The Eric Metaxas Show - Peter Cozzens

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Historian Peter Cozzens shares fascinating tales from his latest offering, "Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation."

Welcome to the Eric Muttaxie show. It's the show that answers the question. Is it possible to make a vowel sound out of a potato? Can the word potato be a verb? What about an actual potato? Can that be a verb? What about the word verb? Can the word verb?

Can it be a potato? Mama, I'm scared myself. And now your host, Eric Muttaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. As you know, when I'm not playing a radio host, I play an author in the rest of my life. And I love to get authors on this program, particularly celebrated authors of historical works. Today we have one of those.

They celebrated author. His name is Peter Cousins. He's the author or editor of 17 acclaimed books on the Civil War and the American Indian and the Indian Wars of the American West. He was with the Foreign Service. before that, he was a captain in the Army. Today he's just a celebrated author, and he's on this program. Peter Cozons, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for your invitation, Eric.

Am I getting your last name, at least slightly correct? Is it Cozons? Right on the mark. Right on. And is it Peter or Peter? Peter here, maybe Peter in Netherlands. Yeah, okay. Well, we'll go with Peter.

You've written a really significant book titled Ticumsa and the Prophet, the Shawnee Brothers who Defied a Nation. This is history that's generally unknown to me, and I assume to most of my audience. I haven't read the book, what little of it that I have read, has been absolutely fascinating.

Many of us only even know the name Ticumsa from, because it's the middle name of William Tacomsa Sherman, who marched to the sea burning as he went. What led you to write a book about Tacomsa and the Prophet, the Prophet being his natural brother? Is that right? That's correct, his younger brother. Or actually, let me start earlier than that. What led you to write books about the Civil War and about the American Indians of the 19th? century. As far as the Civil War goes, I've had a fascination with that since childhood, literally.

And I've always had a handgun for writing. And I wrote my Civil War books while I was in the Foreign Service as a way to express myself more in writing. And I tried to pick battles and campaigns that were not, had not been written to death, which was rather hard to do for the Civil war, but nonetheless, I think I succeeded in that. My interest in the Indian Wars in the West stemmed from, I was looking, when I retired from the Foreign Service, I was looking to write something about an American epic, about an epic or an era that was critical to our nation's history, our nations, as it is today, but, again, had not been sufficiently treated.

and I settled on the Indian Awards of the West because the last book in the subject, of course, D. Brown's iconic, Barry in my heart and Wounded, Wounded D.D. had been written 40 years previously, and no one had really treated the subject as a whole since then. And that drew me to the Indian Awards of the American West. That's my book, The Earth is Woothing. What a fascinating concept, though,

that something as central to our history would be as, as little treated. I guess in some ways it's not so surprising, but it is at least interesting to think that there's so much to tell and much of it hadn't been told. Or told it aboundanced and fair away. And once I finish that book, I wanted very much to write something else about our relations with the American Indians. And I reflected in the fact that although the Indian Wars of the West received the most attention in popular culture, cinema, and so forth, it really was the conflicts east of the Mississippi River

and north of the Ohio River, and what is today the Midwest, in the late 18th and early 19th century, again, from the end of the Revolutionary War, when whites first started spilling across the Appalachians, to the end of the war of 1812, that really were, in a sense, the critical and defining struggles with the Native Americans because conquest of the old northwest, of the Midwest,

opened the path of immigration west of the Mississippi. And it was those struggles with those tribes that had the United States not succeed, and there was that very real possibility during the world 1812, our history could have been very different and the westward settlement expansion could have been delayed by a generation at least. Well, for those of us who know almost nothing about this, and I am certainly included in that group, tell us the story of how this went generally before we get specifically to Tacomsa and his brother, the prophet. I guess when I, when I, when I, when I, when I, when I, think of what I know, of what happened to the Indians or Native Americans, I guess we know that

it's a sad story. And as somebody who considers himself a very proud American, this is a black mark in the book. This is very, very sad and very, very ugly when you recognize that people that were your leaders, whether it's Andrew Jackson or others, would break treaties or treat other human beings in this way. It doesn't seem right by our standards. And so it's all the more said. It's not as though we were going by a different playbook. We always were a certain kind of country. So this, I look at it, at least from what I know at this point, as just as a hideous deviation. And yet, of course, some would say the opposite. That's exactly who we are. Where do you come out ultimately?

