prophet and Tecumseh
had been asked to join.
In the summer of 1808 the Prophet moved his town to the north bank of
the Tippecanoe River, on the curve where it enters the upper Wabash
River in northern Indiana. He still had a following of Shawnees,
Chippewas, Potawatomis, Winnebagos, and so forth.
This was Miami land, shared by the Delawares. They objected. But the
Prophet's Town remained.
In 1809 the United States bought from the Miamis a large piece of
territory which included this land. The Prophet's people refused to
move off. The Great Spirit had told them that the Indians were to hold
all property in common; therefore no tribe might sell land without the
consent of all the tribes.
Tecumseh was absent, on a visit to other tribes. He asked the Wyandots
and the Senecas to come to Prophet's Town on the Tippecanoe. But the
Wyandots and the Senecas had no wish to offend the United States again.
They remembered that the British had not opened the gates of the fort
to them, when the "Big Wind" was blowing them backward--"You are
painted too much, my children," they accused the British of saying--and
they were wary of Tecumseh.
He asked the Shawnees of the upper country, also, to join him and the
Prophet. But they declined to meddle. Old Black Hoof, a chief whose
memory extended back ninety years, advised against it.
The Prophet was more clever than Tecumseh. The Wyandots were the
keepers of the great belt which had bound the Ohio nations together in
Little Turtle's day. The Prophet asked them if they still had it, and
if they, the "elder brothers," would sit still while a few Indians sold
the land of all the Indians.
They replied they were glad to know that the belt had not been
forgotten. Let the Indians act as one nation. They passed the belt to
the Miamis--and the Miamis were forced to obey.
Governor Harrison was told that there were eight hundred warriors at
the Prophet's Town, and that Vincennes was to be attacked.
News of Tecumseh came from here, there, everywhere. He seemed to be
constantly traveling, carrying the words of the Prophet his brother.
Something was going on, underneath the peace blanket. Governor
Harrison and others of the whites read the puzzle in this wise:
The peace blanket spread by the Prophet to cover all red nations and
make them one, concealed a hatchet, as the blanket of Pontiac concealed
a gun. The Indians were to be increased and strengthened by right
living and good habits, until fitted to stand on their feet without
aid. Then, all together, as one nation, they could strike for their
country, from the Ohio River west to the Missouri.
Tecumseh was to be the Pontiac who would lead them. It was a scheme so
wonderful, so patient and so shrewd, that the Western whites might well
gasp before it.
The governor and Tecumseh had never met. The Prophet had been in
Vincennes several times, to explain that he preached only peace--which
was true. But the town at the Tippecanoe was getting to be a nuisance.
Horse-thieves and murderers used it as a shelter, and the authority of
the United States was defied. A messenger sent there by the governor
was threatened by the Prophet with death.
The message was sent to warn the brothers that the Seventeen Fires were
surely able to defeat all the Indians united, and that if there were
complaints, these should be taken directly to the President. Tecumseh
replied:
"The Great Spirit gave this great island to his red children. He
placed the whites on the other side of the big water. They were not
contented with their own, but came to take ours from us. They have
driven us from the sea to the lakes; we can go no farther. They say
one land belongs to the Miamis, another to the Delawares, and so on;
but the Great Spirit intended it as the property of us all. Our father
tells us we have no right upon the Wabash. The Great Spirit ordered us
to come here, and here we will stay."
However, Tecumseh said that he remembered the governor as a very young
man riding with General Wayne, and he would go to Vincennes and talk
with him. He probably would bring thirty of his men.
"The governor may expect to see many more than that," added the Prophet.
Tecumseh brought not thirty, but four hundred warriors, painted and
armed. Attended by a small guard, the governor stood to receive him on
the broad columned porch of the official mansion. Tecumseh, with forty
braves, approached, and halted. He did not like the porch; he asked
that the council be held in a grove near by.
"Your father says that he cannot supply seats enough there," answered
the interpreter.
"My father?" retorted Tecumseh, his head high. "The sun is my father,
the earth is my mother, and on her bosom will I repose!"
