In July the American army was reinforced by two thousand Kentucky volunteers under Major-General Scott, and Wayne was now ready to strike. He manoeuvred as though he intended to attack the Miami villages to the south, but, suddenly changing his course, he marched his troops northward, straight into the Indian settlements on the Au Glaize. At the mouth of this river, where it enters the Maumee, he built Fort Defiance.
The Indians had followed Wayne's march down the Au Glaize, hovering on the flanks of his army, and they were now mustered some two thousand strong on the Maumee river. From Fort Defiance Wayne sent them a final offer of peace; but, without waiting for an answer, he marched his forces down the Maumee and encamped at the foot of the rapids, about fifteen miles from the site of the present city of Toledo.
The war chiefs of the Miami, Potawatomi, Delaware, Shawnee, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Seneca tribes held a great council to consider the proposal of peace sent them by the general of the Long Knives. Little Turtle of the Miamis advised peace. 'We have beaten the enemy twice,' said he. 'We cannot expect the same good fortune always to attend us. The Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps. The day and night are alike to him, and he has been ever marching upon our villages, notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men. We have never been able to surprise him. Think well of it,' he cautioned; 'there is something that whispers to me it were well to listen to his offers of peace.'
Profound silence followed this speech. Then rose Blue Jacket, the Shawnee, who commanded the entire Indian forces. Blue Jacket strongly favoured battle; and his counsel prevailed. The chiefs decided on war. A plan of action was quickly formed. The Indian forces were to be drawn up in three detachments within supporting distance of each other behind the Fallen Timbers. This was a place some distance up the river from Wayne's encampment, where the forest had been levelled by a hurricane, the fallen trees forming a natural barricade.
On August 20, 1794, shortly after daybreak, Wayne ordered his troops to advance. He was still uncertain whether the Indians were hostile or friendly. But before he had proceeded far his soldiers were fired upon by a body of red men secreted in the tall grass. In the battle which followed Tecumseh led the Shawnees, and, with two of his brothers, was in the advance-guard when the fighting began. The Indians fought stubbornly, but to no purpose. The American force of mounted volunteers advanced, while the infantry with fixed bayonets drove the red men from cover and compelled them to retreat. In the latter part of the action Tecumseh lost the use of his gun by having, in his excitement, rammed a bullet into it before putting in powder. Falling back until he met another body of Shawnees, he secured a fowling-piece, and then fought on bravely until again forced to give ground. In spite of his desperate efforts to rally his followers, the Indians were beaten and were fleeing in disorder through the woods. When night fell and the Indians stole back to bury or hide their dead, Tecumseh gazed on the familiar features, now fixed in death, of Sauwaseekau, his second brother to fall in battle; and another battlefield, in which Cheeseekau had in like manner beheld the silent face of his father, arose before his mind. He remembered his eldest brother's return from the battle, with tidings that had burned into his very soul, while he was yet too young to take up arms in defence of his race.
The Indian warriors were defeated and scattered, and the Americans proceeded to lay waste their villages and cornfields in the valley of the Au Glaize. The blow to Indian power was irrevocable. On August 3 of the following year, 1795, was concluded the Treaty of Greenville, by which large tracts of Indian territory in what are now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan were surrendered to the Americans. The treaty was signed by Blue Jacket for the Shawnees, by Little Turtle for the Miamis, and by chiefs representing the Wyandots, the Delawares, the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, and other tribes. Tecumseh, however, had refused to attend Wayne's council, and when he heard from Blue Jacket of the terms of the treaty, he disputed its validity. Indian land, he said, was common property; all the chiefs had not been consulted, and many of them would refuse to accept the loss of their lands.
CHAPTER IV
THE PROPHET
Tecumseh was now pondering a great plan. Year after year he had seen his people pushed farther and farther back from their streams and hunting-grounds. When he looked into the future, he saw that the red race was doomed unless a strong and united effort was made to check this aggression. He did not at once take his followers into his confidence, but meditated long on a plan to gather the tribes into one great confederacy to oppose the encroachments of the whites and to prevent the extermination of the Indian race. Pontiac, that towering figure in Indian speech and legend, was ever in his mind. Before Tecumseh's birth Pontiac had formed an Indian confederation against the English in America. But his was only a temporary union of the Indians, while Tecumseh planned to unite the tribes in a great and permanent empire.
To further his great plan of bringing about a confederation of the tribes, Tecumseh resolved to take advantage of the superstitions of the people. An Indian familiar with the lore of his tribe believes himself to be continually surrounded by spirits, of whose power he is in constant dread. He sees them dimly in visions and recognizes them in many signs and omens—in gliding snake, flying bird, the lightning, the wind, the rustling of leaves, the noise of the tempest, the roaring cataract, the sound of thunder. To the hunter roaming through the forest the trees take on weird shapes, and ghostly shadows lurk in dark defiles. At twilight he sees gnomelike figures dancing before him and anon swallowed up in the darkness; again he sees them, holding their elfin revels on some moonlit cliff. Thus it is that the Indian imagination peoples the gloom of the ancient forests.