Tecumseh | Speech to William Henry Harrison, 1810
In 1809 William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, negotiated a treaty with a coalition of native leaders to cede three million acres to the United States. Unhappy with this treaty, two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, united with other Indian nations to resist white settlement of the region. In August 1810 Tecumseh confronted Harrison at Vincennes in the Indiana Territory and urged him to return the land. Harrison refused, and in the fall of 1811 U.S. troops attacked and defeated the Shawnees at Prophet Town.
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Why does Tecumseh consider white Americans untrustworthy? How does Tecumseh’s view of Indian land differ from that negotiated in the treaty? How does Tecumseh compare U.S. actions toward Indians with Indian actions toward whites? |
Brother. Since the peace was made you have kill’d some of the Shawanese, Winebagoes, Delawares, and Miamies and you have taken our lands from us, and I do not see how we can remain at peace with you if you continue to do so. You have given goods to the Kickapoos for the sale of their lands . . . which has been the cause of many deaths among them. You have promised us assistance but I do not see that you have given us any. You try to force the red people to do some injury. It is you that is pushing them on to do mischief. You endeavor to make distinctions, you wish to prevent the Indians to do as we wish them: to unite and let them consider their land as the common property of the whole. You take tribes aside and advise them not to come into this measure [coalition] and untill our design is accomplished we do not wish to accept of your invitation to go and visit the President. The reason I tell you this is you want by your distinctions of Indian tribes in allotting to each a particular track of land to make them to war with each other. You never see an Indian come and endeavour to make the white people do so. You are continually driving the red people when at last you will drive them into the great Lake where they can’t eather stand or work. Source: Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission, 1922), 1:465. |
Put It in Context
What does Tecumseh reveal about the complex relationships between American Indian nations and the U.S. government in the 1810s?
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