Bear Grease - Ep. 90: Tecumseh - We Shall Remain (Part 2)

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

This is the second episode in our Tecumseh series were we’ll look at his life from 1775 through 1812. Originally, I planned to title this one, “Uncommon Genius” which is what US President William Henry Harrison called the Shawnee. I decided, however, to use a declarative statement made by “the panther crossing the sky” himself. In response to intolerable encroachment, while many of his own tribe were leaving and heading West, Tecumseh said,  “we shall remain.” We’re going to learn the details of Tecumseh’s involvement in the War of 1812, but most interesting to me, we’ll explore the worldview differences of the Indians and Europeans and how it was destined to fail, and we’ll see that change is the only constant and predictable thing on planet earth. I wish I had good news for you, but the waters continue to be murky, but this time with blood. I really doubt you’re gunna want to miss this one… Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. It was the largest Indian alliance that the United States ever faced, the most effective, the greatest threat that the United States ever faced during the entire westward movement from the Alleghenies to the West Coast. This is the second episode in our Tacomsa series where we'll look at his life from 1775 through 1812.

Originally, I had planned to title this one Uncommon Genius, which is what U.S. President William Henry Harrison called the Shawnee. I decided, however, to use the declarative statement made by the Panther crossing the sky himself. In response to intolerable encroachment, while many of his own tribe were leaving and heading west, Tecumpsa said, we shall remain. We're going to learn the details of Tecumse's involvement in the War of 1812, but most interesting to me, we'll explore the worldview differences of the Indians and Europeans and how it was destined to fail.

And we'll see that change is the only constant and predictable thing on planet Earth. I wish I had good news for you, but the waters continue to be murky. But this time, with blood. I really doubt you're going to want to miss this one. And suddenly, in the midst of the War of 1812, to comes he's still an enemy, but he's an heroic enemy. He's a hero. An American hero.

My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Greece podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the lives. Land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. This is a very traumatic time for tribal people in Indiana because they see their lands just being overrun. And the Greenville Treaty, which is signed in 1795,

guarantees to tribal people the northwest third of Ohio but opens up southern Ohio. Well, the line doesn't hold. In other words, white settlers come in and then they just cross on their own. And we call that now settler colonialism because the federal government doesn't have any authority to stop them. And here they come. And they're not supposed to be there hunting. They are hunting. The number of game animals declines.

It's a very, it is a way of life that is crumbling around them and they're not exactly sure what to do. These lands are ours and no one has the right to remove us because we were the first proprietors. The great spirit above has appointed this place for us to light our fires and here we shall remain. as to boundaries the great spirit above knows no boundary nor will his people acknowledge any tocumseh spoken to his followers in 1807 these words were his response to the settler colonialism breaking the treaty of greenville they were definitive in certain words that drew a line in the black dirt of ohio before this he had been more diplomatic more trusting of the Americans who set across the table, making treaties and drawing boundary lines.

Tacomsa was now 39 years old. His youthful zealusiness had slowly transformed into a callous and unbreakable certainty that would lead his followers into the most significant resistance to American expansion east of the Mississippi, and ultimately lead him to his own death, which he would prophesy with his own mouth. DeKumse had told William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana territory, that he and Tinswatawa and their followers would abide by the treaties that have been made to date, as wrong as they were, but they would not yield another inch of land without fighting the Americans.

And in 1809, Harrison, for his own political reasons, decided to negotiate another nefarious treaty for more Indian land, close to that part of Indiana where the Shawnee brothers were then living, prophets town. And that was, you know, one treaty too many. And that drew more adherence to the, to Cucumson-Tangelo-Talwa's cause, Indians who otherwise were not attracted by the religious message, but more so by the political military part of it, oh my God, the whites are, they're pushing again. They're pushing again. That was Peter Cousins. the author of the acclaimed book, Tecumse and the Prophet. On part one of this series, we learned that Tecumse was born in Ohio

into the Panther clan of the Shawnees under the tailings of a celestial sign. He lost three father figures to murder and war with the white trespassers, and his mother left him in Ohio and fled west into Missouri. His older brother, Chisaquois, tasked to raise Tecumse, proclaimed that he'd rather let the fowls of the air pick his bones, bones and be buried back at camp. Later, he would also die from a white musket ball. These boys were fighters, visionaries, and loved the traditional Indian way of life.

Tecumse's shared an adopted father, Blackfish, with Daniel Boone, and likely lived in the same village as him for several months when old DB was a Shawnee captive. While a teenager, Tecumsehsa broke his leg hunting bison on horseback and walked with a no will limp his whole life. He was known as one of the greatest hunters in the Shawnee Nation. In the guerrilla warfare of the late 1700s, he became known as an uncanny war leader, displaying skill, wit, and bravery,

and nobility, as he hated and disdain the torture of prisoners, which was common. Almost everyone that wrote about meeting Tacumse spoke of his handsome appearance, magnetic draw, and his uncanny oratory skills. Some believe evidenced by the inspirational power he had over people that he may have been the greatest orator in American history. Tinsquantawa, the younger brother of Ticumsa,

had a transformative vision in 1805 and became the spiritual spokesman, the prophet for the most powerful Indian revival in history, persuading tribal people to return to their traditional way of life, foregoing alcohol, and repenting of their white ways by rejecting the technology and culture of the European interlopers. Tecumse's joined forces with his brother,

forming a religious and political movement that united the largest intertribal group of Indians ever assembled into a pan-Indian confederacy that stood against the young giant, the United States. This is all the stuff that we learned on episode one. General Sir Isaac Brock said this about Tecumseh. in 1812. I found some extraordinary characters.

