xt79319s236h https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt79319s236h/data/mets.xml Pirtle, Alfred, b. 1837. 1900  books b92-46-26947863 English J.P. Morton, printers, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Tippecanoe, Battle of, 1811. Battle of Tippecanoe  : read before the Filson club, November 1, 1897 / by Captain Alfred Pirtle. text Battle of Tippecanoe  : read before the Filson club, November 1, 1897 / by Captain Alfred Pirtle. 1900 2002 true xt79319s236h section xt79319s236h 





























































CAPTAIN ALFRED PIRTLE,

   Member of The Flison Club.

 
FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS No. 15



                     THE




Battle of Tippecanoe




              READ BEFORE THE PILSON CLUB
                  NOVEMBER 1, 1897


                       BY

         CAPTAIN ALFRED PIRTLE
                  Member of The Filso Club










                  LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
            JOHN P. MORTON AND COMPANY
                 T'ut" to qu fUSEu c
                       1900

 
















   aoPYRtETE BY

THE FILSON CLUB

       10o

 
PREFACE.



BEGUN as a paper to be read at a meeting of
      The Filson Club, this history has reached such
proportions that it may be termed a book.  For more
than three years it has been in hand -not worked upon
constantly, but never out of sight. Much time has been
consumed in making research after small details which
add to the completeness of the work.
   It is with great pleasure the names of the following
friends are mentioned, who have assisted the author
by affording opportunities for securing family histories:
Messrs. John J. Harbison, Henry D. Robb, and James
Henry Funk, of Louisville; Honorable John Geiger, of
Morganfield, Kentucky; Judge B. B. Douglas and WV. C.
Wilson, Esquire, of Corydon, Indiana; Judge Charles P.
Ferguson and Colonel John Keigwin, of Jeffersonville,
Indiana, and Mrs. Susan E. Ragsdale, of Bowling Green,

 
Prefce.



Kentucky.   Samuel M. Wilson, Esquire, of Lexington,
Kentucky, gave valuable assistance in research. Colonel
R. T. Durrett, The Polytechnic Society of Louisville, and
Mr. W. E. Henry, Librarian of the State Library at
Indianapolis, all offered free and unlimited access to the
resources of their libraries. General Lew Wallace, at
Crawfordsville, Indiana, was likewise very kind.
   To all of these I tender my sincere thanks.
   Colonel Durrett has, since reading the manuscript of
this work, offered to write an introduction, and to no
better hands could the task be committed. Therefore it
remains for the author to only ask generous treatment
from his readers, and with this brief euvoi make his bow.



ALFRED PIRTLE.

 
INTRODUCTION.



T     HE Battle of Tippecanoe has been supposed by some
      to have been the result of the ambition of General
Harrison for military glory. Others have thought that it
was caused by the depredations of the Indians upon the
life and property of the white settlers in the Indiana
Territory. Yet others have believed that it was nothing
more nor less than the traditional and the inevitable result
of the contact of civilization with barbarism.
   While- all of these as well as other causes may have
had their share in this battle, there was one supreme and
controlling cause which brought the white man and the
red man together in mortal conflict on the banks of the
Tippecanoe. That cause was a struggle for the land on
which the battle was fought, and for the adjacent and the
far-away lands of the Indians. It was as essentially a
conflict for the soil as ever existed between the Indians
and the French, the Indians and the Spanish, the Indians
and the British, or the Indians and the Americans. While

 
Vi



Jntroduction.



