Tecumseh
(/tɪˈkʌmsə, tɪˈkʌmsi/ ti-KUM-sə, ti-KUM-see; c. 1768 – October 5, 1813) was
a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United
States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native
American confederacy and promoting inter-tribal unity. Although his efforts to unite Native Americans
ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous,
and Canadian popular history.
Tecumseh was born in what is now Ohio, at a time when the far-flung Shawnees were reuniting in
their Ohio Country homeland. During his childhood, the Shawnees lost territory to the
expanding American colonies in a series of border conflicts. Tecumseh's father was killed in battle
against American colonists in 1774. Tecumseh was thereafter mentored by his older
brother Cheeseekau, a noted war chief who died fighting Americans in 1792. As a young war leader,
Tecumseh joined Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket's armed struggle against further American
encroachment, which ended in defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, and the loss of most of
Ohio in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.
In 1805, Tecumseh's younger brother Tenskwatawa, who came to be known as the Shawnee
Prophet, founded a religious movement, calling upon Native Americans to reject European
influences and return to a more traditional lifestyle. In 1808, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa
established Prophetstown, a village in present-day Indiana, that grew into a large, multi-tribal
community. Tecumseh traveled constantly, spreading the Prophet's message and eclipsing his
brother in prominence. He proclaimed that Native Americans owned their lands in common, and
urged tribes not to cede more territory unless all agreed. His message alarmed American leaders as
well as Native leaders who sought accommodation with the United States. In 1811, when Tecumseh
was in the south recruiting allies, Americans under William Henry Harrison defeated Tenskwatawa at
the Battle of Tippecanoe and destroyed Prophetstown.
In the War of 1812, Tecumseh joined his cause with the British, as he was recruiting warriors and
helping to capture Detroit in August 1812. In the following year he led an unsuccessful campaign
against the United States in Ohio and Indiana. When U.S. naval forces took control of Lake Erie in
1813, Tecumseh retreated with the British into Upper Canada against his will, where American
forces battled them at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, where Tecumseh was killed. His
death caused his confederacy to collapse, and the lands he had fought to defend were eventually
ceded to the U.S. government. His legacy is one of the most celebrated Native Americans in history,
and grew in the years after his death. Certain details of his life are often obscured by mythology.
Contents
1Early life
2From warrior to chief
3Rise of the Prophet
4Forming a confederacy
5War of 1812
o 5.1Brock and Detroit
o 5.2Fort Meigs
o 5.3Death and aftermath
6Legacy
7See also
8References
o 8.1Notes
o 8.2Citations
o 8.3Sources
9External links
Early life[edit]
Further information: Family of Tecumseh
Map of Shawnee towns in the Ohio region from 1768 to 1808, indicating where Tecumseh lived
Tecumseh was born in Shawnee territory in what is now Ohio between 1764 and 1771; the best
evidence suggests a birthdate of around March 1768.[2][note 2] The traditional Shawnee pronunciation of
his name is "Tecumthé".[6][note 3] He was born into the Panther clan of the Kispoko division of the
Shawnee tribe. Like most Shawnees, his name indicated his clan: translations of his name from
the Shawnee language include "I Cross the Way", and "Shooting Star", references to a meteor
associated with the Panther clan.[6] Later stories claimed that Tecumseh was named after a shooting
star that appeared at his birth, although his father and most of his siblings, as members of the
Panther clan, were named after the same meteor.[8][9][note 4]
Tecumseh was likely born in the Shawnee town of Chillicothe, in the Scioto River valley, near
present-day Chillicothe, Ohio, or in a nearby Kispoko village.[11][note 5] Tecumseh's father,
Puckeshinwau, was a Shawnee war chief of the Kispoko division.[13] Tecumseh's mother,
Methoataaskee, probably belonged to the Pekowi division and the Turtle clan, although some
traditions maintain that she was Creek.[13] Tecumseh was the fifth of eight children.[14] His parents met
and married in what is now Alabama, where many Shawnees had settled after being driven out of
the Ohio Country by the Iroquois in the 17th-century Beaver Wars. Around 1759, Puckeshinwau and
Methoataaskee moved to the Ohio Country as part of a Shawnee effort to reunite in their traditional
homeland.[15]
In 1763, the British Empire laid claim to the Ohio Country following its victory in the French and
Indian War. That year, Puckeshinwau took part in Pontiac's War, a pan-tribal effort to counter British
control of the region.[16][17] Tecumseh was born in the peaceful decade after Pontiac's War, a time
when Puckeshinwau likely became the chief of the Kispoko town on the Scioto.[18] In a 1768 treaty,
the Iroquois ceded land south of the Ohio River (including present-day Kentucky) to the British, a
region the Shawnee and other tribes used for hunting. Shawnees attempted to organize further
resistance against colonial occupation of the region, culminating in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant,
in which Puckeshinwau was killed. After the battle, Shawnees ceded Kentucky to the colonists.[19][20]
When the American Revolutionary War between the British and their American colonies began in
1775, many Shawnees allied themselves with the British, raiding into Kentucky aiming to drive out
American settlers.[21] Tecumseh, too young to fight, was among those forced to relocate in the face of
American counterraids. In 1777, his family moved from the Scioto River to a Kispoko town on
the Mad River, near present-day Springfield, Ohio.[22] General George Rogers Clark, commander of
the Kentucky militia, led a major expedition into Shawnee territory in 1780. Tecumseh may have
witnessed the ensuing Battle of Piqua on August 8. After the Shawnees retreated, Clark burned their
villages and crops. The Shawnees relocated to the northwest, along the Great Miami River, but
Clark returned in 1782 and destroyed those villages as well, forcing the Shawnees to retreat further
north, near present-day Bellefontaine, Ohio.[23]