He who attracted most my attention was the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, brother to the prophet, who for the last two years has carried on contrary to our remonstrances and active warfare against the United States. A more sagacious or more gallant warrior does not, I believe, exist. He was the admiration of everyone who conversed with. them. Major General Brock was meeting with Tecumse to negotiate an alliance with the British to fight against the Americans. Yep, our boy, Tecumse fought with the Brits against America.

That's a pretty good way to get a bad name around these parts, but somehow Tecumse emerged an American hero. I'm very interested in that. In 1807, though, Tecumsehsa had enough and it was time to take up the hatchet. But even with that, Tacomsa and Tengs Vatawa knew they didn't have the strength to take on the Americans. They were not going to launch an offensive war, even at this point.

I mean, they realized they needed the help with the British in Canada, at least British arms and ammunition before they could begin to put up a credible resistance to the Americans. Fast forwarding a little bit more. 1811, Tecumsa and William Henry Harrison have this contentious conference

at the territorial capital of Vincennes to come so reiterates his message that I'm trying to build a pan-Indian alliance not to launch war against the Americans, but to defend what is ours against any more encroachment by you. You're not going to break us up piecemeal like you have in the past. And oh, by the way, I'm going to head south and take my message and that of my brother to the tribes of the American South, the Chickasaw, the Cherokee, the Chalktaugh and the creeks, the great so-called civilized tribes of the American South, most of which numbered about 20,000 people. These are strong tribes. He said, for the purpose of creating a united front. When Harrison heard that,

I mean, he had a real high regard for Tacomsa. In fact, he wrote was perhaps the greatest tribute ever penned by an American leader to a potential Indian foe. William Henry Harrison was the governor of the Indiana Territory and would one day become the president of the United States. On episode one, I ended with part of Harrison's famed quote about Tacumsa. It's so good, we're going to listen to it again, but this time in its entirety. I'll add that this was extracted from a private letter so we can assume Harrison meant these words with the deepest sincerity. I may make this a ringtone on my phone. Here is what William Henry Harrison said after his contentious 1811 conference with Tecumseh.

The implicit obedience and respect which the followers of Tecumseh pay to him is really astonishing. And more than any other circumstance bespeaks him one of those uncommon geniuses which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the establishment. order of things. If it were not for the vicinity of the United States, he would perhaps be the founder of an empire that would rival in glory that of Mexico or Peru. He meant the great, of course, great Indian empires. He went on to say, no difficulties deter him, his activity and industry supply the want of letters. For four years, he has been in constant motion. See him today on the Wabash River, and in a short time you hear of him on the shores of Lake Erie or Michigan or on the

banks of the Mississippi, and wherever he goes, he makes an impression favorable to his purposes. The words of this folk song declare, Tacomsa get your rifle, to get your rifle, who can sell the air in who has the right to sell the land, but here for you and me, The words of this folk song declare, Tecumsa get your rifle, Tecumsa get your gun. For on the field tomorrow, you'll meet with Harrison. Now who can sell the air and who can sell the sea?

Who has the right to sell the land put here for you and me? This song is by the Tillers, a cool folk band out of Ohio. It's called Tecumse on the battlefield. It's written about the famous meeting of William Henry Harrison and Tecumse in August 1811. Harrison and Tecumse had a classically romantic, but very real and bloody and not so romantic 19th century rivalry. They were arch enemies, but maintained respect for each other.

It was just a different time. I want to step outside of the chronology of Tecumse's life for a minute and look into the Native American worldview. Having a view into this is essential in understanding the dynamics of what. was actually happening when Indians and Americans met. Here is my friend, historian, and Cornell University professor Robert Morgan talking about the way the Native Americans viewed warfare. Anglo-Saxons didn't see warfare as a ritualistic thing as a spiritual thing. He fought until you won. And if you lost, you fought again. Native Americans did necessarily see it that way. It was a ritual. And, you know, after a certain time, you go away. That's what Cornstone

did at Point Pleasant. It's not at all clear that General Lewis won at Point Pleasant. In fact, it seems that Cornstalk and the Shawnee's may have killed more people, but they got tired of fighting. I mean, you know, just keep on forever. And Cornstalk thought, you know, well, I'm tired of this. I don't want any more people kill or kill more people. So he just conceded and signed the treaty, but it's not at all clear that he lost that battle. In fact, it's not entirely clear that William Henry Harrison won the Battle of Tippa Canoe. You could kind of argue the other way, but he might have just fought longer. Yeah, they wouldn't give up.

