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Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet by Benjamin Drake

B >> Benjamin Drake >> Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet




[Footnote A: Recollections of John Johnston, and Anthony Shane.]

From his boyhood, Tecumseh was remarkable for temperance and the
strictest integrity. He was hospitable, generous and humane; and these
traits were acknowledged in his character long before he rose to
distinction, or had conceived the project of that union of the tribes,
on which the energies of his manhood were fruitlessly expended. He was,
says an intelligent Shawanoe, who had known him from childhood, kind
and attentive to the aged and infirm, looking personally to their
comfort, repairing their frail wigwams when winter approached, giving
them skins for moccasins and clothing, and sharing with them the
choicest game which the woods and the seasons afforded. Nor were these
acts of kindness bestowed exclusively on those of rank or reputation.
On the contrary, he made it his business to search out the humblest
objects of charity, and in a quick, unostentatious manner, relieve
their wants.

The moral and intellectual qualities of Tecumseh place him above the
age and the race in which his lot was cast. "From the earliest period
of his life," says Mr. Johnston, the late Indian agent at Piqua,
"Tecumseh was distinguished for virtue, for a strict adherence to
truth, honor, and integrity. He was sober[A] and abstemious, never
indulging in the use of liquor nor eating to excess." Another
respectable individual,[B] who resided for near twenty years as a
prisoner among the Shawanoes, and part of that time in the family of
Tecumseh, writes to us, "I know of no _peculiarity_ about him that
gained him popularity. His talents, rectitude of deportment, and
friendly disposition, commanded the respect and regard of all about
him. In short, I consider him a very great as well as a very good man,
who, had he enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education, would have
done honor to any age or any nation."

[Footnote A: Major James Galloway, of Xenia, states, that on one
occasion, while Tecumseh was quite young, he saw him intoxicated. This
is the only aberration of the kind, which we have heard charged upon
him.]

[Footnote B: Mr. Stephen Ruddell.]

Tecumseh had, however, no education, beyond that which the traditions
of his race, and his own power of observation and reflection, afforded
him. He rarely mingled with the whites, and very seldom attempted to
speak their language, of which his knowledge was extremely limited and
superficial.

When Burns, the poet, was suddenly transferred from his plough in
Ayrshire to the polished circles of Edinburg, his ease of manner, and
nice observance of the rules of good-breeding, excited much surprise,
and became the theme of frequent conversation. The same thing has been
remarked of Tecumseh: whether seated at the tables of generals McArthur
and Worthington, as he was during the council at Chillicothe in 1807,
or brought in contact with British officers of the highest rank, his
manners were entirely free from vulgarity and coarseness: he was
uniformly self-possessed, and with the tact and ease of deportment
which marked the poet of the heart, and which are falsely supposed to
be the result of civilization and refinement only, he readily
accommodated himself to the novelties of his new position, and seemed
more amused than annoyed by them.

The humanity of his character has been already portrayed in the pages
of this work. His early efforts to abolish the practice of burning
prisoners--then common among the Indians--and the merciful protection
which he otherwise invariably showed to captives, whether taken by
himself or his companions, need no commendation at our hands. Rising
above the prejudices and customs of his people, even when those
prejudices and customs were tacitly sanctioned by the officers and
agents of Great Britain, Tecumseh was never known to offer violence to
prisoners, nor to permit it in others. So strong was his sense of
honor, and so sensitive his feelings of humanity, on this point, that
even frontier women and children, throughout the wide space in which
his character was known, felt secure from the tomahawk of the hostile
Indians, if Tecumseh was in the camp. A striking instance of this
confidence is presented in the following anecdote. The British and
Indians were encamped near the river Raisin; and while holding a talk
within eighty or one hundred yards of Mrs. Ruland's house, some Sauks
and Winnebagoes entered her dwelling, and began to plunder it. She
immediately sent her little daughter, eight or nine years old,
requesting Tecumseh to come to her assistance. The child ran to the
council house, and pulling Tecumseh (who was then speaking) by the
skirt of his hunting-shirt, said to him, "Come to our house--there are
bad Indians there." Without waiting to close his speech, the chief
started for the house in a fast walk. On entering, he was met by two or
three Indians dragging a trunk towards the door: he seized his tomahawk
and levelled one of them at a blow: they prepared for resistance, but
no sooner did they hear the cry, "dogs! I am Tecumseh!" than under the
flash of his indignant eye, they fled from the house: and "you," said
Tecumseh, turning to some British officers, "are _worse_ than dogs, to
break your faith with prisoners." The officers expressed their regrets
to Mrs. Ruland, and offered to place a guard around the house: this she
declined, observing, that so long as that man, pointing to Tecumseh,
was near them, she felt safe.[A]

[Footnote A: On the authority of colonel John Ruland.]