this may not readily appear upon the surface, a deeper
view will hardly fail to disclose the fact.  Behind the
depredations and the thefts, and even the murders by
the Indians, there was a hope and a purpose of regaining
the Indians' lost lands or of arresting further intrusions
upon them by the whites. Let us appeal to history and
see if it does not establish the truth of this statement
   When the white man began settlements in America
in the early part of the seventeenth century the whole
country was occupied by the red man.  This occupancy
was not like that of the white man, but it was the red
man's mode of occupancy -a spot for his wigwam and
an empire for his hunting - grounds -which had thus
existed from a time so far back that neither history nor
tradition reached to its confines.  Whence the Indians
came into this occupancy, whether from older countries
to the east or to the west of them, or whether created
and located here as auctochthons of the land is a problem
which has baffled learned attempts at solution.  About
the essential fact, however, that the white man found the
Indian here when he discovered America, and that he was
here when the colonization of the country began, and that
he is still here, there is no dispute.
    All along the Atlantic shore from Maine to South
 Carolina the great Algonquin family had located its

 
Introductiov.



numerous tribes, and from Carolina to the southern limits
of Florida the Mobilian family had distributed its tribal
divisions. With the exception of the five sections occupied
by the Huron-Iroquois, the Cherokees, the Catawbas,
the Uchees, and the Natches, these two great nations
extended their occupancy of the country not only from
Maine to Florida, but from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Mississippi River. Their hunting-grounds extended beyond
this great river, but with their trans-Mississippi possessions
we are not now concerned. Their mode of occupying this
vast territory differed essentially from that of the Americans.
They were not cultivators of the soil, but left the land
clothed with the original forests for the protection of the
wild animals they used for food and clothing.  A patch
of ground for corn and vegetables, cultivated by the squaws
in the most primitive way, was all of their vast territory
they reduced to absolute use.  They had no schools nor
churches, and their dwelling-houses were rude structures
of cane and bark. They were hunters and fishermen,
and lived mainly upon the products of the forest and the
stream. They had no fences around their lands nor any
marked trees to show the limits of their territory, but
depended upon the hills and valleys and streams to define
their boundaries. Nothing more distinguished their savage
life from that of civilized man than the quantity of land



Vii

 
Ixtroduction.



required to support a family. It has been estimated that
there were one hundred and eighty thousand Indians
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River
when the whites began taking their lands from them.
This would give about six square miles, or three thousand
eight hundred and forty acres, for each Indian, and more
than nineteen thousand acres for every family of five. In
Kentucky, which is not a densely populated State, there
are about forty-eight inhabitants for every square mile,
and about thirteen acres for each individual.
   This was a pretty extravagant quantity of land and
a very poor way of handling it, but it was the Indian's
mode of occupancy which had been sanctioned by long
centuries of use. It was not such an occupancy, however,
as the white man, with his civilization and Christianity,
respected. Bigotry and intolerance and religious persecu-
tion were then rife in the civilized world, and they chose
to consider the Indian a heathen unfit to hold lands. It
mattered not how long the Indians had possessed the
country nor from what source they derived their title,
even if an all-wise Creator might have placed them here
for their continued occupancy, they were pronounced barba-
rians and required to give place to Christian civilization.
    So soon, therefore, as white settlements were made at
 Jamestown, the country began to pass from the Indian



. .

 
                     Ixlrodwdion.                      lx

to the white man. Parts of it passed by conquest and
parts by purchase, but most of it by a species of legalized
robbery. Section after section of the slope between the
Atlantic and the Alleghanies were absorbed by the whites
until all was gone. Then the mountains were scaled and
the valley of the Mississippi invaded.
   As a specimen of the bargains given the whites by the
red men, or rather extorted from the Indians by the white
man, we may mention the treaty of I 77, between the
Cherokees and Richard Henderson  Company. In this
deal the Indians transferred to Henderson  Company
the whole of Kentucky south of the Kentucky River,
embracing about twenty million acres, for the price of
fifty thousand dollars, payable in goods. It is not likely
that the Indians got these goods at absolute cash value.
It is probable that they were sold to them at a good
round profit, and that the Indians did not really get more
than the half of fifty thousand dollars for their lands.
But estimating the goods to be really worth fifty thousand
dollars, the Indians only got about two and a half mills,
or one fourth of a cent, per acre for their lands.
    Another big sale was made by the Indians in i8i8, in
 which Kentucky was also interested: it was known as
 the Jackson purchase. In this sale the Chickasaw Indians
 transferred to the Government all their lands between the

 
x                     IxIroduction.

