Tecumseh
Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership
Abigail Alvarado
Tecumseh lived from 1768 to 1813. His father was Shawnee and his mother was Creek. He was raised among the Shawnees of Ohio. Tecumseh was very young at the time of his father's death, so he was raised by his mother, brothers, and sisters. His mother taught him to hate the Americans and never let him forget that they had killed his father. His oldest brother Chiksika taught him to be a warrior, and his sister told him to have respect for his elders and to respect all people. A Shawnee chief by the name of Blackfish also adopted Tecumseh into his family, and acted as a father figure. Blackfish saw the Americans as a threat and urged that they had to be stopped.
He came of age after the Revolutionary War, as the young United States expanded gradually but incessantly beyond the Appalachians into Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. The common pretense for expansion was a treaty with a group of Indians where the U.S. gave them money and trade goods in exchange for the right to settle on a vast tract of land that in most cases the Indian group in question did not truly own. Tecumseh understood the mechanism of American expansion and that it represented a collective problem for Indians who were split into numerous tribal groups. So around 1807, Tecumseh proposed and began to pursue a two-prong policy. First, explicit recognition that all remaining Indian lands were owned by all Indians, so that any future transfers of Indian land to the Americans had to be approved by all Indians. In other words, individual tribes no longer had the right to sell what they claimed to be their tribal territory to the government. Second, to stand up to what was, after all, a large political body that could field a fierce military force. The Indians needed to put aside tribal interests and enter into a pan-tribal confederacy that could operate both politically and militarily, a confederacy in which everyone would work
Abigail Alvarado
Tecumseh lived from 1768 to 1813. His father was Shawnee and his mother was Creek. He was raised among the Shawnees of Ohio. Tecumseh was very young at the time of his father's death, so he was raised by his mother, brothers, and sisters. His mother taught him to hate the Americans and never let him forget that they had killed his father. His oldest brother Chiksika taught him to be a warrior, and his sister told him to have respect for his elders and to respect all people. A Shawnee chief by the name of Blackfish also adopted Tecumseh into his family, and acted as a father figure. Blackfish saw the Americans as a threat and urged that they had to be stopped.
He came of age after the Revolutionary War, as the young United States expanded gradually but incessantly beyond the Appalachians into Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. The common pretense for expansion was a treaty with a group of Indians where the U.S. gave them money and trade goods in exchange for the right to settle on a vast tract of land that in most cases the Indian group in question did not truly own. Tecumseh understood the mechanism of American expansion and that it represented a collective problem for Indians who were split into numerous tribal groups. So around 1807, Tecumseh proposed and began to pursue a two-prong policy. First, explicit recognition that all remaining Indian lands were owned by all Indians, so that any future transfers of Indian land to the Americans had to be approved by all Indians. In other words, individual tribes no longer had the right to sell what they claimed to be their tribal territory to the government. Second, to stand up to what was, after all, a large political body that could field a fierce military force. The Indians needed to put aside tribal interests and enter into a pan-tribal confederacy that could operate both politically and militarily, a confederacy in which everyone would work