The striking circumstances of his birth, the ascendency of his brother, the Prophet, his burning hatred of the white race; his skill as a hunter and valor as a warrior; above all his wonderful eloquence and thorough knowledge of all the Indian treaties of the past, gave Tecumseh an influence and authority among the tribes far beyond that of any of the braves or sachems of that day. If at the first his imagination had not dared to scale the heights of power, he later boldly threw aside all disguise, and by his powerful advocacy of a communistic ownership of all the Indian lands by the tribes in common, he aimed both a blow at the ancient authority claimed by the Indian chieftains, and at the validity of every treaty ever negotiated between the two races of men. The sum and substance of Tecumseh's doctrine is thus succinctly stated by Judge Law: "That the Great Spirit had given the Indians all their lands in common to be held by them as such and not by the various tribes who had settled on portions of it—claiming it as their own. That they were squatters having no 'pre-emption right,' but holding even that on which they lived as mere 'tenants in common' with all the other tribes. That this mere possession gave them no title to convey the land without the consent of all. That no single tribe had the right to sell, that the power to sell was not vested in their chiefs, but must be the act of the warriors in council assembled of all the tribes, as the land belonged to all—no portion of it to any single tribe."
If these tenets were to hold, it was clear that any authority claimed by the chiefs to represent their respective tribes in the sale or barter of any of the Indian domain was without foundation; that any treaty not negotiated and ratified by a common council of all the warriors of all the tribes, was null and void; that Wayne's Treaty of 1795 was nullum pactum; that the claim of the white settlers to any of the lands north of the Ohio was without force, and that they were trespassers and mere licensees from the beginning. The doctrine thus enunciated was not entirely new. Joseph Brant had claimed that the land was the common property of the tribes, but he had never declared that the sanction of all the warriors was necessary to a conveyance. But the plausible eloquence of Tecumseh, coming at a time when the star of the red man was setting; when every passing day witnessed the encroachment of the white settlers, gave a new ray of hope to the fainting tribes. The warriors, carried away by the dreams and incantations of the Prophet, and sustained by the burning words of a new leader, who promised them a restoration of their former glory, cast aside with contempt all the articles and solemn agreements of the past, and were ready to take up the tomahawk in patriotic defense of their lands and homes. Thus did Tecumseh look forward to the establishment of "a great and permanent confederation—an empire of red men, of which he should be the leader and emperor."
CHAPTER XIX
PROPHET'S TOWN
—The capital of the Shawnee Confederacy in the heart of the Miami country.
Before entering upon the final details of the struggle between Harrison and Tecumseh, it may not be uninteresting to recur to a point of time just before the Treaty of Fort Wayne, when the two Indian leaders removed from the neighborhood of the white settlements at Greenville, Ohio, and established the Prophet's Town on the Wabash river in the month of June, 1808. This was to be the spot from whence should emanate all those brilliant schemes of the brothers to merge the broken tribes into a confederacy; to oppose the further advance of the white settlers, and with the aid of the British power in Canada, to drive them back beyond the waters of the Ohio. It was, as General Richard P. DeHart has aptly remarked, "the seat of Indian diplomacy and strategy for many years."
In leading their followers to this new field, the brothers were guided by certain lines of policy which were both remarkable in their conception, and signal for their farsightedness. The rendezvous at Greenville had been marked by intense enthusiasm, hundreds of red men flocking thither to imbibe the new faith and to commune with the Prophet; so many in fact, that Governor Harrison had ordered them to be supplied from the public stores at Fort Wayne in order to avert trouble. But it was evident to the new leaders that all this congregating did not turn aside starvation; that warriors could not be held together who were hungry and who lacked corn; that the proximity of white traders was conducive to drunkenness; that if back of outward appearances any warlike exercises were to be indulged, or the emissaries and arms of the British were to be received, that these things would require secrecy and seclusion until the plot was ripe; that some strategic position must be secured on one of the great waterways of the interior, within quick striking distance of the settlements and easily accessible to the British posts.
Such a spot was the site of the old French and Indian trading post on the right bank of the Wabash and about ten miles above the present city of Lafayette. To the west about one and one-quarter miles is the marble shaft of the Battleground, and going from thence east across the fields and open woodlands you come to the fringe of woods that still lines the river. You have walked over the old Indian corn fields and are now standing on the exact location of the old Prophets's Town. The scene is one of great beauty even at this day, when the forest has been despoiled and nature ravished of her choicest charms. Here, the river extends in an almost unbroken line for three or four miles, bordered by sycamores and maples, and with a wealth of clinging vines, crab-apple blossoms and blooming flowers on either bank. The old trading post of Petit Piconne was located on a series of high cliffs, crowned with huge forest trees, and commanding the river through vistas of foliage. The face of these cliffs is frequently broken by sharp ravines, that extend on back among the hills with many devious windings. At the foot of the steep slopes, extends a long, narrow tableland of forest bordering directly upon the river; this is interspersed with springs of fresh water that burst from the hillsides. On the cliffs stood the camps and cabins of the warriors and their followers; below, and on the tableland and next to the water, the horses were tethered, and canoes were drawn up out of the river.