I mean, there was different ways of thinking of warfare. Wow. You know, that's what most confounds me is I try to just get a small understanding of the Native American worldview at that time versus kind of a Western worldview from the white Europeans. It was almost like two different types of beings from different planets. We're engaging with people. Immissible cultures. It's very hard for them to mix because they saw themselves and the world in very different ways.

The different ways these two groups understood warfare is a significant factor when the stakes are this high. And immiscible cultures. What an interesting phrase. The word amissible means not forming a homogenous mixture when added together. Some of the greatest human tragedies of history could be linked back to this problem. Generally, people think that other people of the world view the world the way they do, but they typically don't. Per biological fact, all Homo sapiens share common ancestors. But the human diaspora across planet Earth created such a long period of separation geographically.

It's as if it created a rift even as deep. as the human soul. The mind, will, and emotions are known to represent what we call the soul. And I think if we mined into that statement, we'd find that the mind, will, and emotions of the Europeans and the Native Americans were very different. And I want to clarify that I believe the human spirit is different from the soul. It's what connects us all and defines our humanity.

Aside from the biological indicators, the spirit is our common bond. It's certainly what makes humans different than just highly evolved smart monkeys. That modern trope is intoxicated with its own sophistication and fallacious intercourse with the data, making it unable to discern something that's undeniable and evident. Humans are different than beasts. Notice that didn't say better. By what system would you say one thing is better than another? Humans do live by a different set of rules than beast.

The human spirit, though, I believe, is at the core of it all. It's what connected Harrison and Tacomsa. It's wildly interesting to consider that the first Homo sapiens spread out of North Africa and the Middle East. Some headed west into Europe and became the crow magnins, and then the modern Europeans. Over eons, the pigment of their skin paled in some magic biological adaptive potion influenced by the long, winters of the northern hemisphere. Tacomsa would later call the descendants of these people pale faces. In this diaspora, some humans went east, occupying Asia, and eventually made an incomprehensible

journey over the Bering Land Bridge, and perhaps some by ocean vessel from East Asia into North America. The best guess we have is that this happened sometime in the vicinity of 20,000 years ago, and this continent was inhabited starting in the west and moving east. Genetic evidence from archaeological sites and some modern testing on indigenous people shows links back to Asia. However, many Native American tribes have ancient stories of their arrival onto this continent coming from the south. And I don't dismiss their ancient arrival stories. Don't think for a second that we know all the answers of the ancient world.

We just don't. The archaeological record in its most robust form is a dim record. I have tremendous faith in archaeology and science. I ain't no hater, flat-earther, or science denier. I'm just saying interpretation of the data that we have is just that. An interpretation. And getting back to our human diaspora story, if you'll allow me the liberty to simplify a very complex story.

A group of people split up and started on a journey from the same spot, North Africa, the Middle East, but they headed in opposite directions on a round planet. They met years later on the American frontier with vastly different ways of interpreting the planet and what it meant to be a human. These boys surely thought that the world was flat, so they couldn't have predicted that they'd meet again. There is even biblical reference to this problem, this idea of immiscible cultures and the corresponding division that would produce difficulty in relationship. The story of the Tower of Babel tells of men beginning to work together with such effectiveness they believed they could build a tower that reached heaven. They spoke the same language and exemplified great power.

Their ego swelled to destructive levels, so God scrambled their language so they could no longer collaborate. The strategy used to divide people was to crash their communication. That's important on the American frontier too. It's believed there are 6,000 languages spoken today on planet Earth. The Shawnee language is one of them. You'll remember Chief Ben Barnes from the last episode. He's essentially the president of a functional and sovereign Indian nation today. I want to ask him about the Shawnee worldview, and he immediately takes it right back to language. What's the biggest difference in the Shawnee Indigenous worldview from classic Western thinker? I have thought about that question, too. I didn't start out. I had no desire to be chief

at the Shawnee's, just a place that I found myself in, and I thought, well, I think I have something that I can, you know, contribute here, and I found myself in a right time when our former chief retired to step into that role. But before that, my brother and I was, was volunteering running the Shawnee tribes language program. So it was those years of teaching language that I started to understand how Shawnee is different and why it's different. So in English and a lot of European language,

you have this subject-verb relationship. That subject-verb-righteouship is you have a subject-verb-object. It's always subject-verb-object, almost exclusively, subject-verb-object. Here in North America, well, Central America too, in most of the languages of this hemisphere, Whereas the noun has primacy in European languages. The subject, you want to tell about the subject, the subject, what it did.

