Much conjecture had been indulged in, as to whether Tecumseh actually meditated an attack at the time of the first council. That his impulsive action might well have led to disastrous consequences, but for the cool, quick command of the Governor, may well be conceded, but that he formed any premeditated design before coming to the council, must admit of some doubt. The reasoning of Drake possesses cogency. He states that Tecumseh's probable purpose in attending the meeting with a considerable force was to "make a strong impression upon the whites as to the extent of his influence among the Indians, and the strength of his party. His movement in the council may have been concerted for the purpose of intimidating the Governor; but the more probable suggestion is that in the excitement of the moment, produced by the speech of the Governor, he lost his self-possession and involuntarily placed his hand upon his war club, in which movement he was followed by the warriors around him, without any previous intention of proceeding to extremities. Whatever may have been the fact, the bold chieftain found in Governor Harrison a firmness of purpose and an intrepidity of manner which must have convinced him that nothing was to be gained by any effort at intimidation, however daring."
CHAPTER XXII
THE SECOND AND LAST COUNCIL
—The last meeting between the two leaders before Harrison marched into the Indian country.
What strange fatality directed the minds of the Shawnee brothers to repel all friendly advances on the part of the American government, and to listen to the poisonous council of Matthew Elliott and the other British agents who had so often deceived their race, may not easily be divined. Brant had been bribed, Little Turtle and the Blue Jacket basely deserted in the hour of defeat, and two English treaties negotiated without a line in either to the advantage of the red man, but notwithstanding all these facts, both Tecumseh and the Prophet were now in full and constant communication with Malden, Canada.
Rapid strides were made by the brothers in the closing months of 1810. Not only were the village chiefs and sachems shorn of all their old-time authority, and the power of determination lodged in the hands of the warriors, but the belt of union circulated by the Prophet among the tribes "to confine the great water and prevent it from overflowing them," brought many accessions both to the confederacy and to the Shawnee influence. It was reported that when this belt was exhibited to Elliott and he saw that so many tribes had united against the United States that he danced with joy. About the first of November, Tecumseh himself arrived at Malden on a visit to the British agency. He remained there until some time after the twenty-fourth of December. The nature of his conferences with Elliott may be inferentially arrived at from the following. An Indian council had, during the preceding autumn, been convened at Brownstown, near Detroit. A resolution had there been entered into to prevent the sale of any more lands to the United States and this step had been taken at the suggestion of Elliott. According to the report of the Wea chiefs, the British agent had informed the tribes that England and France had now made peace, and would soon unite their arms "to dispossess the Americans of the lands they had taken from the Indians." The Shawnee land doctrine had become popular. "The Indians," writes Harrison, "appear to be more uneasy and dissatisfied than I ever before saw them, and I believe that the Prophet's principle, that their land should be considered common property, is either openly avowed or secretly favored by all the tribes west of the Wabash." The tribes of the Lakes looked upon the Wabash as the land of promise. The Winnebagoes were already present in considerable numbers at the Prophet's Town, and the Wyandots had formed a camp in close proximity to that place. The Six Nations were reported to be in motion and demanding the privilege of settling in the Wabash valley. Could all these tribes be assembled in the face of the advancing American settlements, they would serve the double purpose of checking this advance and furnishing a protective barrier to Canada in case of a war between Great Britain and the United States. Tecumseh and Elliott were joined in the fellowship of a mutual interest.
The Miami chiefs looked upon this presumptuous conduct of the Shawnee leaders with high disapproval. Their tribes were the rightful proprietors of the soil, and the establishment of the Prophet had been effected without their consent. But much of their ancient authority had passed away. Many of their young warriors were carried away by the mad fanaticism of the Prophet and vainly imagined that they could drive the white man back across the Ohio. Unless the hands of the Miami leaders were upheld, they could not long resist the pressure of the surrounding tribes and must give their sanction to the Prophet's scheme.
Harrison was fully convinced that the old village chiefs would willingly place themselves under the protection of the government, and surrender their claims for a suitable annuity, rather than submit to any domination on the part of their neighbors. The Governor was plainly in favor of forming an alliance with the Miamis, of dispersing the followers of the Prophet, and paving the way for further extinguishment of the Indian title. He urged that the narrow strip on the west side of the Greenville cession, in the eastern part of the Indiana territory, would soon be filled with new settlers; that the backwoodsmen were not men "of a disposition to content themselves with land of an inferior quality when they see in their immediate neighborhood the finest country as to soil in the world occupied by a few wretched savages;" that the Territory was fast advancing to statehood, and that the members of the Territorial legislature were heartily in favor of smoothing the way to further purchases.