I think that in the case of the, in generally, I think our presidents acted morally in the context of their times, and considering the dilemmas they faced, what eventually led to, Tecumsa and his brother forming what was to become the greatest Pan-Indian alliance at the United States as we've westward ever faced was a decision by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. He had a vision of a extending democracy westward to the Mississippi at least, a democracy of yeoman farmers. And in 1803, the population was already becoming too great for the constraints. of the then United States between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains.

And he realized it was inevitable that people would expand west of the Appalachians. He wanted to do it in an orderly fashion. He believed in his heart of hearts that, or maybe he deceit himself, you know, who knows, that the Indians of the old Northwest, again, the modern Midwest, could be converted into farmers, into yeoman farmers and become part of American society. And with that transformation, they would need less land, and land could be purchased from them at reasonable prices,

bargain basement prices, without risking conflict. A very, very naive view on his part, but again... Peter, tell me why is it naive? In other words, it's hard for us to go back and imagine what it would be like to be alive in 1803. By the way, when was the Louisiana purchased? Because I don't remember that either. I want to say 1805. Okay, so was it Jefferson, principally, who had this view of expanding, you know, doubling our territory of reaching California?

I mean, where did that idea come from? Did it begin with him? or were there others in his era? I think the Louisiana purchase was a target of opportunity for him. He was very anxious to settle what is today in the Midwest and the South precisely as a barrier to Spanish and French Louisiana. So I don't think initially his thoughts went much beyond the Mississippi River. Forgive me.

I took my eye off the clock. This is too fascinating. Folks, we'll be right back. I'm talking to the author of Tecumse and the Prophet. You know that I've been watching you for quite some time. Folks, I'm talking to the author of a brand new book, Tacoma and the Prophet, the Shawnee Brothers, who defied a nation.

Peter Cozons, I cut you off at the end of the last segment. Forgive me. You were just speaking. I was about to say it. So at 1803, Jefferson gave orders. to the governor of the Indiana Territory, the man on the ground in the old Northwest, Wayne Henry Harrison, to acquire as much Indian land by treaty as he possibly could. And many of these treaties were rather nefarious in the way they were negotiated.

And encourage the Indians to turn to farming, become full-time farmers, and also to get them hooked on American goods and technology, which they already were becoming dependent on, get them so deeply in debt to American government traders that they would be forced to sell their land off. And Harris negotiated a sweeping number of treaties through 1809 that cost the Indians nearly all of Ohio, the southern half of Indiana,

and on paper at least, most of Illinois, although it was unsettled by whites. And so that set up the inevitable showdown between Indians in the Midwest and the United States government. I mean, they would be pushed into a great length. Right. Well, this is obviously at the very beginning of the 19th century. So just so I can get it straight, because I'm learning him. here listening. It seems that, or I guess you can tell me, was Jefferson operating basically in good faith, and Harrison, who of course became president, was kind of a dirty player? How do we see

this exactly? Because it's not... No, I don't, I think Harrison, actually, when he first took office as governor in 180, 1802, he lamented the... situation of the Indians nearest him in Indiana. He recognized that they were being debauched by the liquor trade, by white encroachment. And he regretted that. And he was genuinely moved by it. But then he got his marching orders from Thomas Jefferson, and he was politically ambitious himself as well.

He carried them out as they were presented to him by Thomas Jefferson. And really, I mean, there was a certain inevitability to this process because even before Jefferson authorized negotiating these treaties, thousands of poor whites, people like Daniel Boone, for instance, had come over the Appalachians and squatted on Indian land, which brought about a conflict in the 1780s and 1790s, including the bloodiest battle ever fought against the Indians, in which nearly had. half the United States Army was killed or wounded at St. Clair's defeat in 1791. So there already had been conflict. He wanted to become a more regularized control process rather than, you know, a willy-nilly invasion of squatters that would make conflict inevitable. Here's a, I have to ask the dumb questions because there's no one else on my side here. Why, when you talk about Indian land,