And that becomes your framework of understanding. It's always related to the subject and then all this other stuff. In Shawnee language, the verb is the center of the universe. It's not important. Who did it yet? So the way you frame your sentences, the way that you talk is centered around that verb. Can you give me an example? The example that I use is like if there was an old, there's an old,

lady, she would always come to language class. She had better attendance than even instructors did. Her name was Rosamay Peterson. And in Rosamay, she would come to classes. And so if Rosa was to cook a traditional dish, a corn soup dish, and I'll speak in English for this. So if Rosa was to speak this, the way I would say it in Shawnee would be cooked corn soup, did Rosamay Peterson. So I'm telling you that she cooked it. She cooked. And then what did she cook? Oh, corn soup. I like corn soup. Someone would put that, if, first because it's important what she cooked then who cooked it so what who cooked it's no big deal but if my daughter if like say my five-year-old daughter had cooked it i would want to make sure that that

was the most important part of the story you know brianna cooked corn soup so now i have this she's like can you believe that so why that that when i tell that to you you're like really she cooked that so you understand there's a different emphasis now it's changing the emphasis it's like this is exceptional because it occurred before the verb. So what I just told you that was in front of that verb is the most important thing of what I'm telling you. So if you're coming to me and negotiating a treaty and we're talking about what the terms are

and what's going to happen, I'm looking at the verbs and you're looking for nouns. So it's in the way that things are being said are important. The order that things are being said is what's important. So that's a different worldview. You ought to just rewind the tape and listen to that section again. It makes my gears spin backwards to realize how complex this situation was.

These people didn't understand each other. The structure of our language displays our value system. In the Shawnee world who did something wasn't as important as what actually was done. The individual is minimized and the community is the focus. To Westerners, who did it is most important. But there's more. That's a great answer to that question. It just gives a window.

And sometimes things as complex as that original question, sometimes you just get one little example and you kind of see it. But from that, you can see kind of the core emphasis of the people was not so me or I or person focused. You just hit the actual center of the bullseye on this one because it centers the community. Your community has primacy. Community has primacy working from that Shawnee language framework, right? Whereas in other society that's now intruded on North American thought processes, it becomes more individualistic. I think, which is really intriguing right now in the times we live in, where we seems like we have lost our sense of identity in terms of our community. Right.

It's like we've seen this weakness of a weakness of belonging to community. And I think these little devices that we all carry have further divorced us from senses of. He's got his phone in his hand. Yeah. Chief Ben Barnes is shaking his phone in his hand. And to make a point that our cell phones are disrupting traditional community. It's definitely an interesting idea. Here's another, though, very interesting component of Shawnee language.

In some of the indigenous languages, there was no word for animal that separated man. They were just living beings. Is that true in the shawnee language? There is terms of animacy and inanimacy. There are certain things that have animacy. When you speak about them, I would speak about them. as individuals much like would speak about you or I'd speak about you. So I would refer to them as human, not humans, but as co-living beings.

Okay. And so they would occupy the same space in the landscape as I do. So this idea that we have, you know, those of us brought up in Judeo-Christian communities about how Adam has stewardship over animals, you know, where he has some sort of, that already builds this framework in your mind of some sort of organizational chart with Adam at the the high head and all these other animals and then the lesser animals. No, this is totally different. Imagine a line stretched out to infinity.

And humans and ants and bees and everything else is all in the same line. So they all have that same place of animacy. They all have the same ranking under the eyes of God. That's very interesting and helps me make sense of their land ethic and how that overlapped with animals. Here's Robert Morgan with a powerful aside on a fundamental difference between European and Native American worldviews. But deep in Indian culture were things that the white people simply could not understand, and one was identity.

Everybody was a human being, and they were more like in the Indian concept than they were different. So that in the same village, you know, of Fikwa or Chilaconte, you could have some bingoes and some Delawares and some Cherokees, and they might even spoke different languages, but they were all together, everybody, you know, the human beings. beings and the white people could be through a certain ceremony, become a Shawnee or Cherokee. I mean, Boone was a Shawnee. He was always a Shawnee. When he moved to Missouri, he would see his relatives there. This is a very different sense of identity.

When they did the cleansing of a white person to adopt them into a Native American tribe, they really believed it. I mean, it wasn't just, we're just going to do this little thing and this guy's going to work for us and help us, but he's always going to be the white guy. It's convincing that they really brought them into their families, and it was just like, this is one of us. The Indians saw people defined by likeness, and European people saw them defined by difference, because they had that analytical scientific mind where you separate things, the categories, back to Aristotle. You define things by difference, this is this and that is that. And the Indians thought metaphorically of how things were like, the similarities, to try to divide it. So this is a real, you know, disadvantage of Indians against these Europeans that come in there.

You know, as you telling me that, it's like my mind is spinning backwards, trying to clearly, when you're talking about human beings, the Native American, the way they viewed humans was superior way in many ways. to see a person as a human being. They weren't looking for difference. They were looking for likeness. But then in other parts, you know what I mean? It just makes, and maybe I'm saying this because I am of white European descent to categorize things and to think about things scientifically. And, you know, that seems like just a natural way to progress inside of the world.

I'm just, it's almost confusing, even though it makes perfect sense. And it just feels like such a setup for failure of that. society. Well, there are people who think that civilization has been declining ever since the Stone Age. I mean, the Indians were still in the Stone Age, and they thought of the world metaphorically, that they could see person and son like, they've given a name. I mean, that things were connected. So what we perceive as an increase in society and civilization, like we're sitting here now thinking we're way better off than them, but maybe we aren't. Quite possibly. I mean, that, you know, when people started cultivating land,

They began a decline as opposed to the hunter-gatherers. They didn't have hierarchies in the same way. If you have a cultivated land, you're going to have a town. If you have a town, you've got to have a temple. You've got to have a statue. And you've got to have a hierarchy. You've got to have somebody in charge. You have orders.