Tecumseh entertained a high and proper sense of personal character--was
equally bold in defending his own conduct, and condemning that which
was reprehensible in others. In 1811, he abandoned his intention of
visiting the President, because he was not permitted to march to
Washington at the head of a party of his warriors. As an officer in the
British army, he never lost sight of the dignity of his rank, nor
suffered any act of injustice towards those under his command to pass
without resenting it. On one occasion, while the combined British and
Indian forces were quartered at Malden, there was a scarcity of
provisions, the commissary's department being supplied with salt beef
only, which was issued to the British soldiers, while horse flesh was
given to the Indians. Upon learning this fact, Tecumseh promptly called
on general Proctor, remonstrated against the injustice of the measure,
and complained, indignantly, of the insult thus offered to himself and
his men. The British general appeared indifferent to what was said;
whereupon, the chief struck the hilt of Proctor's sword with his hand,
then touched the handle of his own tomahawk, and sternly remarked, "You
are Proctor--I am Tecumseh;" intimating, that if justice was not done
to the Indians, the affair must be settled by a personal rencontre
between the two commanders. General Proctor prudently yielded the
point.[A]

[Footnote A: On the authority of the Rev. Wm. H. Raper.]

But few of the numerous speeches made by Tecumseh have been preserved.
Tradition speaks in exalted terms of several efforts of this kind, of
which no record was made. All bore evidence of the high order of his
intellectual powers. They were uniformly forcible, sententious and
argumentative; always dignified, frequently impassioned and powerful.
He indulged neither in sophism nor circumlocution, but with bold and
manly frankness, gave utterance to his honest opinions. Mr. Ruddell,
who knew him long and intimately, says, that "he was naturally
eloquent, very fluent, graceful in his gestures, but not in the habit
of using many; that there was neither vehemence nor violence in his
style of delivery, but that his eloquence always made a strong
impression on his hearers." Dr. Hunt, of Clark county, Ohio, has
remarked, that the first time he heard Henry Clay make a speech, his
manner reminded him, very forcibly, of that of Tecumseh, in the council
at Springfield, in the year 1807, on which occasion he made one of his
happiest efforts.

Our present minister to France, Mr. Cass, has said, with his usual
discrimination, that "the character of Tecumseh, in whatever light it
may be viewed, must be regarded as remarkable in the highest degree.
That he proved himself worthy of his rank as a general officer in the
army of his Britannic majesty, or even of his reputation as a great
warrior among all the Indians of the north-west, is, indeed, a small
title to distinction. Bravery is a savage virtue, and the Shawanoes are
a brave people: too many of the American nation have ascertained this
fact by experience. His oratory speaks more for his genius. It was the
utterance of a great mind roused by the strongest motives of which
human nature is susceptible; and developing a power and a labor of
reason, which commanded the admiration of the civilized, as justly as
the confidence and pride of the savage." There was one subject, far
better calculated than all others, to call forth his intellectual
energies, and exhibit the peculiar fascination of his oratory. "When he
spoke to his brethren on the glorious theme that animated all his
actions, his fine countenance lighted up, his firm and erect frame
swelled with deep emotion, which his own stern dignity could scarcely
repress; every feature and gesture had its meaning, and language flowed
tumultuously and swiftly, from the fountains of his soul."

Another writer, Judge Hall, long resident in the west, and devoted to
the study of aboriginal history, has thus summed up the character of
this chief:

"At this period the celebrated Tecumseh appeared upon the scene. He was
called the Napoleon of the west; and so far as that title was deserved
by splendid genius, unwavering courage, untiring perseverance, boldness
of conception and promptitude of action, it was fairly bestowed upon
this accomplished savage. He rose from obscurity to the command of a
tribe to which he was alien by birth. He was, by turns, the orator, the
warrior and the politician; and in each of these capacities, towered
above all with whom he came in contact. As is often the case with great
minds, one master passion filled his heart, prompted all his designs,
and gave to his life its character. This was hatred to the whites, and,
like Hannibal, he had sworn that it should be perpetual. He entertained
the same vast project of uniting the scattered tribes of the west into
one grand confederacy, which had been acted on by King Philip and
Little Turtle. He wished to extinguish all distinctions of tribe and
language, to bury all feuds, and to combine the power and the
prejudices of all, in defence of the rights and possessions of the
whole, as the aboriginal occupants of the country."

