The council at Malden, to which allusion has been made above, was called by the English for the purpose of counteracting the effect of that which had been held at Mississinniway, and with a hope of gaining over to their side, the few tribes which still adhered to the American cause. It was numerously attended; Tecumseh and the prophet, Elliot, a British Indian agent, and the commanding English officer, were all present. The few tribes which had resisted the influence of Tecumseh and the Prophet, and still adhered to the American cause, were threatened and persuaded, but in vain; they remained firm; and after a warm and animated discussion, all the chiefs who were favourable to the English cause, seized the hatchet of their English father.—Tecumseh was the first to do so,—as emblematical of their determination,—saying, “we now come forward and take hold of your war hatchet, and will assist you to fight against the Americans.” The council then adjourned. Tecumseh now redoubled his exertions,—journeying by night and day, he again visited the tribes of his confederacy, and to each applied that stimulus which was most likely to excite them to immediate action. Some he persuaded, others he threatened; no labour fatigued him; no exertion was too great; and, while he himself was thus engaged, his emissaries were likewise travelling in every direction for the purpose of assembling the Indians.1
Such were the exertions of Tecumseh, and although they were so far crowned with success, that by his means a greater number of Indians were embodied than were ever before known to have assembled at any former time, still he failed in the accomplishment of those great ends for which he had so long been labouring. He failed in establishing the Ohio River as the north-western boundary of the United States, which he often asserted to be a favourite measure, and his determination to effect. Yet, his endeavours to do so, have won for him a reputation which will last until the aborigines of our country shall be forgotten. He also failed to unite in one confederacy, as was his purpose, all the tribes in the great Mississippi valley. Still his visit to the south has generally been regarded as the exciting cause of the subsequent hostility of the Indians in that quarter.
When Tecumseh and Elkswatawa commenced their operations, no improper motive influenced them. They contended for the possession of a waste and unimproved territory. They fought to establish the principle, that all the lands held by the Indians, belonged to the whole collectively, and not to particular tribes. Believing that the United States had grievously wronged them in purchasing large tracts from a single tribe, they thenceforth resolved, that it should be regarded as common property, never to be disposed of without the consent of all. They also united, heart and soul, endeavouring to fix a limit to the growing power of the United States. For they saw the stream of population fast pouring upon their lands, and knew that, unless stayed, it would soon sweep from them the few possessions they still held.
These, with them, were praiseworthy objects, and by them for a long time, were they solely influenced. But, circumstances changed in a measure, the current of their thoughts, and thenceforward personal vengeance urged them on in all their operations. At first, their resentment was against the whites, whether as English or Americans, they knew no difference; it was the whites who had wrested from them their lands. But when they saw that hostilities were about to commence between England and America, and reflected upon the growing power of the latter, they began to waver in their original purpose. They gave their ears to the soft persuasions of the English agents, who flattered their pride, courted their assistance, sympathized with them in all their sufferings, and attributed their misfortunes to the grasping power of the Americans. When the brothers heard these things, and remembered that those oft told tales were not the date of yesterday, but had been reiterated for years, they yielded, and in lending their assistance to the English, changed in a great degree the holy nature of the war they were waging.
It is not our purpose to enter minutely into the details of all the campaigns in which Tecumseh was conspicuous, and therefore we must condense the events of his latter days into a few brief pages. We do this unwillingly, for every incident connected with him is interesting, and proves him to have possessed a great mind, imbued with chivalry of character which would have shed lustre over any person, in any age. Throughout the whole of the contest, his conduct was bold, frank, and manly, and though a savage, no act of inhumanity ever stained his fair fame. The cause which called forth his exertions was an holy one; it was to stay the encroachments of the whites, to render the rights of his countrymen respected, and secure to them the quiet possession of the lands which they still retained. In his own beautiful language, he compared the continual advancement of the white settlements to a “mighty wave overspreading the land,” and the confederacy he was forming, to “a dam made to resist it.”