And you define everything by difference. He's a colonel. He's a major. He's a landowner. He's not. I'm not saying that's right. But it is a theory that since the Stone Age and the Age of Hunter Gatherers, there's been a decline in the moral.

world. Since the stone age, the moral gauge of the world has been declining, but it's camouflaged by the increase in technology and knowledge, falsely making us think we're actually getting better. I'm pretty sure our old boy Robert Morgan just articulated for me a core message inside of the bare Greece ethos. And in a practical way, this helps me understand the radically different ways of thinking between these two different groups of people. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use.

I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action.

We're going to get back to Chief Ben Barnes. One of his main objectives as leader of the Shawnee's is to preserve their language. Today there are less than 250 people that speak Shawnee. He told me there are 6,000 languages on the earth today, and by the year 2100, they estimate that only 250 will remain. He said every two weeks of language dies. and monolingual speakers have a hard time understanding why this matters. But other languages shape our ability to understand the world.

There are things happening in our lives and on this planet that the English language doesn't have the words to describe or understand that other languages might. That's a really wild idea that makes me wonder what monolingual people are missing. It's mind-boggling. I really wish there was a way we could help Chief Ben Barnes and the Shawnees save their language. This language carried a man, Tacumsa, that is believed to be one of the greatest orators in American history. What did those guys hear that was locked inside of this Shawnee language? What mysteries lie hidden within it?

Here's a question to Chief Ben Barnes about this Shawnee oratory skill. And hey, in just a minute, we're going to be able to be. to get back on to Tecumse's life. The Shawnee's placed a high value on oratory skill, and that was part of what Tacomsa was known for, remembered for. Why was that? I think that part of it is also the culture

in which we come from, and it's not just unique to Shawnee people. I have seen this, and I don't want to, I don't, man, I feel, I want to be cautious how I answer this, because I've noticed the same oratory traditions with traditional Maori people or Hawaiian people or folks from Hooden Ashoni when they deliver a Guanyo, their Thanksgiving Day address. And even when we go into ceremony and we conclude those ceremonies, our speaker will stand up and he will give an address to all assembled.

And he will thank all of creation for its existence. Can you imagine how long it takes to thank the entirety of creation for its existence and for your forbearance for being present and having to hunt and take from it? So that takes a little while. So I think it's baked in in a lot of the ways that we came up. Does it have to do with the kind of egalitarian structure of the tribe in that a leader would have to be able to cast vision and inspire people? That's what guys, Westerners noticed when they came over here and interacted with indigenous people. It's like, man, when they speak, they speak in such powerful speeches and whatnot.

When Shawnee people still occupied that Point Pleasant West Virginia area, there's a Logan, a Seneca, Cuyahuga. His family was butchered by marauding Europeans, colonists, and the story's terrible. Probably not even, probably unfit to even repeat some of what happened on your podcast. When Logan returned from his hunting and came back home and saw the murder that happened in his house and his family, the way they had been butchered, he lost it, totally lost it. He was able to gather up a force to oppose what was, posed the settling of areas that people were not supposed to be living in. And so that started a Logan's one. He was Senator Kaugua, but a lot of young, shawnee people rallied to his banner because they felt, you know, they had empathy for this.

And he had a, it's called Logan's Lament. We used to teach it in public schools. We taught it for a century in public schools. Can you imagine trying to teach that now? in an era where we can't say certain words. But they actually taught Logan's lament in public schools. And they would do it for oratory classes when we used to have dialectics in class. When we used to actually encourage kids to stand up in front of class and speak.

Now we're doing TikToks. So, yeah. What is Logan's lament? What was that? Logan's lament, it's a wonderful, it is a wonderful and yet terrible and heartbreaking speech about Logan and how basically a prayer or a plea for empathy. And it's not structured that way. But when you hear what he said,

you can't be left, but your soul changed a little. You know, and understand, like, these are really terrible things that happened to indigenous peoples. That's powerful stuff from Chief Barnes. I want to now jump back into Tecumse's life with Peter Cozen's talking more about old William Henry Harrison and Tecumse, who, if you remember, had just gone south to the southern tribes, Tecumseh had, to try to recruit more people into the Pan-Indian Confederacy.

Well, of course, what was favorable to his purposes was unfavorable to those of Harrison. Yeah, this is his arch-enemy. Potential arch-enemy. So, Tecumsa goes south, Harrison thinks, aha, Tengswatawa, who everyone knows is not a military leader, not a war leader, not even a warrior, is in Prophetstown on what is still Indian land by treaty, and Harrison decides he's going to launch a preemptive strike and wipe them out while Tecumptus elsewhere.

He attacks Prophetstown, the battle of Tippecanoe, as a result. The Indians tactically lose the battle in that they flee Prophetstown and Harrison burns it. He returns to Vincent's and Trumpets this great victory and eventually runs the president on the Tippecanoe in Tyler 2. In fact, it was a strategic defeat for Harrison because by launching this attack, he caused even more Indians from farther away to flock to the banner of Tecumse and Tengswatawa. They realized that we're not even safe on land that is supposedly our own. The Americans are going to get us.

