ONEOFMANYFEATHERS'
Great Leaders, Warriors and People
Chief Tecumseh
Shawnee
"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
Tecumseh was born in 1768. He was a member of the Shawnee Indian tribe, native to Ohio. He had one brother, Tenskwatawa, who was also known as the Shawnee Prophet. There was a successful native trading post, Keth-tip-pe-can-nunk, also known as Tippecanoe, in Illinois' Wabash River Valley. it was destroyed in 1791, in order to make room for the white man.
In May 1808, Tecumseh and his brother left Ohio and founded the village Prophet's Town in the same location as the former Tippecanoe. The land had been claimed by the Potawatomi and Kickapoo tribes, but Tecumseh and his brother were granted settlement. Their village would eventually become the Indian equivalent to Washington, D.C., the capitol of a great Indian confederacy.
The brothers' main idea for this kind of confederacy was to form a Native union against the western settlers to protect the land they had lived on for thousands of years. Prophet's Town was not only the center of diplomacy, but was also a rigorous training center for the warriors, housing over 1000 of these men during the village's peak. On November 16, 1811, General Harrison and representatives of the Prophet met to discuss matters of land. It was also decided that no hostilities would be needed until an official meeting could be held the next day.
Harrison and his men moved west to a site on a wooded hill farther away from Prophet's Town. Harrison warned his men of a possible invasion from the Prophet, although Tecumseh had told his brother not to attack the white men until the Native union was strong and completely balanced. The Prophet however claimed the white man's bullets would not hurt them, and he allowed his men to attack. The battle bloodily intensified until a reported thirty-seven soldiers were dead, twenty-five would eventually die of injuries, and over one hundred and twenty-six were seriously wounded.. Between twenty-five and sixty Indians were killed, and the warriors, feeling betrayed, threatened to kill the Prophet and strip him of his power.
Three months later, Tecumseh returned to find a broken dream. Prophet's Town was destroyed. Tecumseh decided not to rebuild his confederacy, feeling that doing so under the United States government would be much too risky and wouldn't serve any purpose. Together, he and his remaining followers allied themselves with the British forces for the War of 1812 against the Americans.
He fought as a brigadier general at Frenchtown, Raisin River, Fort Meigs, and Fort Stephenson. On October 5, 1813, when he was forty-five, in the Battle of the Thames at Chatham, Ontario, Tecumseh was killed leading his warriors. He was dressed in the traditional deerskin garments.
"The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided.
We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets and a grave.
Brothers--My people wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace; but where the white people are, there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosom of our mother. Where today are the Peoquot?
Where today are the Narrangansett, the Mohican, the Pakanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people?
They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun."
