Four American Indians Part 14

Now Tec.u.mseh had seen that the whole struggle between the red men and the white was a question of land. If the white men were kind to the Indians and came among them with fair promises and goodly presents, their object was to get land. If they came with threats and the sword, their object was, still, to get land. They needed the land. They could not grow and prosper without it. But if the white men needed land in order to live how much more did the Indians need it! Where a few acres of farm land would give a white family comfortable support, many acres were needed to support an Indian family by the chase. Tec.u.mseh argued in this way: The Seventeen Fires unite to get our lands from us. Let us follow their example. Let us unite to hold our lands. Let us keep at peace with them and do them no harm. Let us give them no reason to fight with us and take our land in battle. When they offer to buy we will refuse to sell. If they try to force us to part with our lands we will stand together and resist them like men.

He heartily agreed with his brother's teachings concerning property rights, and possibly suggested many ideas that Tenskwatawa fancied he received from the Great Spirit. Certain it is that Tec.u.mseh had long held similar views and had done his best to spread them. Although Tenskwatawa was more conspicuous than Tec.u.mseh, the latter had the stronger character. For a time he kept in the background and let his brother do the talking, but his personal influence had much to do with giving weight to the Prophet's words.

The brothers had not been at Greenville long before they were summoned to Fort Wayne by the commandant there to hear a letter from their "father," the President of the Seventeen Fires. Tec.u.mseh refused to go.

He demanded that the letter be brought to him. This put the officer in a trying position, but there was nothing left for him to do but send the letter to Greenville. It proved to be a request that the Prophet move his town beyond the boundaries of the territory owned by the United States. The letter was courteous, and offered the Indians a.s.sistance to move and build new homes.

To the President's request Tec.u.mseh sent a decided refusal. He said: "These lands are ours; we were the first owners; no one has the right to move us. The Great Spirit appointed this place for us to light our fires and here we will stay."

The settlement continued to be a source of annoyance to the government.

Indians kept coming from distant regions to visit the Prophet. Rumor said that the brothers were working under the direction of British agents, who were trying to rouse the Indians to make war on the United States.

To counteract the British influence the Governor of Ohio sent a message to Greenville. At a council called to consider the Governor's letter, the chief, Blue Jacket, and the Prophet made speeches in which they declared their wish to remain at peace with the British and the Long Knives, as they called the settlers.

Tec.u.mseh accompanied the commissioners on their return and held a conference with the Governor of Ohio. He spoke plainly, saying the Indians had little cause for friendliness to either the British or the people of the United States, both of whom had robbed them of their lands by making unjust treaties. But he a.s.sured the governor that for their own sake the Indians wished to remain at peace with both nations.

The Governor, like all who heard Tec.u.mseh speak, was impressed with his sense and honesty, and believed that the Indians were not planning war.

A little later Tec.u.mseh was again called to Springfield to attend a large council of Indians and white men. The council was held to determine who was responsible for the murder of a white man, who had been found dead not far from Springfield. On this occasion Tec.u.mseh attracted much attention. In the first place he refused to give up his arms, and entered the council with the dignity of manner and the arms of a warrior.

He made a speech of such pa.s.sion and eloquence that the interpreter was unable to keep up with him or translate his ideas. The white men were left to guess his meaning by watching his wrathful face and the excitement of his hearers. The Indians, however, understood him perfectly, and when the council was over and they went to their homes all repeated what they could remember of the wonderful speech.

The influence of Tenskwatawa and Tec.u.mseh increased. The excitement among the Indians became more general. Governor Harrison again wrote to the Shawnee tribes. He began by reminding them of the treaties between the Indians and the people of the United States:

"My children, listen to me. I speak in the name of your father, the great chief of the Seventeen Fires.

"My children, it is now twelve years since the tomahawk, which you had raised by the advice of your father, the King of Great Britain, was buried at Greenville, in the presence of that great warrior, General Wayne.

"My children, you then promised, and the Great Spirit heard it, that you would in future live in peace and friendship with your brothers, the Americans. You made a treaty with your father, and one that contained a number of good things, equally beneficial to all the tribes of red people who were parties to it.

"My children, you promised in that treaty to acknowledge no other father than the chief of the Seventeen Fires, and never to listen to the proposition of any foreign nation. You promised never to lift up the tomahawk against any of your father's children, and to give notice of any other tribe that intended it. Your father also promised to do something for you, particularly to deliver to you every year a certain quant.i.ty of goods, to prevent any white man from settling on your lands without your consent, or from doing you any personal injury. He promised to run a line between your land and his, so that you might know your own; and you were to be permitted to live and hunt upon your father's land as long as you behaved yourselves well. My children, which of these articles has your father broken? You know that he has observed them all with the utmost good faith. But, my children, have you done so? Have you not always had your ears open to receive bad advice from the white people beyond the lakes?"