So it backfired. It backfired and ignited more strength for the Pan-Indian Confederacy. However, it didn't come from Tecumse's journey into the southern United States to the creeks, Chickasawls, and Osages. Harrison attacked Tinsquintawa because Ticumse had gone on an apostolic mission, if you remember. Here's Dr. Dave Edmonds at the University of Texas and Dallas talking about why other tribes rejected this pan-Indian confederacy and this religious revival. You would feel like what he was promoting would be accepted by every tribe. I mean, if you just said, hey, we got a guy that.

that wants to unite all the tribes so that we can all keep our land and the United States will be not be able to come any further. I mean, that sounds like it's such an easy sell. Yeah, no. But he was rejected way more than he was. Well, he was accepted. And it was because a lot of these tribes were getting. Had their own little interest going here. Yeah, they had good.

What did they have coming from the government? Like, why would a leader have not? Well, they had some, they had, sometimes leaders had positions of the payments. Sometimes they were being paid. Sometimes they felt that they should be the sole owners of this particular end and wouldn't have to share it with other tribes. But this is not so strange. If you stop and think about it right now, it makes sense right now to say to some people, you know, we've really got to do some, make some changes, or the country's going to be in bad shape here. And the people said, oh, no, man, I've got, you know, I got a job doing here.

I don't want, you know, I don't want. My life's pretty good. My life's pretty good. Or I don't want the coal industry to go away. But the guys that are really being marginalized. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, so everybody's, everybody, there's self-interest involved in this. And one thing about all of this is a, as a historian of most of my life, history doesn't exactly

repeat itself, but it comes around pretty close. It seems like the issues of human nature always come up when you put a bunch of people in the spot. Humans are always moving around and mixing around. This conflict, which has to do with land and has to do with two different cultures, colliding, is really the story of planet Earth. Absolutely. And rarely do the just win.

You're right. It would be hard to say that. Look at it this way, though. I understand what you're saying. You know, you can get almost to the place. You think, oh, my God, there's no. Hopefully people of goodwill will say, all right. Things are going to, it gets back to change.

Changes are going to take place. What we want to do is to keep those changes, good changes, things that. will benefit people and protect individual rights, etc. But you've got to, they're going to take place. I'm going to give you an example right now, which is obvious to me. Right now, we're on the verge of electric cars. People say, oh my God, electric cars. Nobody can't have electric cars. My gosh, what's you going to do? Plug them in? Well, in about 50 to 60 years probably. That's hard to believe. But when automobiles came in, people said, well, they'll never have those things. People, well, what was you ever do? You'd run out of them.

gas. There's gas stations everywhere. So, I mean, that's kind of thing, and it's hard to believe, but who's, you know, who's really fighting it? Oil companies. And for good reason, from their perspective. Because their interests are, although there's probably enough other uses for it. And that may be, that may, that may, as simplification. And there's, it's easier to find, you know, holes in that argument. But generally speaking, you can make the same thing. The change is the only, the only constant, The only thing you can always have or rely on is change. The only thing we can rely on is change. That brings up a question that I don't really want to ask myself for fear of the answer.

How do we fight this change when it's bad for us and our people? Is it noble or wise to fight to the death for something you know is a losing battle? Really, at the most fundamental level, Ticumsa was fighting against change. albeit erratically unjust change. Here's more from Dr. Edmonds. Let me give you an aside of something, which this is not the same, but it causes tremendous amount of stress.

We see the same thing here, I think, in a lot of places in rural America. I grew up in a small farm town. The town's almost gone. Everything's gone. What if you're a coal miner? Everything's gone. Do you see the point?

It's a time of great, trauma. You want to fight for your way of life. You do, and it may be, it may be, it's very hard to do that. You know, I think sometimes this far past all of that trauma and many of us being on the side that really won in a way, it's hard to understand that. But because it just seems so, so black and white, like white Europeans basically pushed out, killed, took the land. A new way of life emerges. In other words, they want everybody to settle down and be small farmers. Well, that's not what, I mean, the Shawnee's farm, but women do the farming, not men. And it's the same thing.

Coal miners today in West Virginia and the same thing. Yeah. It's the coal. When you say it like that, it makes you realize the real personal pain that would come as, as you watched your culture. Your way of life just dissolved in front of you. Do the traditionalists ever win? Yeah, rarely. Because the problem is, what happens is by that time, there have been too many, there's too much of the new ways that people have gotten used to.

What you hope here is that you get the very best of the old tradition combined with the new ways, and you gradually work your way forward. That's the best of all worlds. That doesn't always happen. But you're right, no. They win sometimes for a short time, but they don't win in the long. run. That's kind of sad, isn't it? Yes, except the, you've got to understand, I think, that the only constant in the world probably. The only thing that doesn't change is change. The only thing that doesn't change is change. Golly. Here's Peter Kozons with the next step

in Tecumse's life. The Battle of Tippa Canoe was in 1811, so that's where we are. Fast forward a few months, a few more months into 1812. The United States declares war on Great Britain. One of the reasons given is just trumped up idea that the Indians are launching raids on the northern frontier of the United States because they're being cajoled by the British to do so, when in fact the few raids that occurred were revenge raids as a result of Harrison's attacking profits. So War of 1812 begins to Comsa and his allies make common common common. with the British in Western Ontario. The British who are badly outnumbered because they're busy fighting Napoleon in Europe,

they're more than happy to have Indian help, more and more Indians flock to Tecumse and Tengswatawa's banner. The British, in good faith, promise that if they beat the Americans, which they have every prospect of doing early in the War of 1812, that they will grant Tukumsa and Tengswatawa an Indian homeland, which benefits both sides. it would be a buffer state between a United States that wants to conquer Canada. And, of course, it would give the Indians their own homeland.