It may be truly said, that what Hannibal was to the Romans, Tecumseh
became to the people of the United States. From his boyhood to the hour
when he fell, nobly battling for the rights of his people, he fostered
an invincible hatred to the whites. On one occasion, he was heard to
declare, that he could not look upon the face of a white man, without
feeling the flesh crawl upon his bones. This hatred was not confined,
however, to the Americans. Circumstances made him the ally of the
British, and induced him to fight under their standard, but he neither
loved nor respected them. He well understood their policy; they could
not deceive his sagacious mind; he knew that their professions of
regard for the Indians were hollow, and that when instigating him and
his people to hostilities against the United States, the agents of
Britain had far less anxiety about the rights of the Indians, than the
injuries which, through their instrumentality, might be inflicted upon
the rising republic. This feeling towards the whites, and especially to
the people of the United States, had a deeper foundation than mere
prejudice or self-interest. Tecumseh was a patriot, and his love of
country made him a statesman and a warrior. He saw his race driven from
their native land, and scattered like withered leaves in an autumnal
blast; he beheld their morals debased, their independence destroyed,
their means of subsistence cut off, new and strange customs introduced,
diseases multiplied, ruin and desolation around and among them; he
looked for the cause of these evils and believed he had found it in the
flood of white immigration which, having surmounted the towering
Alleghenies, was spreading itself over the hunting grounds of Kentucky,
and along the banks of the Scioto, the Miami and the Wabash, whose
waters, from time immemorial, had reflected the smoke of the rude but
populous villages of his ancestors. As a statesman, he studied the
subject, and, having satisfied himself that justice was on the side of
his countrymen, he tasked the powers of his expansive mind, to find a
remedy for the mighty evil which threatened their total extermination.

The original, natural right of the Indians to the occupancy and
possession of their lands, has been recognized by the laws of congress,
and solemnly sanctioned by the highest judicial tribunal of the United
States. On this principle, there is no disagreement between our
government and the Indian nations by whom this country was originally
inhabited.[A]

[Footnote A: 6 Wheaton's Reports, 515.]

In the acquisition of these lands, however, our government has held
that its title was perfect when it had purchased of the tribe in actual
possession. It seems, indeed, to have gone farther and admitted, that a
tribe might acquire lands by conquest which it did not occupy, as in
the case of the Iroquois, and sell the same to us; and, that the title
thus acquired, would be valid. Thus we have recognized the principles
of international law as operative between the Indians and us on this
particular point, while on some others, as in not _allowing_ them to
sell to individuals, and giving them tracts used as hunting grounds by
other tribes beyond the Mississippi, we have treated them as savage
hordes, not sufficiently advanced in civilization to be admitted into
the family of nations. Our claim to forbid their selling to
individuals, and our guarantying to tribes who would not sell to us in
our corporate capacity, portions of country occupied as hunting
grounds, by more distant tribes, can only be based on the right of
discovery, taken in connection with a right conferred by our superior
civilization; and seems never in fact to have been fully acknowledged
by them. It was not, at least, admitted by Tecumseh. His doctrine seems
to have been that we acquired no rights over the Indians or their
country either by discovery or superior civilization; and that the
possession and jurisdiction can only be obtained by conquest or
negociation. In regard to the latter, he held that purchase from a
single tribe, although at the time sojourners on the lands sold, was
not valid as it respected other tribes. That no particular portion of
the country belonged to the tribe then within its limits--though in
reference to other tribes, its title was perfect; that is, possession
excluded other tribes, and would exclude them forever; but did not
confer on the tribe having it, the right to sell the soil to us; for
that was the common property of all the tribes who were near enough to
occupy or hunt upon it, in the event of its being at any time vacated,
and could only be vacated by _the consent of the whole_. As a
conclusion from these premises, he insisted that certain sales made in
the west were invalid, and protested against new ones on any other than
his own principles.

It must be acknowledged that these views have much plausibility, not to
grant to them any higher merit. If the Indians had been in a nomadic
instead of a hunter state, and in summer had driven their flocks to the
Allegheny mountains--in winter to the banks of the Wabash and Tennessee
rivers, it could scarcely be denied that each tribe would have had an
interest in the whole region between, and as much right as any other
tribe to be heard on a question of sale. The Indians were not
shepherds, wandering _with_ their flocks of sheep and cattle in quest
of new pastures, but hunters, roaming after deer and bison, and
changing their location, as the pursuit from year to year, or from age
to age, might require. We do not perceive a difference in principle in
the two cases; and while we admit the difficulty of acquiring their
territory on the plan of Tecumseh, we feel bound also to admit, that as
far as its preservation to themselves was concerned, his was the only
effective method.

In its support he displayed in council the sound and logical eloquence
for which he was distinguished--in war the prowess which raised him
into the highest rank of Indian heroes.