We don't get the impression in popular culture that the Indians saw property or saw land in the way that the Europeans did. Obviously, they didn't build cities or anything. So how did they see it exactly as their land? If they're roaming, if they're following herds of buffalo, what was it? Did they simply perceive that over time they were going to lose what was theirs, were their trigger points? were their trigger points? How did it work for them? How did they see this as an encroachment

that would lead them to violence? Your question brings up a key difference between the tribes west and Mississippi, in particular of the Great Plains, the roaming tribes of filed a Buffalo, and the tribes east of Mississippi, of which we're speaking now, the tribes east of the Mississippi,

unlike the tribes in the west, were semi-sedentary people. They had fixed villages. They had well-defined boundaries that were agreed upon by the various tribes. They pursued both the hunt, be it deer, be it buffalo, until they vanished east of Mississippi. And they also practiced agriculture. Okay, so they were not nomadic then. They were not nomadic.

They were not nomadic. They really were sedentary. I say semi-sedentary, only in the sense that during the hunting season, the winter, they would go to their hunting camps. But they had fixed villages year-round. So they had a real sense of, okay, this is our property. They didn't have a system of individual ownership of the land. It was communal.

So within a village, a tribe or a portion of a tribe, the village and the attendant land was considered communal. It's just fascinating to learn anything about this, as I say, because I wear my ignorance on my sleeve. Now, there are so many different tribes. I'm ignorant of the differences between them as well. Now, the Shawnee's, the Shawnee's, Tecumse and his brother, known as the Prophet, they were Shawnee. So where did the Shawnee begin their story? The Shawnee were an interesting tribe.

There were one of many tribes in the modern Midwest. In fact, I found it very confusing myself at the beginning, and I knew the reader would, so I have an appendix in the book where I have a paragraph on each tribe, so readers can be comfortable with where these tribes are located and who they were. The Shawnee, they originated. They were in the Ohio Valley. They were driven out by the Euraco.

6000s, and they dispersed everywhere from Maryland to Virginia to northern Alabama, and they regrouped in the Ohio Valley in the mid-1700s with the encouragement of the British as a buffer from colonial settlers spilling and potential French traders who were kind of impinging on British land. So they originally were from the Ohio Valley and then returned to it in the 1750s. They were, again, one of a dozen tribes, at least resided in the Great Lakes

Upper Ohio Valley region. And they were not, by any means, the most numerous. By the time to come as brother, Richie Adalthood, half the tribe had seen the handwriting on the wall had not wanted any further complicate that moved west. the Mississippi to Spanish, Louisiana. And only about a thousand Shawnee remained, East

Mississippi. So where they are unique is that they developed their alliance, they're following largely from outside their tribe. They brought in adherence from over a dozen other tribes. And that in itself is unique in native. This is, I mean, really to get to your story in your book, that's part of what's so fascinating.

In other words, a pan-Indian alliance, the idea that, first of all, you know, let's be honest, they're fighting each other. You know, tribes go to war with other tribes. They enslave each other. They torture each other. They kill each other. I mean, just like all human groups throughout history and prehistory, they were not, you know, some peaceful brand of human beings.

They were just like everyone else and tribes differed. But something about having this common enemy in the United States did bring them together. And obviously, Ticomsa and his brother were really the leaders of, as you put it, sort of this principal pan-Indian alliance against our nation. That's correct. And interestingly, the tribes in the Midwest were not as warlike among themselves as tribes in the West or tribes in the American South. I think that partly is due to the fact that they were so badly trounced by the Uruguay in the 1600s

that they saw a common interest in uniting, if not uniting, at least not making incessant war on one another. What I find in all this, one of the most fascinating elements, the alliance was created by Tenswatrawa. who was DeKomsa's younger brother. Tecumso was the war and political leader. He turned what initially was a religious, spiritual revivalist movement by his brother, Changs Patawa, the prophet, into a more traditional political military lines.

But it began as a nativist, religious movement. And that is actually one of the, I think, the most fascinating aspects of the story, how his younger brother, Tengspatawa, whose name initially was La Loeffica, which meant the Rattler, because he was a loud mouth, he was inept, he was shot his right eye out with an arrow as a boy, he was an alcoholic since age 18, complete narrative well, depended on Ticumseh, who was a model, Shawnee, fine warrior, fine hunter for his substance. and forgive me.

