"The Great Spirit told me to tell the Indians that he had made them and made the world—that he had placed them in it to do good, and not evil. I told all the redskins that the way they were in was not good, and that they ought to abandon it. That we ought to consider ourselves as one man, but we ought to live agreeable to our several customs, the red people after their mode, and the white people after theirs; particularly, that they should not drink whisky, that it was not made for them, but the white people, who alone know how to use it; and that it is the cause of all the mischiefs which the Indians suffer;.... Determine to listen to nothing that is bad. Do not take up the tomahawk, should it be offered by the British, or by the Long Knives. Do not meddle with any thing that does not belong to you, but mind your own business and cultivate the ground, that your women and your children may have enough to live on."[496]
[496] Speech to Governor Harrison, August, 1808; Dawson, Harrison, 108-9.
The extent to which this advice was followed is astonishing, in view of the fact that it necessitated a complete revolution in the lives and habits of the natives. The influence of the Prophet's religious teachings was felt from Florida to Saskatchewan. Most marvelous of all, the love of liquor which had been the bane of the Indians from the beginning of their intercourse with the whites was for a time completely exorcised.[497] Seeking to test the strength of the Prophet's influence over his followers, Harrison tempted them with whisky in vain.[498] Even among the distant tribes to which the Prophet's emissaries came, drunkenness and warfare fell into disfavor.[499] The Ottawas of l'Arbre Croche were reported in 1807 to be adhering strictly to the "Shawney Prophet's" advice. The whisky and rum of the traders had become a drug on the market, not a gallon a month being purchased. Even when the white men sought to tempt the natives by urging liquor upon them as a present they refused it "with disdain."[500]
[497] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 322.
[498] Drake, Tecumseh, 107.
[499] For evidence on this point see Tanner's Narrative, 155-58; Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 322-23.
[500] Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 322-23.
The settlers on the frontier were filled with apprehensions of danger from Tecumseh's movement, and protests and appeals for protection poured in upon Harrison. Yet the brothers protested that they had no hostile designs against the Americans. In the summer of 1808 the Prophet visited Harrison at Vincennes and succeeded in convincing him, apparently, that he desired only peace and the upbuilding of his race.[501] Meanwhile Tecumseh was conducting missions far and wide among the Indians, urging upon them his design of a confederation of all the tribes. In the famous Vincennes Council of 1810[502] he frankly informed Harrison that his purpose was to form a combination of all the Indian tribes of the surrounding region, to put a stop to the encroachments of the whites, and to establish the principle that the lands should be considered the common property of all the tribes, never to be sold without the consent of all. There was nothing original in this, for exactly the same design and contention had been advanced by the northwestern tribes in their general council at the mouth of the Detroit River in 1786.[503] The American government had, of course, ignored their pretensions. Much dissatisfaction was expressed by the tribes with the treaties of Fort Mcintosh and Fort Harmar, subsequent to their enactment, many of them refusing to recognize the validity of the cessions made by these treaties until compelled thereto by Wayne, in 1795. At the Treaty of Greenville in that year most of the northwestern tribes were represented; but many individuals belonging to them held aloof, and among these Tecumseh himself was numbered.
[501] Dawson, Harrison, 107-9.
[502] For an account of this council see ibid., 155-59.