Gay having finished her letter, delivered it to Oloompa, and his preparations being made, he bade them all farewell, renewed his promise to return with Rolfe, and, accompanied by the kind wishes of Netnokwa and the two maidens, sat out upon his journey.
CHAPTER XVII.
“Well might his lays be lofty! soaring thought
From Nature's presence tenfold grandeur caught:
Well might bold Freedom's soul pervade the strains,
Which startled eagles from their lone domains,
And, like a breeze, in chainless triumph, went
Up through the blue resounding firmament.”
MRS. HEMANS.
The absence of Oloompa shed a gloom for a few days over the little circle he left. Miskwa felt that she loved him, and the sympathies of Gay were also strongly enlisted in his favour. His feelings against the whites, as a people, he had avowed in her presence, and when she recollected the dreary region through which he was then travelling, and the many difficulties and hardships he must encounter, and thought he was doing all this for one who at most was but a stranger to him, her sympathies were so great, that for a short time even the pleasure arising from the recollection of the object of his journey, was sensibly diminished. But as time glided on, this feeling passed away, and gave place in her breast to the joy of anticipating his return, accompanied, as she fondly hoped, by Rolfe, of whom she had so often, and so kindly thought, and who had so long and so eagerly sought her.
But, leaving Oloompa to continue his journey, let us revert to the designs of Elkswatawa and Tecumseh.
It was now the summer of 1810:—the Indian affairs in the west began to wear quite a warlike character, and so many reports reached Governor Harrison, indicating a hostile disposition on the part of the Indians, that he felt compelled to send a messenger to the two brothers with a speech, setting forth the vast power of the whites, showing that success could not possibly attend their arms, and promising, if practicable, to redress their grievances upon their being publicly stated. The messenger was likewise required to obtain, if possible, a personal interview with the brothers, that he might form some idea of their characters, and also to elicit a history of their views and intentions toward the United States.
Upon arriving in the Shawanee country, the messenger was treated with great courtesy and even kindness, for the policy of the brothers was, to keep the whites in entire ignorance of their designs. In obedience to his wishes, a council was called of all their followers, and the speech of the Governor delivered to the brothers in their presence. They listened to it with the utmost attention, yet refused to return any answer. Upon the whole, however, they stated that they were pleased with it, and Tecumseh said that “he had never been to see the Governor; he only recollected him as a very young man, sitting by the side of General Wayne; that he had never troubled the white people much, and that he would now go to Vincennes, and convince the Governor, that he had listened to bad men, when he was told that the Indians meditated war against the United States.”
The meeting which had been called to hear the speech from the Governor, having been dissolved, Tecumseh invited the messenger to pass the night with him at his lodge, and extended to him all the rude hospitality of his wigwam. In the course of the evening he threw off much of the reserve which usually characterized him, and conversed both freely and frankly. He again denied that he intended to make war upon the United States, but declared, most solemnly, that it was not possible to remain friends, unless the whites would abandon the idea of making settlements farther to the north and westward, and explicitly acknowledge the principle that all the lands in the west, were the common property of all the tribes. “The Great Spirit,” said he, “gave this great island to his red children; he placed the whites on the other side of the big water; they were not contented with their own, but came to take ours from us. They have driven us from the sea to the lakes;—we can go no farther. They have taken upon them to say, ‘this tract belongs to the Miamies, this to the Delawares;’ and so on; but the Great Spirit intended it as the common property of all. Our father tells us, we have no business on the Wabash; the lands belong to other tribes. The Great Spirit ordered us to come here, and here we will stay. I intend not,” he continued, “to make war on the whites, but our rights must be respected, and from this spot, on the banks of the Wabash, I will never remove.”
When morning came, the messenger having gained all the information he desired, prepared to return, and Tecumseh having determined within his own mind, that he would visit the governor for the purpose of endeavouring to remove the impressions under which he laboured, said upon bidding him farewell,—“tell the Governor that I shall soon be with him; thirty or forty of my principal men will attend me, and as my young men are fond of shows, they will probably increase the number. I say these things that our father may not be alarmed, and that he may feast his red children as they deserve.”
During the whole time that the messenger had remained with Tecumseh, the Prophet had been present, yet took no part in the conversation. He left that entirely to the management of Tecumseh, who, though apparently playing a subordinate part to the Prophet, was in reality the life and soul of the projected enterprise. His voice was heard in every council preaching peace, yet causing the red men to dream of war, by narrating over and over again, the wrongs and aggressions of the whites; and to such a degree had he already excited them, that the difficulty now was, to keep down the passions he had called into play. In his own bosom he felt the storm gathering with increased fury, and every hour of his time was passed in summing up the wrongs he had suffered. Large tracts of land had been conveyed away by particular tribes, when Tecumseh regarded it as the common property of all. Murders had been committed by the Indians on the whites, and the murderers had been handed over to the whites for punishment; murders had been committed on the Indians by the whites, and when the murderers were demanded, their calls had been neglected. The wave of population was steadily advancing and encroaching upon their grounds. Want and hunger were already the consequence of the near proximity of the whites, and a history of the past told too truly, that one aggression would be followed by another, until the plough of the stranger would run over the ground now occupied by their wigwams, and then, a few years more, and no Indian would own the land whereon he rested. These were the things which preyed upon the soul of Tecumseh, and caused him to weep for the fate of his countrymen, and these were the feelings with which, in the following month, he sat out to visit the Governor at Vincennes, with a hope of removing from his mind all unfavourable impressions which he might entertain towards the Indians, and at the same time determined to lay before him the wrongs of which he complained, and demand redress.