We've got to go to another hard break here. It's fascinating to hear about Tacomsa and his brother, the prophet. The author is Peter Kossens. We'll be right back. Investors seeking steady cash flow, ready to diversify. NRIA has grown to be one of the nation's leading specialists and offers 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses targeted at 18 to 21%.

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Peter, you were just telling us about Tecumse's brother, whom we call the prophet, because his name's a little bit too difficult to pronounce, I guess. But you said that there was like a religious revival. So what was this religion? Was it a pan-Indian religion? How, you know, most of us are not familiar with the Native American tribes religiously speaking. So what was it that led Tecumse's brother to be the leader of this movement? Well, by 1805, the tribes in the Midwest were a wash and alcohol. I mean, entire villages were suffering the effects of alcoholism. White man's diseases like influenza. A game was becoming very, very scarce. And then, of course, there was a creeping white encroachment on Indian lands. There was a sense that the,

sense among the tribes that they had lost their way. There was a spiritual emptiness. And Tenskwatawa, this dissuant, who would never accomplish anything on his sturdy years on earth except to be a nuisance. One day sitting in his wigwam contemplating the faith that was befalling the Indians, he fell into a trance, into a cataleptic state. And after a day and a half, I mean, his to come so, and his friend thought he was dead. They were getting ready to bury him. he came to and told of this vision he'd had that he'd been called by God, by the master of life,

to learn what the Indians needed to do to restore themselves morally and spiritually, and thus regain their way of life and to be worthy of their traditional way of life again. And he went overnight from a distalant drunker to an abstemious teetotaler, extremely eloquent with a doctrine that a creed that appealed to Indians who, as far north as northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, we had virtually no contact with Americans yet. He called for a rejection of all things American, return for a traditional way of life.

It was a remarkable transformation. It sounds miraculous. It sounds like a conversion story. It's a diversion story, yeah. The question is a conversion to what? In other words, was he hostile to the Christian faith? Did he think of the Christian faith as mostly, you know, populated by hypocrites who wanted to kill him? Or was there some sense that, you know, when he's talking about the great spirit, he's talking about the God that the Christians and the Jews worshipped?

Any sense of that? It was synchronistic. He did adopt some aspects of Christianity as he understood it. And he did not have an inherent hostility toward Christianity at all. In fact, one of the best sources available for this episode in Tex-Wattava's life are the journals of three Moravian Christian missionaries who, and also some shaker missionaries, some shakers who visited their village,

visited the village of Tacomsa and his brother, to learn more about their faith. And the Shakers in particular left wonderful journal entries of Tengswatawa's creed, of his welcome, welcoming the Shakers. And Texan Tzatawa, he really did not have any hostility for Christianity. He just felt it was really, it was the white man's faith, not the faith of the Native Americans.

But there was not an inherent hostility. Certainly not like there was on a part of most frontier whites toward what little they understood of Indian religion. Sure. So, gosh, that's so extraordinary. So he was initially the leader, I guess, and Tecumseh, his brother kind of comes alongside and obviously has a very different personality

and different gifts. Yes. Again, Tengs Vatawa hope to, among other things, prevent further white encroachment through a spiritual and cultural rebirth of the Indians

which would make them morally capable of holding their ground and also worthy of it, worthy of divine intervention and assistance. Tecumseh, he believed his brother's creed, as far as I can determine, I think I'm a pretty solid ground there.

But as the years went by, he realized that that would not be enough, that there had to be a political alliance, potentially a military alliance, some of their tribes. And the critical point was 1809. He had to come to it and Tengsatawa had both told Governor Harrison, look, we will recognize the treaties that had been negotiated up until, up until now, but we will not cede another insured land. And Harrison, for reasons of his own politically, negotiated a treaty in 1809,

fighting a Pharisee so, that was just one step too far. And although the Shawnee brothers did not contemplate making war, making an offensive war, they were prepared with their ally, to defend against any further encroachment. So how many, you said there were about a thousand Shawnee with them east, west of the Mississippi. How many other tribes were involved in how many people? At the peak of their alliance, which was during the early months of the war of 1812, when they fought with the British against the Americans.

and the British in turn promised the Indians a homeland in modern Michigan, Wisconsin, and whatever parts of Northern Ohio and Indiana they might conquer from the Americans. At its apex, Ticcumsa and the Prophet had, in their alliance, approximately 5,000 warriors and their families. Let's put a pin in it there just because another hard break on radio. We'll be right back talking to Peter Kossens. Hey there, folks. People often ask me the question. Can you tell me why relief factor is so successful in lowering or eliminating pain? Well, Pete and Seth Talbot, the father-son, owners of relief factor, tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal.

