Yet who was there, who had not heard of Tecumseh, the Shawanee warrior, who so often had foiled the whites, and like an eagle stooping from his eyrie, so often struck, and was gone, no one knew whither. Even when a boy in years, he had associated his name with so many tales of frontier massacre, that in the settlements it would blanch the cheek of a maiden, or hush a crying child into silence.
When the war which terminated with the humiliating peace of Greenville, was still raging, Tecumseh was the leader of a roving band which often swept down upon the settlements, and marked its path with the most desolating ravages. Nor, in the long interval of peace which succeeded, did his restless mind continue inactive, but was constantly engaged in meditating schemes of vengeance, and devising plans for concentrating the scattered energies of his countrymen, weakened as they were by petty jealousies, and by divisions among their tribes;—the particulars of which shall be shortly unfolded.
It is said that even when a child he gave marks of the prowess which was to distinguish his riper years. Oft time had he listened to the chiefs of his tribe, while they detailed the proud descent of the Shawanees, and described their once princely dominions, and had wept upon hearing their change of situation attributed to the perfidy and aggression of the whites. Like Hannibal in his infant years, who swore eternal enmity to Rome, Tecumseh vowed that all his energies should be directed to resist the encroachments of the whites; that never would he move from the lands which his tribe now held; but that there, on the graves of his fathers, would he make the last stand for the rights of his countrymen. It seemed as if all the wrongs his race had suffered were glowing in him alone:—he felt them, and had been in part avenged; for in early life, his path was like a tornado sweeping through the forest, plainly visible from the destruction that marked its course; and how faithfully he carried into effect the resolves of his early years, let the sequel tell.
Still, great as he was, Tecumseh was not alone, but was one of three brothers at a birth; and a more remarkable one, the annals of history never recorded. Tecumseh, Elkswatawa, and Kumshaka, were born near Chilicothe, on the banks of the Scioto, in the year 1772. Their father fell in assisting the unfortunate Logan in the battle of Point Pleasant, which was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, in 1774, and for instruction they became entirely dependent upon their mother, who was by birth a Cherokee. She early made them acquainted with all warlike sports; instilled into their minds a deadly enmity against the whites; narrated the sad catastrophe which led to the battle of Kanawha; and breathed into them that spirit of vengeance which had led their father on to the battle in which he fell.
Every thing surrounding them tended to make them warriors of the first class. They belonged to the tribe of the Shawanees, decidedly the most warlike, and, at one time, the most powerful on our continent. For fifty years previous to the date of which I am now speaking, they had, with scarcely any intermission, been engaged in hostilities. They had fought every tribe of any note, residing in that extensive district of country which reaches from the Floridas on the south, to the great lakes of the north, among which may be enumerated the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, Yemassees, and Delawares. Leaguing themselves with the French, they had fought as their allies from 1755, to the termination of the war in 1763. Recruiting for a few years, they allied themselves with Logan to revenge upon the people of Virginia the wrongs he had suffered in the murder of his family. Defeated in this attempt, and the war of the Revolution breaking out, they became the steadfast allies of the English, their former foes; remained so throughout the war, and continued up to the treaty of Greenville to wage an unrelenting warfare along our entire frontiers, notwithstanding the peace of '83. They never sued for peace, but time after time, to stay the wave of advancing population, had they swept over the frontier settlements. They alone had preserved unadulterated the Indian spirit of indomitable savagery; forming the forlorn hope of the numerous bands which had been continually driven westward, they had within their own minds marked out the boundary beyond which they would never retreat.
This was the tribe from which descended Tecumseh and his brothers, and where could they have found a better school for the exercise of all warlike propensities? where have found a situation better calculated to arouse them to action, and to make them the distinguished men they afterward became?
Nothing could be more different than the dispositions of the brothers. Tecumseh was noble in appearance, firm in purpose, gifted in speech, daring in design, burning with the love of glory, and reckless of personal aggrandizement. He was frank, open and manly with his friends, kind, just and humane to his enemies. Elkswatawa was tall, too slender to be finely proportioned, with sharp piercing eyes, and a thin, lowering visage. He was dark, crafty and subtle; wavering, nor in a stranger to mercy; and in purpose not less undaring less bold than his brother. Kumshaka had not the qualities of either; he was a good warrior, but wanted that comprehensiveness of mind, and fixedness of purpose, which characterized his brothers. With regard to him it is needless to enter more into detail, for his early death prevented him from playing any conspicuous part. Let us now return to our story.
The camp which we have been describing, was that of the Shawanees, and Tecumseh was its chief. Collected around him, his warriors seemed to be discussing some subject of great interest.
“The clouds are gathering,” said Tecumseh—“the red torch must shortly be kindled; the whites will not let us live in peace.”
“No,” said a warrior, “they kill our people and take away our lands; we must fight or starve.”