The Prophet's Village at Greenville

I. Move from the White River Villages

A. Harrison's Land Grab

This is an early example of William Henry Harrison's commitment to acquire as much land in the west as was feasible, and which set Native Americans in the west on edge, as it became apparent that the Americans were determined to take as much of their land as they could hold--and made the Prophets message resonate with them more.

B. The Move to Greenville--Although Tenskwatawa maintained that he established his polyglot town in Greenville (meaning that the settlers there came from a wide variety of Native American peoples) at the insistence of the Great Spirit, it is apparent that this moved served his purpose politically, as well. If one were setting up a resistance movement, establishing a settlement where the treaty was signed deeding a large amount of land was ceded certainly makes a great deal of sense. Many Native Americans undoubtedly saw this as a symbolic gesture, meant to indirectly challenge American control over the ceded land.

C. Wells' warning to Harrison about the growing influence of the Prophet.


As has already been alluded to earlier, Wells was an American agent with very close ties to the Miami tribe--he married the daughter of the great Miami war leader, known to us as Little Turtle. Although Harrison was suspicious of Wells, and where his allegiance lie, by 1807 Wells had gained Harrison's trust, and this warning Harrison took very seriously.

C. Evidence of the growing influence of the Prophet (or, as Harrison refers to him in this passage, the Imposter), and Harrison's attempt to counteract that influence.


This is, in many ways, one of the most interesting documents in attempting to understand the relationship between William Henry Harrison and Tenskwatawa. It is usually argued that Tenskwatawa somehow found out about the total eclipse, and then Harrison presents him with this golden opportunity. Yet Tenskwatawa spoke nor understood English, and limited his contact with whites by this time. It has also been argued that Tecumseh, in earlier contact with whites, had learned to read and write English, gotten hold of an almanac, and retained enough knowledge of the coming solar eclipse to remember the date when Harrison challenged the Prophet. If you are persuaded by this, I have a wonderful piece of land I'd like to sell you in Florida, near the waster--see me after class if your interested. Lastly, if this solar eclipse was such a widely known event (it's also been argued that eclipse hunters were traveling around the backwood attempting to find the one best spot from which to view it)--why doesn't Harrison know about it, someone who could read English, and who had a better chance at accessing this information than either Native American brother. I think a more plausible answer lies in acknowledging the serendipity of much of the human condition--pure chance.