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Relieffactor.com. Or call 800, 500, 8384. Accomsa and the Prophet, brand new book, The Shawnee Brothers, who defied a nation. Really fascinating. Peter, you were just bringing in another complexity. You said that in the War of 1812, Tecumsa and his brother and the Shawnee and their affiliates

sided with the British. The British were giving them, promises of land. Obviously, we know the British didn't win that war, but tell us more about that. But actually, the Shawnee, most of Shawnee actually rejected Tengs Latawa and Tecumseh. Again, most of their followers were from other tribes in the Great Lakes region. They, nonetheless, at its apex, his, their alliance, contain warriors from more than a dozen tribes from as far west as the Mississippi River to the upper reaches of the Mississippi and Minnesota,

even Creek Indians from south of the Ohio River from modern-day Alabama. They had some 5,000 warriors that were loyal to them, which to place that in context, that's twice as many lawyers as sitting bull and Crazy Horse, able to muster against Custer at the Little Big Horn and in the Great Sew War of 1876, which was the apex of Indian resistance west of Mississippi. So it was the largest alliance that the United States would ever face in fighting the Indians. And they came remarkably close. Much to my surprise, I thought I went into the story with kind of a fatalistic notion. They came surprisingly close to achieving their objective.

It's amazing. And again, it's the way I always feel like I'm amazed by something, and then I'm amazed that I'd never heard this amazing thing before. And really, this is a central piece of 19th century American history, and I knew nothing about it. So what was the, how long did this time go? What kind of period are we talking about where Tecumse and his brother and their allies are waging war with the United States of America? Well, the book itself, of course, I go all the way back to the antecedents of the Shawnee, and I follow both of them from childhood to adulthood.

So I talk about the conflict with Kentuckians and East Tennessee and so forth. but the actual alliance, the period of war, but some called the Kumse's war, they actually preceded the war of 1812, began with the battle of Tippecanoe in modern Indiana, a battle that was provoked by William Henry Harrison. He attacked their village, which was on Indian land,

because he feared that Ticumso, who was then absent, proselytizing among the tribes of the American South, the creek, Chalktaught, Chickasaw, Cherokee. He feared that if he led to Comsa, you know, if he realized his goals, it would be more than the United States could resist. So he launched a preemptive strike against Tengswatawa and the Alliance's Village. Harrison did.

And 1811. And- You're talking about Harrison now. Harrison. William Henry, not Benjamin. No, William Henry. And he defeated the Indians tactically, but in the end, it led to more Indians joining the alliance. And so it began in November 1811 with the Battle of Tippecanoe, and the alliance crumbled after Tecumse's death at the Battle of the Thames in what is today, Ontario, Canada, in 1813.

So it was a two-year, two-year-long alliance. But just so I'm clear, whose political slogan was Tippecanoe and Tyler, too? That was William Henry Harrison's, and that was built on a fallacy. He, although he did defeat the Indians at the Battle of Tippa Canoe, which is the name of a creek, beside which the Australian brothers and their alliance headquarters, village was located, he lost more men than India's did, and as soon as he withdrew, the Indians came back and rebuilt it,

and those who had been wavering were so outraged at this attack on the Shawnee Brothers Village, on what was clearly Indian land by treaty, that it brought more adherence from farther afield into the alliance. Indies just kind of saw the handwriting on the wall, and we better resist while we can. And a lot of the...

of Harrison's contemporaries on the frontier, realized that it wasn't a victory. And they saw that he had just really disturbed the hornet's nest. But he was able to present it to Washington, D.C. as a victory. Back east, what do they know? They didn't have TV. Exactly. I mean, he was a, he was the master propagandist.

