(1776-1813)
[Footnote 5: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Indians. [TN]]
It would be a difficult matter for a well-read American to recall the
names of more than four or five notable Indians, leaving, of course,
contemporaneous red men out of the question. The list might comprise
Pocahontas, best known, probably, for something she did not do;
Powhatan, that vague and shadowy Virginian chief; King Philip, who had
a war named after him and so succeeded in having his name embalmed in
history; Pontiac, whose great conspiracy Parkman has made immortal,
and Tecumseh. But, of them all, Tecumseh is easily foremost. He was a
man who, had he been born to great position among civilized nations,
would have stamped his name and fame upon the world. He was not a mere
savage of the ordinary type, bloodthirsty, brutal beyond description,
going upon one aimless raid after another to glut his passion for
rapine and murder. These savage traits were not his, though all the
good qualities of the Indian he possessed in double measure. He was
fearless, he was untiring, and when once started toward an end he knew
no rest until he had accomplished his design. He had a primitive
dignity of thought and expression that marked him as a great orator.
At the famous council at Vincennes, when Tecumseh had finished his
speech and was about to sit down with his braves, the interpreter,
pointing to General W. H. Harrison, said, "Your father wishes you to
take a chair." But the ordinary courtesy of calling the white Governor
the father of the red men was repugnant to Tecumseh, and with lofty
mien and unpremeditated eloquence he declined the proffered seat.
"No," he exclaimed, "the sun is my father, the earth is my mother, and
I will rest on her bosom." And he sat down on Mother Earth with his
assembled warriors, this act and fiery speech more than ever binding
them to his fortunes.
Tecumseh was in reality the first of the great Ohio men. He was a
Shawnee Indian, and his tribe, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, had emigrated from Florida to what is now the State of Ohio,
Tecumseh being born in what is now Clarke County, near the present
city of Springfield, in an Indian town that bore the name of Piqua.
This must not be confounded with the present Ohio town of Piqua, which
is in another county altogether, the birthplace of Tecumseh now being
the site of a straggling village bearing the name, West Boston. In his
boyhood there was nothing unusual. He grew up in the stirring times
when Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and the other hardy Kentucky
pioneers. Long Knives the Indians called them--were leading their
forces into the West. It was a time when the Indians were constantly
fighting. They did not live in Kentucky, but they regarded the fertile
woods and prairies south of the Ohio River as their hunting-grounds,
and they attacked with savage cruelty all the whites that dared to
encroach upon this territory. The whites in turn crossed the Ohio in
reprisal, burnt the Indian towns, tomahawked women and children,
destroyed corn-fields, and were as unrelenting and barbarous in their
revenge as their savage foes.
Tecumseh was born about 1776, and in 1780 the village of Piqua was
attacked by a party of 1,000 Kentuckians, who, after a fierce battle,
drove out the Indians and destroyed the place. It was amid such scenes
that the Indian boy grew to manhood. In that wild time, war was the
only science, and butchery the only trade that an Indian could follow.
One of the favorite Indian pursuits of the day was the capture of
parties of emigrants and traders who came floating down the Ohio in
canoes or "broadhorns." For miles the Indians would secretly follow
such a party, and then when their opportunity came would strike their
deadly blow. When a boy of seventeen Tecumseh was in a party making an
attack on some boats near the present site of Maysville, Ky. The boats
were captured and all the people in them slaughtered on the spot
except one person, who was spared and later burnt alive. The horror of
the spectacle so impressed Tecumseh that he then and there said he
would never again be guilty of such cruelty, and the vigorous manner
in which he protested against it so moved his companions that they
agreed with him to not repeat the act. This resolution Tecumseh never
altered; time and time again he protected women and children from his
infuriated followers. At the battle of Fort Meigs a party of Americans
was captured by the British and Indians. Though they had surrendered
as prisoners of war, yet the savages were firing into them
promiscuously, or selecting such as they chose to tomahawk in cold
blood. This dreadful scene was interrupted by Tecumseh, who came
spurring up and, springing from his horse to the ground, dashed aside
two Indians who were about to murder an American, threatening to slay
anyone who would dare to injure another prisoner. Turning to the
British General, Proctor, he asked why such a massacre had been
permitted. "Sir," said Proctor, "your Indians cannot be commanded."
