Excerpt from ALABAMA FOOTPRINTS: Confrontation (Story continued below)
Tecumseh expected a reward from the King of England
It’s a long journey from the region round the Great Lakes where Tecumseh lived to the shores of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers.
The great northern chief had completed many deeds by which he won a reputation for the possession of genius, both as a soldier and as a statesman; but nothing in his history so certainly proves his title to rank among really great men as his boldness and brilliancy in planning the formation of a great confederacy of the tribes which extended in a chain from the lakes on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south.
Join all their camp-fires
He was wise enough to learn of his foes. He saw that their strength lay in the union; that it was by joining all their camp-fires, as he phrased it, that they made themselves irresistible; and as he saw with consternation that the great tide of white man was steadily advancing westward, he understood, as few men of his race did, that there was but one possible way for the red men to ever stop the encroaching stream. Separately they were powerless because separately they could be beaten one by one. White troops who were engaged in reducing an Illinois tribe during one month could be sent the next to oppose another tribe in Mississippi or Alabama. Tecumseh realized that the secret of the white man’s success lay in two facts; first that the whites were united, working together for a common purpose, and helping each other in turn; and second that the whites used the same troops over and over again to fight the separately acting tribes. Thus, Tecumseh conceived a plan to form a confederacy of all the Native American tribes from north to south to act together and oppose the advance of the white man.1
Tecumseh from a wood engraving (Library of Congress)
He was not a stranger
Tecumseh arrived in the south in 1811. He spent the first part of his journey with the Choctaws and the Chickasaws but failed to win them to go along with his scheme so he made his way to Florida where he made easy converts of the warlike Seminoles.
In October of 2011, he arrived in Creek country and he marched into a Grand Council meeting at Tookabatcha that was being held by Colonel Hawkins, the American Indian Agent. Tecumseh and his warriors “were dressed in their most impressive savage costumes, consisting of very little else than buffalo tails and other ornaments,“2 Their faces were painted black and their heads adorned with eagle plumes. They marched solemnly round and round the central square of the town.
He did not come as a stranger. The fame of his exploits in the North had reached the Creeks, and he was known to them even more favorably in another way. Nearly twenty-five years before, Tecumseh, had dwelt among the Creeks as a young man for about two years, and the stories of his feats as a hunter had lived after him as a tradition. When he came again in 1811, he was known as a great man of whose deeds they had heard stories about during their childhood.
Impressed the audience with his dignity
When he had sufficiently impressed the audience with a proper sense of his dignity, he went through the most solemn ceremonies of friendship with his hosts and exchanged tobacco with them. Most of the chiefs received him with welcome friendship, but one chief, Captain Isaacs, rejected his overtures and shook his head when asked to shake hands. “He refused to exchange tobacco; and with the frankness of a brave man convinced of his duty, he told Tecumseh to his face that he was a bad man, and added, “You are no greater than I am.”
Did not talk until Colonel Hawkins left
While Colonel Hawkins was in the meeting, Tecumseh made no effort to put his plan into execution. Each day he appeared in the square to deliver his talk that all ears were anxious to hear it, but he remained silent. Instead, at the end of the day, he would say, “I will make my talk tomorrow.” Colonel Hawkins prolonged the council for a few days but still, Tecumseh did not relate his purpose. Finally, Colonel Hawkins brought the conference to an end and departed. Once he left Tecumseh delivered his long speech, full of fire and vengeance.
Tecumseh informed the Creeks that they had made a fatal mistake by adopting the ways of the whites and becoming friends with them. He encouraged them to abandon their plows, looms and cast off the garments which the whites had taught them to wear; to return to the condition and customs of their ancestors, and to be ready at command to become the enemies of the whites. He told them, “The whites have turned the beautiful forests into large fields and stained the clear rivers with the washings of the soil and we would all be soon subjected to African servitude.”
King of England would pay a reward
In his conclusion, he announced that the British, their former friends, had sent him from the Big Lakes, to procure their services to expel the Americans from all Indian soil and that the King of England was ready to handsomely reward all who would fight for his cause.
Next, a prophet, Tenskwatawa, who also happened to be Tecumseh’s brother, spoke to the people. He had traveled with Tecumseh from Detroit. He said that he frequently communed with the Great Spirit and that the Great Spirit sent Tecumseh to their country upon this mission and declared that all those who joined the war party would be shielded from all harm and none would be killed in battle. He said that the Great Spirit would surround them with quagmires in which all the Americans would be swallowed up as they approached. He said that at a certain time they would see the arms of Tecumseh stretched like pale fire on the vault of heaven, and then they would know it was time to begin the war. (Note: It is believed that a British officer in Canada had told Tecumseh when a comet would appear, and Tecumseh used that as a sign to start the war.)
A short time before daylight the council adjourned with over more than half the audience resolved to go to war against the Americans.
1 Red Eagle; or, Wars with the Indians of Alabama By George Cary Eggleston Ward. Lock, & Company, 1881 – Creek War, 1813-1814
2 Red Eagle; or, Wars with the Indians of Alabama By George Cary Eggleston Ward. Lock, & Company, 1881 – Creek War, 1813-1814
This story and more can be found in ALABAMA FOOTPRINTS Confrontation: Lost & Forgotten Stories (Volume 4)
Alabama Footprints Confrontation is a collection of lost and forgotten stories that reveals why and how the confrontation between the Native American population and settlers developed into the Creek-Indian War as well as stories of the bravery and heroism of participants from both sides.