Although Governor Harrison writes in this letter as if he thought the white men had kept their part of the treaty, he had written quite differently to President Jefferson, telling him how the settlers were continually violating the treaty by hunting on Indian territory and reporting that it was impossible for the Indians to get justice when their kinsmen were murdered by white men; for even if a murderer was brought to trial no jury of white men would p.r.o.nounce the murderer of an Indian guilty. "All these injuries the Indians have hitherto borne with astonishing patience." Thus Mr. Harrison had written to the President, but it was evidently his policy to try to make the Indians think they had no cause for complaint. In his letter to the Shawnees he went on to say:

"My children, I have heard bad news. The sacred spot where the great council fire was kindled, around which the Seventeen Fires and ten tribes of their children smoked the pipe of peace--that very spot where the Great Spirit saw his red and white children encircle themselves with the chain of friendship--that place has been selected for dark and b.l.o.o.d.y councils.

"My children, this business must be stopped. You have called in a number of men from the most distant tribes 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."

To this letter the Prophet sent a dignified answer, denying the charges the Governor had made. He spoke with regret rather than anger, and said that "his father (the Governor) had been listening to evil birds."

VII. THE PROPHET'S TOWN

In 1808 Tec.u.mseh and the Prophet moved with their followers to the Wabash Valley, and established on the Tippecanoe River a village known as the Prophet's Town.

Several advantages were to be gained by moving from Greenville to Tippecanoe, all of which probably had their weight in influencing the brothers to make this change. In the first place, there seems to be little doubt that Tec.u.mseh wanted peace, at least until he had built up a confederacy strong enough to fight the Americans with some hope of success. At Greenville the Indians were so near the settlers that there was constant danger of trouble between them. And Tec.u.mseh realized that any wrong done by his people might be made an excuse for the government to take more lands from the Indians.

Then, too, this redskinned statesman realized in his way that the best way to prevent war was to be ready for it. He wished his people to be independent of the whites for their livelihood. The Wabash Valley offered the richest hunting grounds between the Lakes and the Ohio. Here they need not starve should they be denied aid by the United States government.

The location of the new village had further political value. It was in the center of a district where many tribes camped, over which the brothers wished to extend their influence. From the new town communication with the British could be more easily carried on. This was important in view of the troubled relations existing between the United States and Great Britain. Tec.u.mseh was shrewd enough to see that though under ordinary circ.u.mstances the Indians were not sufficiently strong to be very formidable to the United States government, their friendship or enmity would be an important consideration in the war that threatened.

And he hoped that the Long Knives' anxiety lest they should join the British would prevent their doing anything to gain the ill will of the Indians.

The brothers wished Governor Harrison to understand that their desire was for peace, and that they did not intend to make war unless driven to do so. Accordingly, in August, Tenskwatawa, with a band of followers, made the Governor a visit. The Indians stayed at Vincennes for about two weeks. Harrison was surprised to find the Prophet an intelligent and gifted man. He tested the sincerity of the Prophet's followers by questions as to their belief and by putting in their way opportunities to drink whisky. He was again surprised to find them very earnest in their faith and able to resist the fire water. In Tenskwatawa's farewell speech to Harrison, he said:

"Father: It is three years since I first began that system of religion which I now practice. The white people and some of the Indians were against me, but I had no other intention but to introduce among the Indians those good principles of religion which the white people profess. I was spoken badly of by the white people, who reproached me with misleading the Indians, but I defy them to say that I did anything amiss. * * *

"The Great Spirit told me to tell the Indians that he had made them, and made the world--that he had placed them on it to do good and not evil.

"I told all the redskins that the way they were in was not good and they ought to abandon it; that we ought to consider ourselves as one man, but we ought to live according to our customs, the red people after their fashion and the white people after theirs; particularly that they should not drink whisky; that it was not made for them, but for the white people who knew how to use it, and that it is the cause of all the mischiefs which the Indians suffer, and that we must follow the directions of the Great Spirit, and listen to Him, as it was He who made us; determine to listen to nothing that is bad; do not take up the tomahawk should it be offered by the British or by the Long Knives; do not meddle with anything that does not belong to you, but mind your own business and cultivate the ground, that your women and children may have enough to live on.

"I now inform you that it is our intention to live in peace with our father and his people forever.