Tennessee and the Mississippi rivers and between the
Ohio River and the southern boundary of Tennessee for
an annuity of twenty thousand dollars for fifteen years,
and some other payments amounting to less than five
thousand dollars.  The territory sold contained more
than seven million acres, and the price obtained at the
end of fifteen years was about four and one third cents
per acre.
   As a matter of course such of the Indians as stopped
to think and had mind enough to think correctly must
have known that such sales as these would at no distant
day exhaust their lands and leave them but little, if any
thing. to show for them. The wonder is that some mighty
chief, having the confidence of his people and the ability
to direct them, did not make his appearance at an earlier
day and attempt to arrest the transfer of their lands by
uniting all the tribes and making transfers more difficult
If all the tribes of the Algonquin and Mobilian families
had been united into one grand confederacy and their
warriors placed under the lead of one chief against the
whites, it is difficult to see how the settlements along the
Atlantic coast could have been maintained until they were
numerous enough and strong enough to spread westward
to the mountains and then leap over these barriers into
the Mississippi Valley.

 
Inlroduc/tiam.



  In i8o6, Tecumseh, aided by Xis brother, known as
the Prophet, attempted to unite all the Indian tribes
against the Americans.  His conception of a great con-
federacy of all the tribes was not entirely original. Tradi-
tion had probably informed him of the effort of King
Philip to unite different tribes against the New Englanders
in i675. And still nearer his own times was the attempt
of Pontiac to form a grand confederacy against the British
in 1763.  He must have known, too, of the disastrous
failure of both of these great chiefs in their undertaking
to array barbarism in an united effort against civilization.
The whites were used to united effort, and in war as in
peace were held together by laws which made them invin-
cible in the face of disjointed foes who as often became
a rabble as a phalanx or legion of soldiers. The Indian
as an individual, or as part of a limited number, was a
foe to be dreaded, but his efficacy never increased propor-
tionately with numbers. An hundred warriors hid behind
rocks and trees were more formidable than a thousand
in the open field.
   Tecumseh, however, aided by the Prophet, improved
 upon the efforts of Philip and Pontiac in planning a con-
 federacy.  A striking difference in their plans was that
 Philip and Pontiac made war upon the whites the primary
 object of their confederations, while Tecumseh sought



xi

 
xdInducion.



first and foremost to prevent the whites from securing
any more of the Indian's lands. War must have followed
the plans of Tecumseh, but it would come secondarily
and not primarily, as in the plans of the other two chiefs.
Philip does not seem to have looked beyond a portion of
New England for his confederates, and Pontiac seems to
have had as much in view a restoration of the French to
the position they held in America before the peace of
1763 as he did the benefits of his own race.  His plan
embraced primarily the taking of the British forts, and
secondarily the destruction of the British settlements.
He succeeded in destroying eight out of the twelve forts
assailed, but failed to take the Detroit fort assigned to
his especial care.  Hence the second part of his plan to
direct the confederated Indians against the British settle-
ments never materialized. He miscalculated the relative
power of barbarism and civilization when arrayed against
one another, not in a single battle, but in a series of battles.
The British had just whipped the French and Indians
combined, and it is strange that as great a man as Pontiac
should then undertake to whip the English with Indians
alone.
    Tecumseh's conception of a grand confederacy of all
 the tribes of the Indians wvas broad and clear. It had
 none of the narrowness of Philip nor the French duality



xii

 
-Introdudion.



