Introduction: Tecumseh (1768–1813)

Tecumseh was born a Shawnee in what is now Ohio. His father was a Shawnee chief who fought white settlers and died in the Battle of Point Pleasant (1774). Tecumseh, too, would fight the ever-increasing westward expansion of white settlement. In 1811, William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) would describe Tecumseh to then secretary of war William Eustis (1753–1825) as an “uncommon genius” capable of founding an empire. Tecumseh’s brother Tenskwatawa (c. 1775–1836), known as the Prophet, would also caution against Native American assimilation to white culture.

In 1809, the Shawnees ceded huge tracts of their land to the United States. Tecumseh had already declared his view that such cession of land by one tribe was illegal without the consent of all other tribes. He responded to his tribe’s cession of land by forming a multi-tribal alliance, a great confederation intended to stem the tide of white settlement. Tecumseh gave his Speech to the Osage as part of this unifying effort. With careful rhetoric, it persuades its audience of their commonality, of their all being children of the Great Spirit and enemies of the whites.

To add to the forces he already gathered, Tecumseh traveled in the south, leaving Tenskwatawa to act as leader. During Tecumseh’s absence, Tenskwatawa’s forces were attacked and defeated by Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe (1811). Harrison would later successfully use this victory over the Native Americans when running for president, with John Tyler as his vice-president, under the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!”

After Tippecanoe, Tecumseh failed in subsequent attempts to unite tribes to defend their way of life against the whites. He fought with the British in the War of 1812 and was killed in the Battle of the Thames, near Thamesville, Ontario.

Tecumseh’s Speech to the Osages was recorded in John Dunn Hunter’s (1798– 1827) Memoirs of a Captivity among the Indians of North America (1823). Dunn claimed to have heard this deeply-moving speech when he was ten years old. He lived as an Osage captive for fourteen years, publishing his memoir seven years after his release. Authentic or not, it is

Tecumseh’s Speech to the Osages (Winter 1811-12)

One of the great figures of early Native resistance to colonization was Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, who earned a reputation for his skills in fighting white settlers and militias in the Midwest. He and his brother worked toward the unification of Indians to struggle collectively against the encroachment on their lands by colonists, as they expanded westward. Here he speaks to the Osages about the struggle against the colonists, arguing that “nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising to the setting sun.”

—Introduction from Zinn and Arnove’s Voices of a People’s History of the
United States

Brothers,—We all belong to one family; we are all children of the Great Spirit; we walk in the same path; slake our thirst at the same spring; and now affairs of the greatest concern lead us to smoke the pipe around the same council fire!

Brothers,—We are friends; we must assist each other to bear our burdens. The blood of many of our fathers and brothers has run like water on the ground, to satisfy the avarice of the white men. We, ourselves, are threatened with a great
evil; nothing will pacify them but the destruction of all the red men.

Brothers,—When the white men first set foot on our grounds, they were hungry; they had no place on which to spread their blankets, or to kindle their fires. They were feeble; they could do nothing for themselves. Our father commiserated their distress, and shared freely with them whatever the Great Spirit had given his red children. They gave them food when hungry, medicine when sick, spread skins for them to sleep on, and gave them grounds, that they might hunt and raise corn.

Brothers,—The white people are like poisonous serpents: when chilled, they are feeble and harmless; but invigorate them with warmth, and they sting their benefactors to death. The white people came among us feeble; and now we have made them strong, they wish to kill us, or drive us back, as they would wolves and panthers.

Brothers,—The white men are not friends to the Indians: at first, they only asked for land sufficient for a wigwam; now, nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising to the setting sun.

Brothers,—The white men want more than our hunting grounds; they wish to kill our warriors; they would even kill our old men, women and little ones.

Brothers,—Many winters ago, there was no land; the sun did not rise and set: all was darkness. The Great Spirit made all things. He gave the white people a home beyond the great waters. He supplied these grounds with game, and gave
them to his red children; and he gave them strength and courage to defend them.

Brothers—My people wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace; but where the white people are, there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosom of our mother.

Brothers,—The white men despise and cheat the Indians; they abuse and insult them; they do not think the red men sufficiently good to live. The red men have borne many and great injuries; they ought to suffer them no longer. My people will not; they are determined on vengeance; they have taken up the tomahawk; they will make it fat with blood; they will drink the blood of the white people.

Brothers,—My people are brave and numerous; but the white people are too strong for them alone. I wish you to take up the tomahawk with them. If we all unite, we will cause the rivers to stain the great waters with their blood.

Brothers,—If you do not unite with us, they will first destroy us, and then you will fall an easy prey to them. They have destroyed many nations of red men because they were not united, because they were not friends to each other.

Brothers,—The white people send runners amongst us; they wish to make us enemies that they may sweep over and desolate our hunting grounds, like devastating winds, or rushing waters.

Brothers,—Our Great Father, over the great waters, is angry with the white people, our enemies. He will send his brave warriors against them; he will send us rifles, and whatever else we want—he is our friend, and we are his children.

Brothers,—Who are the white people that we should fear them? They cannot runfast, and are good marks to shoot at: they are only men; our fathers have killed many of them; we are not squaws, and we will stain the earth red with blood.

Brothers,—The Great Spirit is angry with our enemies; he speaks in thunder, and the earth swallows up villages, and drinks up the Mississippi. The great waters will cover their lowlands; their corn cannot grow, and the Great Spirit will sweep those who escape to the hills from the earth with his terrible breach.

Brothers,—We must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other’s battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirits he is for us; he will destroy our enemies, and make all his red children happy.