And that would be modern-day Michigan, Wisconsin, and whatever part of northern Ohio and Indiana, the British and Indians could conquer. The war of 1812 went from 1812 to 1815 and started because of British violations of U.S. maritime rights. The U.S. used the political excuse that the Indian. who were being supplied by the British and were raiding U.S. settlements. But behind this, there were trade issues between British-owned Canada,

the U.S. and the French, and the U.S. just wanted Indian land. The British became allied with Tecumse and promised him an Indian nation if they won. Here's more from Peter. Tecumseh and his allies and the British defeated the American army, the only American army of consequence,

in the Midwest when they captured Detroit, Michigan in 1812, captured that army, drove the Americans out of Michigan and northernmost Ohio, put them on the defensive for several months, and things were going their way. And that was a big deal. That was a huge deal. It was like, hey, this, Tacumse and what he's doing, and the British and the Indians, they're for real. Yeah, the British could not have captured Detroit, which was the American outposts

in the Midwest without Tecumse. Preceding that in Western Ontario, Tecumseh, he and his Indian allies, with help of what British were there, basically through Tecumse's tactical planning, we're able to halt a tentative American invasion of Canada from Detroit. So Canada, and it's still recognizing Canada today,

that Canada owed its safety to Tecumse. And then once the British got up to strength, they were able to capture Detroit with Tecumse's hell. Sounds to me like Canada might have a different name if it weren't for Tecumsa. Big if true. Big if true. Here's Peter quantifying the influence and power Tecumse rallied against the United States.

So here we are in the latter part of 1812. And it's clear then, and it also is true in hindsight today, tocumsa, at the height of his power as an Indian military and political leader, assembled nearly 6,000 warriors from tribes all across the Midwest to fight under him. And you compare that to what the Indians were able to accomplish or not accomplished in the West after the Civil War during the Great Indian Wars. The largest alliance ever existed in the American West was that of the Lakota, also, also known as the Sioux, Lakota and the Cheyenne in 1876 under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

They brought together between 2,000 and 2,500 warriors to oppose American expansion. And that resulted, of course, the battle of the Little Big Horn, among other things. But that was, you know, less than 40 percent, a number of warriors that pledged their allegiance to Tecumse. And that was only two tribes. We were able to get it together in the West. Tecumse and Tengsvatawa had followers more than a dozen tribes. And it was the largest Indian alliance that the United States ever faced, the most effective, the greatest threat that the United States ever faced during the entire westward movement

from the Alleghenies to the west coast. Tecumse assembled the largest Native American forces ever rallied against the United States. That is true. However, some would dispute the actual size of his force and say it wasn't that big. I guess we'll never really know. It's kind of like the question of did he actually kill 40 deer in three days. We don't know, and it doesn't really matter. He was just a great hunter.

Well, Ticumse was an incredible war leader and rallied an incredible Native American force against the United States. And remember, this man wasn't even a chief. He was just a dude. We all know the outcome of the United States. the War of 1812. Tecumse and the British would lose. Here are some interesting thoughts from Peter on what might have been.

For those who read my book, Tecumse and the Prophet, it will become evident that there were a number of instances in which the British and Tecumseh and Tengsbatawa could have prevailed. And if they had, it would have really changed the course of American history. Michigan, at a minimum,

would have remained in Indian hands and Wisconsin and Minnesota. For at least one or two generations, if not more, that would have slowed the movement westward. Because at the time, I mean, the first westward path was the Ohio River. And, you know, if you didn't have the Midwest under American control, you couldn't really consider settling in the West. So it would have retarded that. It also would have affected the outcome of the American Civil War potentially. Because you wouldn't have had, you know, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, possibly.

union cause. So it could have profoundly changed the shape of American history. And that almost happened. Yeah, they were early enough in the movement of westward expansion that they absolutely could have changed the course of the whole thing. Some historians, you know, and I have to confess that when I started this project, I sort of saw it as a preordained at the Comsville and his brother were going to lose. I kind of just figured, there's no way that they could have prevailed over the Americans when there were, you know, several million Americans in the United States at the time, and no more than 70,000 Indians in the Midwest, not all of whom even supported Tecumse and the Prophet, but the United States was so inept militarily. And as the war progressed,

began more and more to lose its will to fight. And once the British defeated Napoleon, they were able to send over more troops to fight in Canada. And unfortunately, that happened a little too late for Tecumseh and Tengsvatawa to prevail. But if the British had defeated Napoleon, maybe a year earlier, and if the Americans had not won this great naval battle on Lake Erie in 1813, which severed the British supply line back into Canada and forced the British to abandon Western Ontario, you know, if the Americans had lost at Lake Erie, That would have prevented the Harrison from taking launching a counteroffensive until the next year, potentially. By then, there would have been more British in Canada, many more British.