of Pontiac. He wanted to secure to his race the rest of
the lands then held by them, and the difficulty with him
was how to do it. After giving the subject much thought,
he reached the conclusion that the country belonged to
the Indians in common, and that one tribe could not
alienate the lands it occupied without the consent of all
the others. He claimed that the Great Spirit had placed
the Indians in this country and given the lands to all of
the race in common, without designating any specific
portion for any particular tribe. The land, while occupied
by any particular tribe, carried with it the right of
occupancy, but when abandoned it reverted to all the
other tribes in common. Tecumseh believed that if the
Indians once agreed that the lands were held by them in
common, the sales by individual tribes would be rare from
the difficulties of getting the consent of all, and that the
chances of a sale being for the good of all would be
much increased if all approved of it. He was familiar
with the principal treaties that had been made between
the Indians and the whites, and the quantities of land
that had passed by them. He knew of the lands that
had passed by conquest as well as by purchase, and in
the transactions between the whites and the Indians for
hundreds of years he knew that the lands never went
from the white man to the red man, but always went



.. .
XU1

 
Imiroduction.



from -the Indian to the white man. Having reached the
conclusion that the lands belonged to all the tribes alike,
and that one Gibe could not sell without the consent of
the others, he arrogated himself into a chosen instrument
in the hands of the Great Spirit to establish this doctrine.
He was a great orator, and did not doubt his ability to
convince the Indians of the wisdom and the necessity of
his doctrine. He went from tribe to tribe as the apostle
of his creed, and found eager listeners wherever he went.
He first visited the neighboring tribes and then those on
the lakes, and finally those on the distant gulf and those
beyond the Mississippi.
    But Tecumseh, great and eloquent and persuasive as
 he was, needed something more than his own eminent
 powers to establish his land - law among the Indians. He
 had a brother, known as the Prophet, who was possessed
 of the talents that were needed to further his schemes.
 The Prophet was an adept in cunning and duplicity and
 imposture, and withal as eloquent as Tecumseh. He
 found no difficulty in assuming the place of another
 prophet who had just died, and in convincing the super-
 stitious Indians of his inspiration as a seer. He believed,
 as Tecumseh did, that the lands all belonged to the
 Indians in common, and that no tribe could sell its lands
 without the consent of the others. He used visions and



.i

 
                      In/roductM.                      xv

trances and incantations and conjurings with which to
impress this land - law upon them, and, knowing that
such a doctrine might sooner or later lead to war between
the Indians atnd the Americans, he had special visions
and trances and communications with supernatural powers
from which he derived the authority to render warriors
proof against the bullets and the swords of the Ameri-
cans. By such means the Prophet helped Tecumseh to
the union of the tribes and to the doctrine of all the
tribal lands being held in common.
   While Tecumseh was far from home explaining this
land-law to the distant tribes of the south, the Prophet
was at Tippecanoe preying upon the superstition of his
followers. He convinced them that his charms could
protect them against the bullets of the Americans. and
made them believe that thev could stand in the midst of
battle and shoot down the whites without injury to them-
selves. The Prophet had possibly, in the enthusiasm of
convincing his followers of their being bullet- proof, led
himself to that belief. He assured them that his charms
had turned the powder of the Americans into sand and
deprived their bullets of penetrating power.  All the
Indians had to do was to attack the Americans and
satiate their thirst for white blood without being in danger
of harm.

 
xvi   Introduction.



  Such was the belief of the warriors of various tribes
from far -and near that the Prophet had assembled at
Tippecanoe while Tecumseh was in a far - distant land.
The eager warriors, thirsting for blood and believing in
their immunity from hurt, rushed upon the camp of the
Americans in the darkness of the night and soon learned
that the bullets of the enemy were not of the kind
described by the Prophet. Instead of glancing harmlessly
from the bodies of the Indians, they went through and
through and inflicted wounds that ended in immediate
death or long suffering. The Americans were neither
asleep nor drunk, and if their powder was sand, it was a
kind of sand which hurled deadly missiles just as powder
did. They were driven from the American camp, and
left their dead and wounded as proof that the Prophet
was an impostor.
   The Battle of Tippecanoe was the end of the grand
confederacy of Tecumseh. Those who had escaped from
the bullets of the Americans soon bore the news to
adjacent tribes, and it was not long before distant tribes
knew the result. The village of Tippecanoe, the home
of Tecumseh and the Prophet, was burned to the ground,
and the Prophet had fled to hide among stranger tribes.
After all the boasting of charms and visions and trances
by the Prophet, it was any thing but convincing of his



xvi

 
Indoducdion.