"My father, I have informed you what we mean to do, and I call the Great Spirit to witness the truth of my declaration. The religion which I have established for the last three years has been attended by all the different tribes of Indians in this part of the world. Those Indians were once different people; they are now but one; they are determined to practise what I have communicated to them, that has come directly from the Great Spirit through me."

The Prophet made a favorable impression on the Governor, and after his visit affairs went smoothly for a time. The Prophet preached and his followers worked. Tec.u.mseh traveled about north and south, east and west, talking with the Indians and trying to unite the tribes and to persuade them to follow his brother's teachings.

In the meantime, settlers came steadily from the south and the east, and the governor felt the need of more land. Since he saw no prospect of immediate trouble with the British and was convinced that the Prophet had not been preparing the Indians for war, he determined to attempt to extend the United States territory.

On the thirtieth of September, 1809, Governor Harrison called all the tribes that claimed certain lands between the White and Wabash rivers to a council. Only a few of the weak and degenerate tribes answered the summons. Nevertheless, he went through the ceremony of making a treaty by which the United States government claimed three million acres of Indian land.

This act of Harrison's lighted a hundred council fires. Everywhere the Indians denounced this treaty. Soon word reached Vincennes that tribes that had before stood apart cherishing their independence had declared their willingness to join the brothers at Tippecanoe. At the Prophet's town the voice of the warrior, Tec.u.mseh, sounded above that of the preacher, Tenskwatawa; and running and wrestling were said to have given place to the practice of shooting and wielding the tomahawk.

When the annual supply of salt was sent to Tippecanoe, the Prophet refused to accept it, and sent word to the Governor that the Americans had dealt unfairly with the Indians, and that friendly relations could be renewed only by the nullification of the treaty of 1809.

The Indians were evidently ready for war, and repeated rumors of plots to attack the settlements caused great anxiety among the frontiersmen.

The Indians now recognized Tec.u.mseh as their leader, and looked to him for the word of command. Realizing how much loss of life and land a defeat would bring to the Indians, he worked tirelessly to make his people ready for war, but resolved not to hazard a battle unless driven to do so.

VIII. THE COUNCIL BETWEEN HARRISON AND TEc.u.mSEH

Governor Harrison sent agents to Tippecanoe, who brought back word that the Indians were preparing for war; that Tec.u.mseh had gathered about him five thousand warriors, and that the British were encouraging them to go to war, and promising them aid. He therefore sent a letter to the Prophet telling him of the reports he had received, and warning him not to make an enemy of the Seventeen Fires. He wrote:

"Don't deceive yourselves; do not believe that all the nations of Indians united are able to resist the force of the Seventeen Fires. I know your warriors are brave; but ours are not less so. But what can a few brave warriors do against the innumerable warriors of the Seventeen Fires? Our blue-coats are more numerous than you can count; our hunters are like the leaves of the forest, or the grains of sand on the Wabash.

Do not think that the red-coats can protect you; they are not able to protect themselves. They do not think of going to war with us. If they did, you would in a few moons see our flag wave over all the forts of Canada. What reason have you to complain of the Seventeen Fires? Have they taken anything from you? Have they ever violated the treaties made with the red men? You say they have purchased lands from those who had no right to sell them. Show that this is true and the land will be instantly restored. Show us the rightful owners. I have full power to arrange this business; but if you would rather carry your complaints before your great father, the President, you shall be indulged. I will immediately take means to send you, with those chiefs that you may choose, to the city where your father lives. Everything necessary shall be prepared for your journey, and means taken for your safe return."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARRISON'S COUNCIL WITH TEc.u.mSEH AT VINCENNES]

Instead of answering this letter, Tenskwatawa said he would send his brother, Tec.u.mseh, to Vincennes to confer with the Governor. Early in August a fleet of eighty canoes started down the Wabash for the capital.

Tec.u.mseh, with four hundred warriors at his back, all armed and painted as if for battle, was on his way to meet in council for the first time the man who was responsible for the treaty of 1809.

The party encamped just outside of Vincennes, and on the morning appointed for the council Tec.u.mseh appeared attended by forty warriors.

He refused to meet the Governor and his officers in council on the porch of the Governor's house, saying he preferred to hold the conference under a clump of trees not far off. The Governor consented and ordered benches and chairs to be taken to the grove. When Tec.u.mseh was asked to take a chair he replied pompously: "The sun is my father; the earth is my mother; on her bosom I will repose," and seated himself on the ground. His warriors followed his example. In his speech Tec.u.mseh stated plainly the grievances of the Indians. He said: