Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (9 page)

Barron is lucky to escape with his life. The Prophet receives him, surrounded by Indians of different tribes, gazes upon him in silence and contempt for several minutes, then spits out his defiance:

“… You … are a spy. There is your grave. Look on it!” And points to the spot on which the interpreter is standing.

At this moment, there emerges from the Indian lodges a tall figure in fringed deerskin who takes the frightened Barron under his wing and asks him to state his business. Barron reads Harrison’s message, which concludes with a canny invitation: if the Shawnee can prove title to the ceded lands then, of course, they will be returned to the tribe. It is a hollow promise, for there is no title as white men understand the term. But Harrison’s message invites the Prophet to come to visit him: if his claim is just, the Governor will personally escort him to the President.

But it is not the Prophet who will lead the delegation to Vincennes. A new warrior is assuming leadership—the tall Indian who again that night saves Barron’s life from a group of squaws sent to tomahawk him. Harrison has not yet met him, would not know him to see him, is only now becoming aware of his presence. Someone who has encountered him has described him to the governor as “a bold, active, sensible man, daring in the extreme and capable of any undertaking.” He is the Prophet’s brother, whom Harrison now sees as “the Moses of the family, really the efficient man”—Tecumseh, the Leaping Panther.

VINCENNES, INDIANA TERRITORY, AUGUST
16, 1810. Governor Harrison is seated in an armchair on his estate of Grouseland in the shade of a canopy on the southwest side of the great brick mansion that has all but beggared him. To pay the bills for its construction
he has been forced to give up four hundred acres of prime land; but then, some might say, he wants the Shawnee (for whom he is waiting) to give up much more.

The Shawnee have kept him waiting for some days and the Governor is growing impatient. He has made much of this assembly, inviting the town’s leading citizens and their ladies, territorial officers and supreme court justices, all arranged like chess pieces on the lawn, in the canopy’s shade, guarded by a platoon of soldiers.

If Harrison is nervous, his long features do not reveal it. He operates under a strict maxim—never show fear in front of an Indian. This particular Indian, however, has become uncommonly difficult. Harrison had asked him to come to Vincennes with a small escort, but Tecumseh, who does not take instructions from white men, arrived with more than three hundred armed and painted warriors. That was Saturday. Harrison wanted to start the council on Monday, but Tecumseh would not be hurried. Suspecting treachery, he sent his spies and informers to work through the community, warning of possible trouble. Now it is Thursday; he is coming at last, accompanied by thirty warriors, their faces smeared with vermilion war paint, all armed with tomahawks and clubs.

Tecumseh advances under the curious scrutiny of the dignitaries—a handsome figure, tall for his tribe (at least five foot ten), with an oval rather than an angular face, his complexion light copper, his nose handsome and straight, his mouth “beautifully formed like that of Napoleon.” Everyone who has met him notices his eyes, which are a clear, bright hazel under dark brows, and his teeth, which are white and even. He is naked to the waist, his head shaved save for a scalp lock. He walks with a brisk elastic step in spite of a bent leg fractured and imperfectly set after a youthful fall from a pony. There are some who think him the finest specimen of a man they have ever seen, but no authentic likeness exists on paper or canvas, for Tecumseh refuses to have his portrait painted by a white man.

He halts, looks over the assemblage, sees the soldiers, feigns anger, pretends to suspect treachery. He will not go near the canopy, not because he fears the soldiers but because he wishes to place himself
on an equal footing with his adversary. He intends to speak as in a council circle, which puts every man on the same level.

The game continues. Harrison’s interpreter, Barron, explains that it will be a nuisance to rearrange the seats. Tecumseh disagrees; only the whites need seats, the Indians are accustomed to sitting on the ground: “Houses are made for white men to hold councils in. Indians hold theirs in the open air.”

“Your father requests you sit by his side,” says Barron, indicating the Governor.

Tecumseh raises an arm, points to the sky.

“My
father! The Great Spirit is my father! The earth is my mother—and on her bosom I will recline.” And so sits cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by his warriors.

The problem is that Tecumseh refuses to act like a Harrison Indian. Nor does he act like a white man. He is unique and knows it. On his endless missions to other tribes, in his dogged attempt to forge an Indian confederacy, it is necessary for him to say only “I am Tecumseh.” That is enough to explain his purpose.

This attitude disconcerts Harrison. In his reports to Washington he tries to shrug off Tecumseh: his speeches here at the great council, he says, are “insolent and his pretensions arrogant.” Yet he is forced to take him seriously. The talks drag on for days; but when the Shawnee war chief speaks, the Governor listens, for this half-naked man in the deerskin leggings is one of the greatest orators of his time.

His reputation has preceded him. He is known as a consummate performer who can rouse his audience to tears, laughter, fury, action. Even those who cannot understand his words are said to be held by the power of his voice. White men who have heard him speak at past councils have struggled to describe his style: in 1806 at a council at Springfield, Ohio, “the effect of his bitter, burning words … was so great on his companions that the whole three hundred warriors could hardly refrain from springing from their seats. Their eyes flashed, and even the most aged, many of whom were smoking, evinced the greatest excitement. The orator appeared in all the power of a fiery and impassioned speaker and actor. Each
moment it seemed as though, under the influence of his overpowering eloquence, they would abruptly leave the council and defiantly return to their homes.”

Like his physical presence, Tecumseh’s oratory is, alas, filtered through the memories of eyewitnesses. Even the best interpreters cannot keep up with his flights of imagery, while the worst garble his eloquence. Occasionally, in the printed record—admittedly imperfect—one hears faintly the echoes of that clear, rich voice, calling across the decades:

“It is true I am Shawnee. My forefathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior. From them I take only my existence. From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own fortune. And oh! that I might make that of my red people, and of my country, as great as the conceptions of my mind, when I think of the Spirit that rules the universe.…

“The way, and the only way, to check and stop this evil, is, for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land; as it was at first; and should be yet; for it never was divided, but belongs to all, for the use of each. That no part has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers who want all and will not do with less.…

“Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?”

In this three-hour speech at the great council of Vincennes, Tecumseh threatens to kill any chief who sells land to the white man:

“I now wish you to listen to me. If you do not it will appear as if you wished me to kill all the chiefs that sold you the land. I tell you so because I am authorized by all the tribes to do so. I am the head of them all. I am a Warrior and all the Warriors will meet together in two or three moons from this. Then I will call for those chiefs that sold you the land and shall know what to do with them. If you do not restore the land you will have a hand in killing them.”

But from his opening words it is clear that Tecumseh feels that he is not getting through to Harrison:

“Brother, I wish you to listen to me well—I wish to reply to you more explicitly, as I think you do not clearly understand what I before said to you. I will explain again.…”

He is like a patient parent, indulging a small unheeding child. But Harrison will never understand, cannot understand. Land is to him private property, circumscribed by fences and surveyors’ pins, tied down by documents, deeds, titles. He wants to be fair, but he cannot comprehend this Indian. The land has been bought from its rightful owners and paid for. It is purely a business matter.

Now it is the Governor’s turn to speak. He ridicules the idea of a single Indian nation, dismisses the Shawnee claim to ownership of the disputed lands (the Shawnee, he points out, come from farther south), praises the United States above all other nations for a long record of fair dealing.

The Indians listen patiently, waiting for the translations. Not far away on the grass lies the Potawatomi chief Winemac, in fear of his life at Tecumseh’s hands, for he is one of those who has agreed to cede the land. He hides in his buckskins a brace of pistols, a gift from the Governor to guard him from assassination. A sergeant and twelve soldiers, originally detailed to guard the assembly, have moved off a distance to escape the searing sun.

The Shawnee translation of Harrison’s remarks ends. The Potawatomi translation begins. Suddenly Tecumseh rises and, with violent gestures, starts to shout. Harrison notes, with concern, that Winemac is priming his pistols. John Gibson, the Indiana secretary, who understands the Shawnee tongue, whispers to Lieutenant Jesse Jennings of the 7th Infantry to bring up the guard quickly: “Those fellows mean mischief.” Tecumseh’s followers leap to their feet, brandishing tomahawks and war clubs. Harrison draws his sword. A Methodist minister runs to the house, seizes a rifle, and prepares to protect the Governor’s family. Up runs the twelve-man guard, muskets ready. Harrison motions them to hold their fire, demands to know what Tecumseh is saying. The answer is blunt: the Governor is a liar; everything he has said is false; the United States has cheated the Indians. The angry Harrison banishes Tecumseh
and his followers from Grouseland. They leave in a fury, but the following day, his anger spent, Tecumseh apologizes.

What is the meaning of this singular incident? Had Tecumseh planned a massacre, as some believe, only to be faced down by Harrison and his troops? That is unlikely. It is more probable that, hearing the translation of Harrison’s words, he briefly lost his remarkable self-possession. It is also possible that it was a carefully staged part of a plan to convince Harrison of Tecumseh’s strength and leadership.

Harrison, mollified by the apology, visits Tecumseh at his camp on the outskirts of Vincennes and finds the Shawnee in a totally different mood. The menacing savage has been transformed into a skittish adversary. The two sit together on a bench, Tecumseh talking all the while and edging closer to the governor, who is forced to move over. Tecumseh continues to talk, continues to crowd Harrison, who presently finds himself on the very end of the bench. Harrison at length protests. The Shawnee laughs: how would he like to be pushed right off, as the Indians have been pushed off their lands by white encroachment?

But beneath this burlesque Harrison recognizes a firmness of purpose that makes him apprehensive. As the council proceeds Tecumseh makes it clear that he intends to prevent, by force if necessary, the lands ceded at Fort Wayne from falling into the hands of the whites. His final words are unequivocal:

“I want the present boundary line to continue. Should you cross it I assure you it will be productive of bad consequences.”

Harrison has no choice but to halt the surveys of the disputed territory. He will not get his two dollars an acre until the power of the Shawnee brothers is broken forever.

WHO ARE THESE SHAWNEE BROTHERS?
Harrison may well ask himself. Where have they sprung from? What was it that produced from one Indian tribe and from the same parents the two most compelling native leaders of their time? What has made them rise above their own fellows, their own kin, so that their names are familiar to all the tribes from Michilimackinac to the borders of Florida?