superhuman power to see his village in ashes and himself
a fugitive. Before the battle was over the Prophet was
far from the scene of danger.
   When Tecumseh reached his home and saw the ruin
his brother had wrought, his feelings may be better
imagined than described.  His work of years trying to
teach the various tribes that their lands should be held
in common to secure them against the Americans had
been undone by a battle that ought never to have been
fought in his absence. The bright future he had marked
out for himself was all darkness now.  He sought an
interview with Governor Harrison and with the President
of the United States, for the purpose of laying his plans
before them, but failed to secure it. Despairing of ever
being on living terms with the Americans, he joined the
English on the breaking out of the War of i812, and,
after engaging in a number of battles against the Ameri-
cans, died a soldier's death at the Battle of the Thames.
He was one of the greatest Indians ever born on the
American continent, and was so famous as a warrior,
orator, and statesman that many soldiers claimed to have
killed him in the Battle of the Thames. Nor is it known
to this distant day with any degree of certainty which of
the many claimants ended the life of this distinguished
chief.



xvii

 
Itroduceon.



  It is not likely that even if the Battle of Tippecanoe
had not been fought and Tecumseh had succeeded
in forming a great confederacy of all the Indians the
United States would have recognized the right claimed
for the combination to sit in judgment upon the sale of
the lands of any individual tribe. The United States
had again and again recognized the right to sell by the
tribe occupying the land, and has ever since adhered to
this view. Nevertheless, the Battle of Tippecanoe must
have the credit of having broken up in its infancy the
grand confederacy of Tecumseh and the Prophet. and
prevented the endless collisions which its crude notions of
land- law might have brought about between the two
races.  It was, moreover, the avant-courier of the War
of 1812. Viewed in this connection, although it was
insignificant when compared with the defeats of Braddock
and St. Clair, and the victories of Forbes and Wayne, it
was yet of vast and lasting importance.  It cost much
suffering and some valuable lives, but we can not say
that it was not worth all it cost and more.  General
Harrison and his brave soldiers whom a night attack by
hideous savages could not strike with panic should be
remembered for their courage and for the victory they
won over savages converted into demons by the Prophet's
incantations.



xvii

 
Introducion.



   In the account of the Battle of Tippecanoe, which
follows this introductory chapter, Captain Pirtle has been
faithful in collecting all the important facts relating to it
and in presenting them in an unostentatious but effective
way. He has gathered some information from old manu-
scripts and newspapers not before used in any history of
this battle, and has been very careful to collect all acces-
sible information concerning the Kentuckians who were in
the action. In his narrative will be found the names of
Kentuckians not before known to have been in this battle,
and their descendants can hardly fail to be grateful to
the author for rescuing these names from oblivion. If
Captain Pirtle's monograph shall so direct public attention
to Joseph Hamilton Daviess and Abraham Owen and
other heroes of this battle as to insure suitable monu-
ments over their unmarked graves, a good work will have
been done in behalf of brave men and accomplished
soldiers.  They  sleep on the  battlefield whick  their
deaths helped to consecrate to fame, but their sleep is
an undistinguished repose and should have some land-
mark to point the living to the spots of earth hallowed
by their mortal remains.
                                R. T. DURRErr,
                                    President Filson Club.



X1X

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE.



                  - Part First.

     THE BATTLE AND THE BATTLE-GROUND.