"Begone," was the angry reply of the outraged Tecumseh, "you are unfit
to command. Go, put on petticoats." This was only one incident of many
showing how far he was above the ordinary Indian in magnanimity of
character. At the already mentioned Vincennes conference Tecumseh
agreed with General William Henry Harrison--his unrelenting foe and
who judged him as harshly as any of the frontiersmen who feared and
hated him--that in case of an outbreak of hostilities the women and
children on both sides were to be protected and respected. Certain it
is that General Harrison would have made no such agreement had he not
believed that his adversary would keep it.
[Illustration: Tecumseh defends the Whites at Fort Meigs.]
To understand the life and work of Tecumseh it is necessary to look
into the history of his times. His career was embraced between the
period of the Revolution and our second war with Great Britain. The
destiny of the Great West was not then assured. Ohio and Kentucky were
frontier States, vastly farther from the seat of government than is
the most remote of our Western outposts to-day. They could be reached
only by a toilsome journey over the Alleghanies and a trip down the
Ohio. A journey to-day to the Yellowstone, or to the regions beyond
the Black Hills, does not mean, in the way of time, danger, or
adventure, one-tenth what a journey to Fort Washington (Cincinnati)
meant in 1800. Indiana was a Territory, and the Territorial Governor,
first of the Northwest, and then of Indiana, was William Henry
Harrison, a born fighter, a palaverer, and who, in the difficult
position which he occupied in dealing with unruly settlers on the one
hand and turbulent Indians on the other hand, displayed singular tact
and ability. He was eminently the right man in the right place. But in
spite of the claims the United States made of the West, the country
was but little known, nor was its real importance even suspected. That
the Mississippi Valley would one day be peopled by millions, and be
the greatest, wealthiest, and most productive part of the country, was
not thought of even by the most sanguine of Americans. The Eastern
States in those days had affairs enough of their own on hand, and the
Western frontier was not regarded as essentially important. The
national idea--the Nation with a big N, as recent humorous newspaper
writers have put it--had not been evolved. It was difficult for even a
man of the persuasive powers of General Harrison, to induce the
General Government to furnish half enough troops to adequately guard
the outposts. If there was serious work to do the settlers had to
do it themselves. There was little grumbling over this state of
affairs, however, as the Kentuckians and Westerners generally had been
brought up to do their own fighting and not to wait for the Government
at Washington to do it for them. In those days British agents were
actively at work among the Northern Indians to keep them in a state of
disaffection toward the United States. Meanwhile, the Indians were in
the midst of the great tragedy that has been enacted since the days of
Columbus. They were the victims of traders who sold them fire-water,
and for poor and cheap weapons, demanded furs whose value was out of
all proportion to that given in return. Many of their women married
white renegades who corrupted the morals of the tribes. They were
being dispossessed of the finest homes and best hunting grounds in
America, for the buffalo was then found in Kentucky in great herds,
and their position was thoroughly unhappy. They had then--and happily
this is not wholly the case at present--no rights that a white man was
bound to respect. But the Indians were still many and the settlers
were few. To a great leader, who of course could not take into account
the mighty force behind the Anglo-Saxon ranks that first marched over
the Alleghenies, it would still seem practical to band the red men
together in a vast confederation and drive the invaders back again
beyond the Ohio and the mountains. This was Tecumsch's splendid plan.
This was the design to which he devoted his life, and which he pursued
with such ardor and genius as to do what an Indian had never before
accomplished. Pontiac, it is true, at the siege of Detroit gathered a
number of tribes under his leadership, but he never dreamed of a
continental confederacy, as did Tecumseh. In this vast design he was
materially aided by his brother, best known by the name of the
Prophet, who, while lacking in judgment, was none the less a man of
extraordinary force of character. He proclaimed that he had received
power from the Great Spirit to confound the enemies of the Indians,
stay the march of disease and death, and that he was the Messiah to
lead his people to new and greater things. But as conditions to
success the Indians must stop drinking fire-water, they must cease
intermarrying with the whites or trading with them, and they must hold
all things as the property of all. They must return to their original
dress and manners, and forget that they had ever seen or known the
"pale faces." The fame and influence of the Prophet spread with almost
miraculous rapidity, and young men and warriors came from afar in
crowds to receive inspiration from him. Tecumseh with rare ability
turned this influence to advance his own plans. And of course this
constant stream of visitors to his brother, enabled the chief to
spread his racial idea far and wide. One of the things that Tecumseh
maintained was that the Indians held the land in common, that no one
tribe owned this or that territory, but that the Great Spirit had
given it equally to all. This he said at the conference at Vincennes,
but General Harrison ridiculed the idea and stated that if the Great
Spirit had intended to make one nation of the Indians, he would not
have put different languages into their heads, but would have taught
them all to speak alike. Tecumseh bitterly replied that no one tribe
had the right to give away what was the joint property of all, and
not until the United States agreed to cease purchasing lands from the
Indians and restored the lands recently bought, would peace be
possible. Pointing to the moon that had risen on the council, Governor
Harrison said that the moon would sooner fall to earth than the United
States would give up anything fairly acquired. "Then," said Tecumseh,
"I suppose that you and I will have to fight it out."