I could easily conceive of a scenario in which the Americans would have just, you know, given up the war and yielded Michigan. We kind of take it for granted now on this side of history that America goes from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And, you know, just that this is America. but at the time this, what we know today, wasn't America. Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of the West on paper with Louisiana Purchase. But that would be pretty irrelevant if we lost part of the United States East and Mississippi

in the War of 1812. Playing the what might have been game can sometimes be helpful in understanding the complexity of how things came to be as they are and how stuff had just been a little bit different they wouldn't be as they are. Do you remember the first question we asked on episode, episode one. It was

why is Tecumse, who was an enemy of the United States, considered an American hero? Here's a saddlebag full of insight from Peter Cozen's on that very thing. To me, Tecumsa, he really was fighting for a dying

way of life. And it's really a pretty common thing in human history for people to do that. The story of humanity has been the breakdown of societies, breakdown of cultures. Cultures, right? up and then cultures, whatever happens, they change. And there's always fighters that are wanting to keep things the way they were. I couldn't have expressed it better myself. It was absolutely right.

And just to add to what you said, which I say is spot on in my mind, what's remarkable too about Tacumsa, as he was fighting for that way of life. I mean, he was, like you say, fighting for a way of life. This was an existential war. I mean, at one battle during the war of 1812, the Battle of Fort Megs Ohio. And the Indians and British wanted to take that fort because that was going to be the jumping off point for Harrison whenever he did launch a counteroffensive. And so they besieged the fort. And during the course of the siege in May of 1813, some 900 Kentucky volunteers come up the river in flatboats to reinforce William Henry Harrison and his beleaguered garrison. So the Americans are trapped there. The British and Tacumse and his Indians have them surrounded. Up the river comes.

these 900 Kentucky volunteers, which is totally surprised the British and Tecumse. A pitch battle is fought. The Kentuckians, I mean, they're untrained, about a little under a third of them, get into Fort Meigs okay. The majority, however, are lured by the Indians into an ambush on the far side of the river from Fort Meggs. Almost 600 of them are captured. Now, Tecumse was not on the spot at that moment, but he rides over just as the fighting has ended and the Kentuckians are being crowded into the ruins of this old British fort. And some of the victorious Indians have begun to clubbing to death, shoot him to death, tomahawked them to death. I mean, you've got these almost 600 Kentuckians like piled in top of each other being pressed against one another in the ruins

of this fort. In one instance, a British sentry tries to protect them and the Indians shoot him and call him a Yankee. And, I mean, all hell had broken out. And it was, if someone didn't intervene, it was clear that the Kentuckians were going to be slaughtered. And literally, when Tecumse hears of this, he rised into this scrum and is able to separate the Indians who are tomahawking,

you know, massacring the prisoners from the Kentuckians, bring order out of chaos and stop the slaughter. And the Kentuckyans either recognize him as Tecumse or learn that this is Tecumse. that this is Tecumse here now. And I mean, they, of course, they owe their life to Tecumse. And they are paroled a few months later. Take this story back to Kentucky. Tell of Tecumseus saving their lives. And suddenly, in the midst of the war of 1812, Tecumse becomes he's still an enemy, but he's an heroic enemy. He's a hero. Already, we're an American hero. Because he have to remember another key point here is that Tecumse, as a political military leader among the Indians, he had no

institutional means of controlling his followers. All the influence he had was based on his personal magnetism, his personal courage, his personal example. He had no institutional means to compel his followers to obey him. So he's riding in there on the basis of his charisma alone. Right. And he's risking his life to save the lives of those who would end his way of life. I mean, if that isn't incredible, I don't know what is. It was at that bad. that really the legendary Tecumse arose in the United States. Wow, you know, we're fighting someone who is not only fighting war as we would like to see war fought, respecting the lives of prisoners,

but is doing it brilliantly. And so even in defeat, he becomes early on an American folk hero. Even in defeat, he became an American folk hero. So there's the answer to our first question. We began this episode with a powerful statement by Tecumse, when he said, we shall remain. Though our story isn't finished yet, we've got one more episode. The very fact that a man in Tecumse's lineage, a lineage of Shawnee leaders, spoke on this series.

Chief Ben Barnes shows us that Tecumse was right. Despite unthinkable trials, the Shaanese, Tacumsa and Ten Suatois people are still here. they have remained Part three in this series is going to be called Tecumse's death I really don't think you're going to want to miss it I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease I'm moved by these stories

and consider it a privilege to be able to tell them to you through the veiled lens of my understanding I'm learning as I go and I hope that you are too You can follow me on Instagram, the dadgum TikTok, the book of faces, and even at LinkedIn, at Clay underscore Nukel, or whatever, Clay Nookam. Please leave us a review on iTunes and share our podcast with a friend this week. I can't wait to talk this over with the folks on the render.

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