Okay, so Tippecanoe, so he presents that as a victory, and Tyler was presumably his vice presidential candidate. Exactly. So he wrote, he wrote to the White House on a myth. Okay, so Tyler became the next president. Was the ninth or tenth president? I don't remember. Right.

After Harrison contracted pneumonia at his inauguration. Right, which is mind-blowing. So he was president for, what, 31 days or something? Something like that, yeah, not much more than that. The shortest presidency ever. And Tyler, I don't know if you know about this, but I know at least a couple of years ago, two of Tyler's grandsons, not great grandsons,

grandsons were still alive. That's the kind of nonsense I'm interested in. Do you know anything about that? Yeah, in fact, it was just the last couple of months, if I recall that the last of his grandsons died. It's crazy, isn't it? It just shows you how compressed our history is, really. Yes, or how old people can.

be when they still have kids, at least in the robust Tyler family. What year did Tecumseh and his brother die? Ticumsa died in 1813 at the Battle of the Tammis. Tengswatabu lived on for another two decades. He lived into the 1830s, and he eventually, with the small following that remained to him, returned to Northern Ohio, actually became pretty good friends with the governor of Ohio, sorry, the governor of Michigan, the Michigan Territory, who had been one of the generals who opposed to Kempstantz Latawa under William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Thames,

and gradually became reconciled to the need for the Shawnee, who remained in Ohio, and who had opposed him to move west to Kansas. And he helped superintend the move west, of the Shawnee. Another break. Final segment coming up, the book is Tacomsa and the Prophet.

Folks, lucky can one guy be. I kissed her and she kissed me. Like the fellow once said, folks, final segment with Peter Cousins, that's C-O-Z-E-N-S. He's the author of The Earth is Weeping in many other books. The new one we're talking about,

we've been talking about, is Tacomsa and the Prophet. Since I'm an author, I care about selling books. This is so fascinating to me. You seem to humanize these figures in a way that is really important. It's important for us as Americans to understand that these are not ciphers or cartoons. These were human beings. If Sherman took Tacomsa as a middle name or his parents gave it to him,

I guess Tacomsa, even among, you know, non-Shaunee, was lionized somewhat by the time somebody like Sherman is born. Is that the case? Did he have that kind of a... He was lionized even during the War of 1812 by the Americans because of the mercy that he showed to American captives because of a civilized, quote-unquote, way he made war. and Sherman was actually born, his name, birthing was Tecumseh Sherman. William was added when he was adopted out by the Ewing family. So he was born DeComsa Sherman.

And this was less than 20 years after Tecumse's death, fighting the Americans. And what I try to do is a takeaway, folks, is I tried to immerse myself in Shawnee, culture, tradition, religion. so I could look at events as best as one could today through the perspective of the brothers. And I looked at every aspect of their lives so that I believe that they emerge as real human beings. And when you consider the impact they had, I mean, their alliance encapsulated nearly half of the then-extant United States. You can't, you know, you cannot, you have to concede that they were, without a doubt, the two greatest Native American siblings in American history.

I think giving Native Americans their due, they clearly were two of the most influential brothers in the annals of America writ large. They were very, very important men in their day and remarkable human beings. And to be one of them, again, the most remarkable aspects of it is the religious and spiritual transformation. And the nobility of Tecumseh, as you said,

for him to be known to treat his captives well, that is certainly no small thing when we think about the horrors of some accounts of what Indians did to their captives. You know, I don't know where that noble spirit came from, but it's fascinating to me just to hear that. And it was to me, I mean, these were two very special individuals,

very different and, but very, very special. And to Comsa, he emerged, you know, warts and all as a truly, a truly great man, a truly humane man who, for whom war was a last resort. Well, it is, as I say, absolutely fascinating. And it seems to me that this very important part of our history has never been told, at least not in this depth. and in this kind of a treatment until now. So Peter Kossens, congratulations on an important work. Folks, the book is Tecumseh and the Prophet, the Shawnee Brothers who defied a nation.

I look forward to it and to your other books. Peter Kossens, it's just been a joy having you on the program. Thank you so much.