The history of the Prophet is so blended with that of Tecumseh, that we cannot well separate them, even did we wish it. Cowardly, cruel, and treacherous, he possessed but few redeeming virtues. Yet all the incidents which marked his career as a Prophet, prove him to have been a most extraordinary man. In the first place, the assuming of a character which was founded in deception, and the many petty artifices which he was called on daily to practise for so long a time, in order to sustain that character, prove that he must have had a mind both singularly constituted and of great power. And this is still more apparent, when, also, we reflect that, notwithstanding the most violent opposition from the chiefs of all the tribes upon which he operated, and also from the whites, long before his designs were regarded as hostile, he succeeded in creating in his own person a power which was felt throughout the remotest tribes, and in wielding an influence not less fatal and mysterious in its effects, than was that of the inquisition, in the plentitude of its power. That power must have been great, and a great mind alone could have created it, which enabled him to lead as he pleased, the lawless band of Indians who generally accompanied him; which enabled him, like Prospero, who, by the wave of his wand, called up tempests from the vasty deep, at his bidding, to lash his followers into the fury of a raging storm, or hush them when excited, into quiet deep as that of a sleeping child. But, luckily for the whites, with the battle of Tippecanoe, was lost the influence of the Prophet. Had he won that battle, or had the Indians, throughout the north-western war, fought with the same desperation which marked their conduct at Tippecanoe, the result, though in all probability the same, would, by the whites, have been far more dearly purchased. Yet, although he there failed, he relaxed not in his exertions; for, after this, we often find him associated with Tecumseh, though always playing a subordinate part.
But, as regards Tecumseh, if there be one trait in his character more attractive than another, it is the clemency and humanity which ever marked his conduct; and this is the more remarkable, when we regard the many irritating circumstances which urged him on in his hostility to the United States. Had he, in the many contests in which he engaged, acted according to the general rule of Indian warfare, he would still have been great, then how much brighter appears his fame, when we recollect, that, during the north-western war, atrocities were perpetrated without a parallel in the annals of civilized warfare, and that against Tecumseh not a single act of wanton cruelty was ever charged. When the battle, or rather the massacre of the River Raisin took place, Tecumseh was collecting his warriors on the Wabash, and his after conduct proves that, had he been present, the scene that there occurred, would not now remain a blot upon the fame of England. In one of the sorties from Fort Meigs, many Americans were captured, and when confined and disarmed, the Indians proceeded inhumanly to butcher them. Tecumseh having heard what was going on, rushed to the spot, reproached them with their cruelty, and stopped the massacre. He is said to have stipulated with General Proctor for the delivery of General Harrison into his hands, in the event of his being captured. What disposition he would have made of him, had it so happened, we can never know, and can only conjecture from what is known of his character. In all probability his pleasure would have been to have extended to him the hospitality of his wigwam, and like Roderick Dhu, have guided him safely beyond the confines of his lands, and then set him free.
Tecumseh succeeded in bringing more men into the field than were ever before embodied by any other chieftain. From a single excursion on the Wabash, he returned at one time, with six hundred warriors, and from the commencement of hostilities, up to the period of the battle of the Thames, was hovering along our frontiers, with a force of from two to three thousand. At the head of two thousand warriors, he aided General Proctor, in the two attempts which he made on Fort Meigs, and was likewise engaged in many other skirmishes along our line of posts.
But distinguished as Tecumseh was for his deeds as a warrior, we have ever regarded him as still more conspicuous, from the convincing proofs he has left, that he was an orator, in the highest sense of the term. That he was fearless, see his declarations in council, when surrounded by his enemies. What apophthegm, though uttered in Rome, in her happiest days, surpasses his reply to the interpreter, when, fatigued from speaking in council, at Vincennes, he saw that no chair had been provided for him. “Your father,” (alluding to General Harrison,) said the interpreter, “requests you to take a chair,”—at the same moment handing one. “My father!”—replied Tecumseh, “the sun is my father, the earth my mother; upon her bosom I will repose;”—and, suiting the action to his words, he laid himself on the ground. What more striking than his reply to General Harrison, when discussing in his own tent, the probability of war. Alluding to the situation which the President of the United States would occupy in such an event, he replied,—“True, he is so far off, that the war will not injure him; he may sit still in his town, and drink his wine, while you and I will have to fight it out;” or the words of Tecumseh, when, in one of his speeches, alluding to the earthquake which overwhelmed New Madrid, he says:—“The Great Spirit is angry with our enemies; he speaks in thunder, and the earth swallows up villages, and drinks up the Mississippi; the wide waters will cover their low lands, and the Great Spirit will sweep from the earth, with his terrible breath, those who escape to the hills.” Of all his speeches which have been preserved, the one which we here extract, gives perhaps the best idea of his manner and mode of expression. In judging of it, as of all other Indian productions, we should make allowance for the loss they must necessarily sustain in being translated, and secondly, for the fact that, as a general remark, all the persons who have been employed as interpreters among them, have generally been uneducated men. Tecumseh, being at Malden, with General Proctor, when the latter began to make preparations for retreating, in consequence of Perry's victory, and not knowing why he was hurrying away, demanded a council in the name of all the Indians, and spoke as follows:—