Tecumseh the Diplomat

I. Tenskwatawa, Tecumseh, and Traditional Shawnee Roles

A. War chiefs and diplomacy--in traditional Shawnee culture--as in many other traditional native cultures--the war chief was usually in charge of diplomatic efforts; it was, after all, usually only necessary to obtain allies when one was threatened with war.

Excerpt from Benjamin Drake, The Life of Tecumseh and of His Brother the Prophet


B. Tecumseh and his diplomatic mission--Tecumseh spoke to a wide variety of Native American groups, attempting to convince them to join the confederacy at Prophetstown. While he was able to convince a number of young warriors, older chiefs and sachems were less reluctant to move there, undoubtedly worried about what their role would be there upon arrival.

1.The Travels of Tecumseh--Tecumseh travelled far and wide to make diplomatic overtures to other Native American groups to join the confederacy at Prophetstown. We know that Tecumseh had contact with the Iowa people and Lakota people in the west, and also with some Cherokee peoples in the south (including a number of dissident groups like the Creeks and Red Sticks) in the south. Many of these people the Shawnee had previous contact with in their peripetic travels before their return to Ohio in historic times. Again, these efforts met with some mixed success; Tecumseh was successful in persuading many young warriors to join the effort, but had little success in convincing whole villages to relocate to Prophetstown.

II. The Growing Fear

A. White Sense of Unease--Although depradations on the part of Native Americans was reduced under the influence of Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, whites were on edge because of the great numbers of Native Americans taking up temporary (and sometimes permanent) residence there. This fear led Harrison to attempt to defuse the situation (one, in part, of his own making).

1. Harrison's communications with the government in Washington--Harrison spent a good portion of 1810 sending communications to Washington to attempt to persuade officials there of the danger that the brothers presented to whites in the region, which is exemplified by the following passages from Harrison's Messages and Letters



2. Harrison's communications with Prophetstown--Harrison attempted to intimidate the brothers by intimating that the US government could easily raise a force that could overwhelm the Native American contingent at Prophetstown.



B. The Prophetstown response--although we've already looked at the speech of Tecumseh last week, this is probably a good time to examine it once again, since it is obvious that Tecumseh fears little that Harrison presents:



C. Beating the drums of war--Harrison, recognizing the reluctance of the American government to act as long as the Native Americans at Prophetstown remained peaceful, began to play up the conflicts between whites and natives, and the continually insist that the Prophet was a grave danger to settlers along the lower Great Lakes.



1. Tecumseh attempts to maintain peace--