Other stores include:
- Tecumseh Causes Earthquake
- Terrified Settlers Abandon Farms
- Survivor Stories From Fort Mims Massacre
- Hillabee Massacre
- Threat of Starvation Men Turn To Mutiny
- Red Eagle After The War
About Donna R Causey
Donna R. Causey, resident of Alabama, was a teacher in the public school system for twenty years. When she retired, Donna found time to focus on her lifetime passion for historical writing. She developed the websites www.alabamapioneers and www.daysgoneby.me All her books can be purchased at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. She has authored numerous genealogy books. RIBBON OF LOVE: A Novel Of Colonial America (TAPESTRY OF LOVE) is her first novel in the Tapestry of Love about her family where she uses actual characters, facts, dates and places to create a story about life as it might have happened in colonial Virginia. Faith and Courage: Tapestry of Love (Volume 2) is the second book and the third FreeHearts: A Novel of Colonial America (Book 3 in the Tapestry of Love Series) Discordance: The Cottinghams (Volume 1) is the continuation of the story. . For a complete list of books, visit Donna R Causey
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The question is what was Tecumseh doing in the American State Papers in the 1790’s and why is he saying the same things Alexander McGillivray and William Panton of Panton Leslie Forbes says and all around Mount Vernon and Chastang Alabama? Why is that?
Hint: The Creek War Myth is fake history no matter how many liars tell a tale.
The Treaty of Ghent is free to read and there is no Creek War per se. No Ft. Mims atrocities. Interesting facts for a document that lists every little act of violence done during the war of 1812.
John Andre was said to be hung by the neck and the Andre family is in Chastang, Alabama and in 1818 was in the same newspaper as Francis the Prophet aka Hillis Harjo and isn’t it odd that the same name comes up again with regard to Washington as in the President. And the fact that George Washington once lived in Washington Parish. Who knew that? Alabama was once Virginia and so many other states and about half of Washington’s General’s were fighting in the vicinity of Alabama and Tennesssee. Who knew that?
I fail to understand your point unless it it is that all history is wrong except your version.
Black people played a major role in the history of Alabama. Why are there no articles on black history on this site???
The American State Papers is the United States version of history.
One day people will read what Andrew Jackson actually is recorded to have written and realize that “The Life of Jackson” is more of a parody than that of actual history.
Of course this would mean exploring each person’s name discussed and learning what was being conveyed by each mention of a name aka “name throwing”.
Now the real question is why did the people of the Mississippi Territory aka Alabama think they needed to get things straight in 1810 when they learned they were squatting the wrong land…
Next why were those people or their descendants again appealing to Congress in 1834/1836 or so not to be removed…
I was taught it was the Indians who were removed from Alabama and yet I read the request of the white settlers who want to stay.
How can that be?
That’s not the Alabama version.
So what really happened if Alabama ancestors are asking Congress to let them stay…
Why is Tecumseh in Federal Records in the 1790’s?
Why is the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794?
There is a lot more wrong with Alabama History and it’s not my version.
It is the Federal Version.
On black history and Alabama – the possible reason why is that the Zora/Dora version was not yet created.
The reason why slavery was not mentioned much in early Alabama history is that Mobile was a swamp and people just didn’t farm much in the swamps.
It came down to supply and demand
We have to examine the agricultural and farming records in the 1840-1860’s for example.
There is a serious lack of opulent wealth.
That is, the richest of the rich were not quite wealthy enough to own slaves or else large numbers of slaves.
There were many small farms but few had the wealth required to afford many of any slaves.
So if a farm was only valued at $100.00 lock, stock, and barrel.
It would be incredibly unlikely a family could afford a slave which might cost upwards of $500.00 or more.
Also most families were larger during this period. So most of the pioneers carried their own water.
If we take the Chastang family which are always assumed to be a rich wealthy planter class in Mobile Alabama as an example…
Mobile’s records show most of the men named Chastang working under their overseer named Isaac Johnson in say the later 1820’s
Isaac Johnson and John Johnson are Choctaw Indians and community leaders then and later in history.
Captain Isaac was more or less a public servant who helped the “Hands to Work”’programs.
He paid the Chastang men each $1.00 a week to help build the roads in the swamps in the Alabama heat or cold and alongside rattlesnakes and moccasins or whatever was there when fever and death abounded in the swamps.
So even the presumably wealthier class were doing manual labor themselves.
I’d expect if they had slaves they would have been working then instead of the alleged slave owners.
That’s public records.
We have to recall that in Alabama – slaves were deterred from coming into the state and also from entering the ports.
To have a large slave holding class by 1860 there had to be more economy.
We have to read from Mr. Martin’s biography to learn what traffic there was on the Alabama River up to a certain point and learn why it was not the great river of opportunity as a means of transportation.
Alternatively one could visit the river now that it has been cleaned out by the US Army Corp of Engineers around the 1870-1880’s or so.
But that happened after the slavery days and not before.
So if the rivers were not really a great means of transportation at that time…
The state had its challenges.
Recall Mobile was the largest metro area in the State of Alabama for some time.
Also people had to get the land patented before they could even dream of owning their own antebellum style home.
So we have to visit those books to learn when most people even claimed land much less started to improve it.
Everything takes time.
No one ever mentioned having slaves on credit.
The bank system also had to become developed.
Roads were needed for commerce so we have to look at these.
Lots of internal infrastructure issues that would come about at some time.
Chicken or the Egg…
I grew up wit this notion of generations of white slave holders in the Antebellum South in my mind.
However, the records and events can’t support that notion and don’t.
It makes a sensational story.
No doubt but the economic reality seems to not be able to support the notion.
There are facts that support that what we read isn’t always what actually happened.
The trick is we actually have to read more than what we are fed in a history class.