O XN the waters of Mad River, at a place now known
       as West Boston, not far from Springfield, Ohio,
there were three boys born at a birth to a Shawnee war-
nor of a captured Creek squaw, "Methotaska" by name.
From the fact that the North American Indians had no
written language, the- date of this event is not certainly
known, being given variously from  1768 to 1780. One
of the boys passed into obscurity and oblivion, leaving
behind only his name, - Kamskaka."
  The other two boys became by name and deeds for-
ever blended with the name of Harrison in the history
of the Northwest, and always associated with his record
in the minds of cotemporary Kentuckians --Tecumseh"
and -The Prophet."
   With the picturesque appropriateness that attaches to
Indian names, we find that - Tecumseh" stood, for " The
Wildcat Springing on its Prey," and -Elkswatawa"

 
2             TTe  Battle of Tipecanoe.

(the Prophet) meant -The Loud Voice." This, it is
said, was a most suitable name, and was given him only
as late as i 805, when he had made a reputation as a
conjurer and orator. Previously he had been known as
" The Open Door, " having become remarkable for stupidity
and drunkenness.
   In the year i8oo the Indiana Territory, northwest of
the Ohio, was formed, including the present States of
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and that part of
Minnesota east of the Mississippi, and its eastern bound-
ary established by moving the southern terminal of it
from a point on the Ohio River opposite the mouth of
the Kentucky River to the mouth of the Big Miami
River, which became, and remains, the western bound-
ary of the State of Ohio.
   William Henry Harrison, born in Charles City County,
 Virginia, February 9, 1773, was the third son of Benja-
 min Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of
 Independence. On reaching manhood he joined the army
 with the rank of ensign, was soon promoted to lieutenant,
 and served with General Wayne in his campaign against
 the Indians in I794.   The historians likewise regard
 Tecumseh as being very active in this same campaign,
 making his mark as a young warrior.



Lossing Field Book of the War of i8i2, page I88.

 
The Bafle of Tififiecanoe.



   In 1797 Harrison had reached the rank of captain,
but he resigned from the army to go into political life,
becoming Secretary of the Northwest Territory, which
embraced all the region belonging to the United States
west of Pennsylvania and north of Virginia and Ken-
tucky.  He was thus quite a young though energetic
man when he was made the first Governor of Indiana
Territory in i8oi.
   Passing by the next nine years of the history of the
prominent characters already introduced into this paper,
I8IO found Tecumseh the foremost Indian in all the
Territory, aspiring to be a second Pontiac and to urnite
all the tribes of his race in war against the ever-
encroaching whites.  His schemes and exertions were
those of a statesman, ever endeavoring to draw the
Indians into his plan of joint efforts against the common
enemy, whose inroads into his own territory he resented
in every possible way.
   The Prophet was a cunning, unprincipled man, pre-
tending to see visions and to work charms, gaining thus
almost unlimited influence among his followers.
   By i8o8 a town located by the brothers, situated at
the junction of Tippecanoe River with the Wabash,
about one hundred and fifty miles up stream from Vin-
cennes, was said to contain hundreds of the Prophet's



3

 
The Bate of Tpjecaiwe.



followers, who avowed themselves to be tillers of the
soil and strict abstainers from  whisky.  By a short
portage the Indians could go by canoe to Lake Erie or
Lake Michigan, or by the Wabash reach all the vast
system of water courses to the south and west. It
was only a twenty-four hours' journey by canoe, at a
favorable stage of water, down stream to Vincennes, the
capital of the white man's territory, where Governor
Harrison had a considerable garrison of troops of the
regular army. From the town at the mouth 'of the
Tippecanoe River Tecumseh made his tours, and here
his followers and those of the Prophet assembled. This
location was well chosen, being in a very rich country
and very accessible. Members of most remote tribes,
from the headwaters of the Mississippi as well as west of
that stream, drawn by the fame of the Prophet, visited
this town.
    The new settlement was on the western bank of the
 river just below the mouth of the Tippecanoe, and was
 known to   the  Indians as Keh-tip-a-quo-wonk, "The
 Great Clearing," and was an old and favorite location
 with them.
    The whites had corrupted the name to Tippecanoe,
 and it now generally became known as the Prophet's

     Fourteentk Annual Report United States Bureau of Ethnology,
 1892-IS93, Part II.