In the grove he made a ringing, fiery speech. He accused the United
States of trying to divide the Indians, so as to keep them weak. He
blamed the "village" or "peace" chiefs for yielding, and said that now
the war chiefs were to rule the tribes. He warned the governor that if
the lands along the Wabash were not given back to the Indians, the
chiefs who had signed the sale would be killed, and then the governor
would be guilty of the killing. He threatened trouble for the whites
if they did not cease purchasing Indian land.
"It is all nonsense to say that the Indians are all one nation,"
reproved Governor Harrison, who was as fearless as Tecumseh. "If the
Great Spirit had intended that to be so, he would not have put six
different tongues into their heads. The Miamis owned these lands in
the beginning, while the Shawnees were in Georgia. You Shawnees have
no right to come from a distant country, and tell the Miamis what shall
be done with their property."
Tecumseh sprang up and angrily interrupted.
"That is a lie! You and the Seventeen Fires are cheating the Indians
out of their lands."
The warriors leaped up, as if to attack. The few whites prepared for
defense.
"You are a man of bad heart," thundered the governor, to Tecumseh. "I
will talk with you no more. You may go in safety, protected by the
council-fire, but I want you to leave this place at once."
Other councils were held. Tecumseh stood as firm as a rock, for what
he considered to be the rights of the Indians. He was very frank. He
said that if it were not for the dispute about the land, he would
continue to be the friend of the Seventeen Fires. He would rather
fight with them than against them. He had no love for the British--who
clapped their hands and sicked the Indians on as if they were dogs. As
for making the Indians one nation, had not the Seventeen Fires set an
example when they united? It was true, he said, that now all the
Northern tribes were one. Soon he was to set out, and ask the Southern
tribes to sit upon the same blanket with the Northern tribes.
The governor knew. From Governor William Clark of Missouri he had
received a letter telling him that friendship belts and war belts were
passing among the nations west of the Missouri River, calling them to
an attack on Vincennes. The Sacs of the upper Mississippi had sent to
Canada for ammunition.
From Chicago had come word that the Potawatomis and other tribes near
Fort Dearborn were preparing.
Governor Harrison had suggested that the two brothers travel to
Washington and talk with the President about lands. He himself had no
power to promise that treaties should not be made with separate
nations. He also said, to Tecumseh:
"If there is war between us, I ask you to stop your Indians from
abusing captives, and from attacking women and children."
Tecumseh promised, but he went out upon his trip. Before he left, he
asked that nothing should be done regarding the land, before he came
back; a large number of Indians were on the way to settle there, and
they would need it as a hunting-ground! If they killed the cattle and
hogs of the white people, he would fix up everything with the
President, on his return.
So in August of 1811 he left, taking twenty warriors. With the
fire-brand of tongue and the burning mystery of his presence he kindled
the nations of the South. He spoke in the name of the Great Prophet.
He urged them all to join as one people and dam back the white wave
that was seeking to swallow them.
He told them that the Prophet had stationed a "lamp" in the sky, to
watch them for him--and sure enough, a comet flamed in the horizon. To
a Creek chief in Alabama he said:
"You do not mean to fight. I know the reason. You do not believe that
the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall know. I go from here to
Detroit; when I arrive there I will stamp on the ground with my foot
and shake down all your houses."
In December occurred an earthquake which destroyed New Madrid town on
the Mississippi in southern Missouri, and was felt widely. The ground
under the Creek nation trembled. The Creeks covered their heads and
cried aloud:
"Tecumseh has got to Detroit!"
That was so. In December Tecumseh really had got to Detroit. But he
had stamped his foot before time, and he had not made the earth to
tremble. He had stamped in wrath not at the Creeks, but at his own
people.
[Illustration: An Indian brave. Courtesy of The Field Museum.]
When he had left for the North he was ready to strike, at any moment,
with five thousand warriors of North, South and West. When he arrived
home, he found that his plans were shattered like a bubble; he had no
Prophet, and the former Prophet had no town!