At what period of his life he first resolved upon making an effort to
stop the progress of the whites west of the mountains, is not certainly
known. It was probably several years anterior to the open avowal of his
plan of union, which occurred in 1805 or '6. The work before him was
herculean in character, and beset with difficulties on every side; but
these only quickened into more tireless activity his genius and his
patriotic resolution. To unite the tribes as he proposed, prejudices
must be overcome, their original manners and customs re-established,
the use of ardent spirits utterly abandoned, and finally, all
intercourse with the whites cut off. Here was a field for the display
of the highest moral and intellectual powers. He had already gained the
reputation of a brave and sagacious warrior, a cool headed, upright and
wise counsellor. He was neither a war nor a peace chief, and yet he
wielded the power and influence of both. The time had now arrived for
action. To win savage attention, some bold and striking movement was
necessary. He imparted his plan to his brother, a smart, cunning and
pliable fellow, who adroitly and quickly prepared himself for the part
he was appointed to play, in this great drama of savage life. Tecumseh
well understood, that excessive superstition is every where a prominent
trait in the Indian character, and readily availed himself of it.
Suddenly, his brother begins to dream dreams, and see visions, he is an
inspired Prophet, favored with a divine commission from the Great
Spirit; the power of life and death is placed in his hands; he is the
appointed agent for preserving the property and lands of the Indians,
and for restoring them to their original, happy condition. He commences
his sacred work; the public mind is aroused; unbelief gradually gives
way; credulity and wild fanaticism begin to spread in circles, widening
and deepening until the fame of the Prophet, and the divine character
of his mission, have reached the frozen shores of the lakes, and
overrun the broad plains which stretch far beyond the Mississippi.
Pilgrims from remote tribes, seek, with fear and trembling, the
head-quarters of the mighty Prophet. Proselytes are multiplied, and his
followers increase in number. Even Tecumseh becomes a believer, and,
seizing upon the golden opportunity, he mingles with the pilgrims, wins
them by his address, and, on their return, sends a knowledge of his
plan of concert and union to the most distant tribes. And now commenced
those bodily and mental labors of Tecumseh, which were never
intermitted for the space of five years. During the whole of this
period, we have seen that his life was one of ceaseless activity. He
traveled, he argued, he commanded: to-day, his persuasive voice was
listened to by the Wyandots, on the plains of Sandusky--to-morrow, his
commands were issued on the banks of the Wabash--anon, he was paddling
his bark canoe across the Mississippi; now, boldly confronting the
governor of Indiana territory in the council-house at Viacennes, and
now carrying his banner of union among the Creeks and Cherokees of the
south. He was neither intoxicated by success, nor discouraged by
failure; and, but for the desperate conflict at Tippecanoe, would have
established the most formidable and extended combination of Indians,
that has ever been witnessed on this continent That he could have been
successful in arresting the progress of the whites, or in making the
Ohio river the boundary between them and the Indians of the north-west,
even if that battle had not been fought, is not to be supposed. The
ultimate failure of his plan was inevitable from the circumstances of
the case. The wonder is not that he did not succeed, but that he was
enabled to accomplish so much. His genius should neither be tested by
the magnitude of his scheme, nor the failure in its execution, but by
the extraordinary success that crowned his patriotic labors. These
labors were suddenly terminated in the hour when the prospect of
perfecting the grand confederacy was brightest. By the battle of
Tippecanoe--fought in violation of his positive commands and during his
absence to the south,--the great object of his ambition was frustrated,
the golden bowl was broken at the fountain; that ardent enthusiasm
which for years had sustained him, in the hour of peril and privation,
was extinguished. His efforts were paralyzed, but not his hostility to
the United States. He joined the standard of their enemy, and fought
beneath it with his wonted skill and heroism. At length the contest on
the Thames was at hand. Indignant at the want of courage or military
skill, which prompted the commander of the British forces to shrink
from meeting the American army on the shore of lake Erie, he sternly
refused to retreat beyond the Moravian towns. There, at the head of his
warriors, he took his stand, resolved, as he solemnly declared, to be
victorious, or leave his body upon the field of battle, a prey to the
wolf and the vulture. The result has been told. The Thames is
consecrated forever, by the bones of the illustrious Shawanoe
statesman, warrior and patriot, which repose upon its bank.

In whatever aspect the genius and character of Tecumseh may be viewed,
they present the evidence of his having been a remarkable man; and, to
repeat the language of a distinguished statesman and general, who knew
him long and intimately, who has often met him in the council and on
the field of battle, we may venture to pronounce him, one of those
uncommon geniuses which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions,
and overturn the established order of things; and, who, but for the
power of the United States, would, perhaps, have been the founder of an
empire which would have rivalled that of Mexico or Peru.




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