4

 
              The Barge of Tiftifecanoe.           5

town.   It is said the Indians had used this spot as a
camping-ground for more than thirty years before the
battle.
   Tecumseh and Elkswatawa were not chiefs by birth-
right and had no such authority by official station, yet
the former rapidly rose to a position of the greatest
influence by his talents. He made his brother a party
to his plans only in so far as he could be of use, and
the two, imposing upon the- credulous ignorance of the
Indians, raised the Prophet to a plane of great power
through his incantations, charms, and pretended visions
of the Great Spirit.  The Prophet was no ordinary
"medicine man," but a seer and a moral reformer among
his people, making prophecy his strong point.   He
denounced drunkenness most strenuously; he preached
also the duty of the young to care for the aged. He
was boastful of his powers, claiming them to be super-
naturaL  His main characteristics were cunning and a
showy smartness of speech as well as manner. He was
possessed of none of the noble qualities of his brother,
who was noted for his bravery in action and his
eloquence in council. By the year i809 Tecumseh had
achieved a great reputation, not only as a leader in
council but as a great warrior, and this added many
followers to the cause for which he exerted all his

 
The Bale of Tifrcaxoe.



faculties. He was far above the Prophet in all that
ennobles a man.
  The policy of the United States Government had for
some years been to extinguish by treaties the claims the
Indians had to lands lying in Indiana Territory. These
treaties, made by long negotiations, usually brought the
Indians quantities of articles which they highly prized. In
conformity with the instructions of the President, James
Madison, Governor Harrison, at Fort Wayne, September
30, I809, concluded a treaty with the head men and chiefs
of the Delaware, Pottawatomie, Miami, Eel River, Kickapoo,
and Wea Indians, by which, in consideration of s8,200
paid down, and annuities amounting in the aggregate to
2, 350, he obtained the cession of nearly three million
acres of land, extending up the Wabash beyond Terre
Haute, below the mouth of Raccoon Creek, including the
middle waters of White River. Neither Tecumseh, nor the
Prophet, nor any of their tribe had any claim to these
lands, yet they denounced the Indians who sold them,
declared the treaty void, threatened the makers of it with
death, and steadily maintained their unwavering opposition
to the making of treaties except by consent of larger
bodies of Indians, claiming that the domain was not the
property of small tribes. This was a part of Tecumseh's
scheme of a general confederation among all the Indians.



6

 
The Bale of Tip/ecaxoe.



The Wyandotts, the tribe most feared by the other Indians,
about this time became firm friends of the Shawnees, to
which the two brothers belonged.
   With prophetic vision Tecumseh saw that if this
immense body of land was opened to settlement by
the whites, the game upon which the Indians had to
depend for subsistence must soon be exterminated, and
that would lead in a few years to the removal of his
own race to more distant and strange hunting-grounds.
And this thought he used with insistence upon his
countrymen.
   In the spring of i8io the Indians at the Prophet's
town refused to receive the "Annuity Salt" sent them
in boats in compliance with the treaty, and insulted the
boatmen, calling them " American dogs !" These, with
other indications of hostility, caused Governor Harrison
to send several pacific messages to Tecumseh and the
Prophet. There was no doubt trouble brewing, and Gov-
ernor Harrison seems to have made decided efforts to
prevent an outbreak. Tecumseh sent word he would pay
the Governor a visit, and accordingly on August I2th he
arrived at Vincennes with four hundred warriors fully
armed, encamping in a grove near the town. The pres-
ence of such a large body of the savages was alarming to
the people of the town, but no encounter took place



7

 
The Bye of Ti/fiecawoe.



between the two races, the Governor managing affairs so
as to prevent any collision.
   The burden of Tecumseh's arguments was against the
treaty-making power of the Indians who had made that
of i809, announcing his determination not to allow the
country to be settled. After two days' conference the
matter was ended by the Governor promising to lay it
before the President. Not long after this a small detach-
ment of United States troops under Captain Cross were
moved from Newport Barracks, Kentucky, to Vincennes,
and three companies of Indiana mili