Chief Tec*mseh, Shawnee (2024)

Tec*mseh(/tɛˈkʌmsə/; March 1768 – October 5, 1813) was a Native American leaderof the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy (known as Tec*mseh'sConfederacy) which opposed the United States during Tec*mseh's War andthe War of 1812. Tec*mseh has become an iconic folk hero in American,Aboriginal and Canadian history.

Tec*mseh grew up in the Ohio Country during the American RevolutionaryWar and the Northwest Indian War, where he was constantly exposed towarfare. With Americans continuing to encroach on Indian territoryafter the British ceded the Ohio Valley to the new United States in1783, the Shawnee moved farther northwest. In 1808, they settledProphetstown in present-day Indiana. With a vision of establishing anindependent Native American nation east of the Mississippi underBritish protection, Tec*mseh worked to recruit additional tribes to theconfederacy from the southern United States.

During the War of 1812, Tec*mseh's confederacy allied with the Britishin The Canadas (the collective name for the colonies of Upper Canadaand Lower Canada), and helped in the capture of Fort Detroit. Americanforces killed Tec*mseh in the Battle of the Thames, in October 1813.With his death, his confederation disintegrated. Some tribes simplystopped fighting. Accordingly, the British deserted their Indian alliesat the peace conference that ended the War of 1812. As a result, thedream of an independent Indian state in the Midwest vanished, andAmerican settlers took possession of all the territory south of theGreat Lakes, driving the Indians west or into reservations.

"Indefiance of the white warriors of Ohio and Kentucky, I have traveledthrough their settlements, once our favorite hunting grounds. Nowar-whoop was sounded, but there is blood on our knives. The Pale-facesfelt the blow, but knew not whence it came. Accursed be the race thathas seized on our country and made women of our warriors. Our fathers,from their tombs, reproach us as slaves and cowards. I hear them now inthe wailing winds. The Muscogee was once a mighty people. The Georgianstrembled at your war-whoop, and the maidens of my tribe, on the distantlakes, sung the prowess of your warriors and sighed for their embraces.Now your very blood is white; your tomahawks have no edge; your bowsand arrows were buried with your fathers. Oh! Muscogees, brethren of mymother, brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery; once more strikefor vengeance; once more for your country. The spirits of the mightydead complain. Their tears drop from the weeping skies. Let the whiterace perish. They seize your land; they corrupt your women; theytrample on the ashes of your dead! Back, whence they came, upon a trailof blood, they must be driven. Back! back, ay, into the great waterwhose accursed waves brought them to our shores! Burn their dwellings!Destroy their stock! Slay their wives and children! The Red Man ownsthe country, and the Pale-faces must never enjoy it. War now! Warforever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig their very corpsesfrom the grave. Our country must give no rest to a white man's bones.This is the will of the Great Spirit, revealed to my brother, hisfamiliar, the Prophet of the Lakes. He sends me to you. All the tribesof the north are dancing the war-dance. Two mighty warriors across theseas will send us arms. Tec*mseh will soon return to his country. Myprophets shall tarry with you. They will stand between you and thebullets of your enemies. When the white men approach you the yawningearth shall swallow them up. Soon shall you see my arm of firestretched athwart the sky. I will stamp my foot at Tippecanoe, and thevery earth shall shake.”

—Tec*mseh's Speech at Tuckaubatchee, 1811

Tec*mseh(in Shawnee, Tekoomsē, meaning "Shooting Star" or "Panther Across TheSky", also known as Tecumtha or Tekamthi) was born about March 1768.His birthplace, according to popular tradition, was Old Chillicothe[7](the present-day Oldtown area of Xenia Township, Greene County, Ohio,about 12 miles (19 km) east of Dayton). As Old Chillicothe was notsettled by the Shawnee until 1774, it is believed that Tec*mseh mayhave been born in a different "Chillicothe" (in Shawnee, Chalahgawtha),which was the tribe's name for its principal village, wherever it waslocated. Tec*mseh is believed to have been born in Chillicothe alongthe Scioto River, near the present-day city of Chillicothe, Ohio, or,maybe, in another village the Kispoko had erected not far away, along asmall tributary stream of the Scioto, where his family moved justbefore or not long after his birth.[8]

When Tec*mseh was a boy, his father Puckshinwa was "brutally murdered"by white frontiersmen who had crossed onto Indian land in violation ofa recent treaty, at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore’sWar in 1774. Tec*mseh resolved to become a warrior like his father andto be "a fire spreading over the hill and valley, consuming the race ofdark souls."[9][10]

At age 15, after the American Revolutionary War, Tec*mseh joined a bandof Shawnee who were determined to stop the white invasion of theirlands by attacking settlers' flatboats traveling down the Ohio Riverfrom Pennsylvania. In time, Tec*mseh became the leader of his own bandof warriors. For a while, these Indian raids were so effective thatriver traffic virtually ceased.

"No tribe hasthe right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sella country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth?Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?

The way, theonly way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming acommon and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now,for it was never divided."

We gave themforest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what didthey give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave.

Brothers -- Mypeople wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace;but where thewhite people are, there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosomof our mother. Where today are the Pequot?

Where today arethe Narrangansett, the Mohican, the Pakanoket,
and many other once powerful tribes of our people?

They havevanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, assnow before a summer sun."