But these councils ended in nothing except a manly and impressive
statement by Tecumseh of his position, and a strong and terribly just
indictment of the whites for their treatment of the Indians. Tecumseh
was constantly on the move. Now on the Lakes, now on the Wabash, then
on the Mississippi or the plains to the westward, then on the Ohio or
the hills that roll to the south from it. Everywhere the Indians
received him graciously. But an accident destroyed his plans, and one
defeat dashed his confederation to pieces. During his absence Governor
Harrison, alarmed at the gathering of warriors at the Prophet's town
of Tippecanoe, on the Wabash River, in Indiana, marched against it.
There was no necessity for a battle. It might easily have been
avoided. Toward the close of day the Americans reached Tippecanoe. The
Indians disclaimed any hostile ideas, and it was settled that the
terms of peace were to be arranged the next day. That night, however,
the Indians treacherously attacked the Americans. The conflict was
fierce and bloody. The Indian braves were animated by the promises of
the Prophet, who declared that they would be victorious and that he
had rendered the bullets of the white men of no avail. During the
battle he stood on a neighboring hill and chanted a war song, to
further fill his warriors with courage and enthusiasm. But though the
red men fought gallantly, they were doomed to defeat. They were
scattered up and down the Wabash, their town was burnt, and the power
of the Western Indians was by this one blow shattered. So complete was
the victory and so far-reaching in its effects, that General Harrison
at once became the popular idol, and the glorification of the battle
of Tippecanoe, a generation later carried him into the Presidential
chair. It was this battle that gave the West to the whites.
As for Tecumseh, he returned suddenly from the West to find that
despite his commands, the Prophet had permitted a battle. In his rage
and disappointment he took his brother, now fallen and disgraced, by
the hair and shook him. But no longer was it possible to hold his
tribes together. The victory of the United States at Tippecanoe took
the ardor for battle and resistance quite out of them. There were
hundreds of them, however, who in the war of 1812, which broke out
immediately, followed Tecumseh into the British service, in which he
was commissioned as a major-general. In that service he was doomed to
continued disaster. The English commander. General Proctor, was
incompetent and, in all the qualities of real manhood, the inferior of
his savage ally. After the battle of Put-in-Bay, on Lake Erie, he
started to retreat. Tecumseh protested, and was induced to go on only
by the promise that winter supplies would be delivered a few miles up
the Thames. It was on this stream that Proctor finally determined to
make a stand, but at the outset of the action he, coward-like,
retreated with his red coats, leaving the Indians to bear the brunt
of the battle. Tecumseh had gone into the fight saying that he would
be killed, and his prediction was verified. But how he died no one can
say with certainty. No less than four Americans claimed the honor of
having killed him. Among the slain, in that time of fierce pursuit and
confusion, his body was not even identified. But there it was, on the
banks of that quiet Canadian stream, some thirty-five miles from
Detroit, that the greatest Indian in statecraft, diplomacy, devotion
to his people, and in dignity of thought and intellectual gifts, found
his unmarked grave. No one yet has written a biography of him that
does full justice to his great abilities and lofty character. But his
name is the most familiar of all Indian names, and he is the only
Indian after whom Western fathers and mothers have ever named their
sons. The late General of the United States Army, William Tecumseh
Sherman, bore his name, as have hundreds of other boys born in Ohio,
Kentucky, and the great States that roll westward from them.
[Signature of the author.]