PANTHER-ACROSS-THE-SKY
Tecumseh and the New Madrid Earthquake
Part Two: Confederacy & Prophecy
Wednesday, August 11, 1802
Each time Tecumseh addressed one of these councils, he felt a great
exaltation as he saw how his words caught and held his listeners; how
easily, with the proper turn of a phrase, he could stir in them emotions
of anger and hate, love and pleasure, regret and sorrow. Each time he
began to speak, he was never really sure exactly what he would say, but
then the words came to him, rolling fluently from his tongue and never
failing to stir deeply all who listened.
He was much pleased with the way things had gone thus far. All during
spring, summer and fall of last year he had gone from village to
village, journeying as far eastward as western Vermont and
Massachusetts. This past spring, as soon as he had concluded the
laughable treaty with the cut-ta-ho-tha, he had ranged across upper and
western New York State and northwestern Pennsylvania. All of the
remaining Iroquois Confederacy had been deeply inspired by the plan, and
they looked upon the speaker with something very akin to reverence.
They had pledged their faith and their secrecy and, most important,
their help when the great sign should be given.
This great sign that Tecumseh spoke of wherever he went always remained
the same, and his telling of it never failed to awe his audiences. When
the period of waiting was over, he told them, when tribal unification
had been completed, when all was in readiness, then would this sign be
given: in the midst of the night the earth beneath would tremble and
roar for a long period. Jugs would break, though there be no one near
to touch them. Great trees would fall, though the air be windless.
Streams would change their courses to run backwards, and lakes would be
swallowed up into the earth and other lakes suddenly appear. The bones
of every man would tremble with the trembling of the ground, and they
would not mistake it. No! There was not anything to compare with it in
their lives, nor in the lives of their fathers or the fathers before
them since time began; when this sign came, they were to drop their
mattocks and flash scrapers, leave their fields and their hunting camps
and their villages, and join together and move to assemble across the
lake river from the fort of Detroit. And on that day they would no
longer be Mohawks or Senecas, Oneidas or Onondagas, or any other tribe.
They would be Indians! One people united forever where the good of one
would henceforth become the good of all!
So it would be!
Sunday, December 1809
The watchword of the year was suspicion. Everyone, it seemed, was
suspicious of something.
Despite all the suspicions in the air, the year closed without open
hostilities erupting anywhere. The United States, under its new
President, James Madison, continued to be suspicious of the British.
William Henry Harrison continued to be suspicious of Tecumseh and the
Prophet. Many of the Indian chiefs continued to be suspicious of the
amalgamation of the tribes. Tecumseh continued to be suspicious of the
growing insubordination of his brother, Tenskwatawa, the Prophet. The
settlers continued to be suspicious of all Indians. And Tenskwatawa
continued to be suspicious of everything and everybody.
The Prophet's work in helping to unite the tribes behind Tecumseh's
movement was, on the whole, a big disappointment to Tecumseh. These
tribes -- the Delawares, Miamis, Wyandots, and, in particular, the
Shawnees -- must be convinced to join. Without their active support,
the entire grand plan might collapse. Yet, instead of uniting them,
Tenskwatawa had succeeded only in alarming them and driving them away
with talk of immediate attack on Vincennes and the river settlements,
and by his suggestions that the Great Spirit would destroy any who did
not join in to help. It was a maddening development and, before he set
out again to visit each of these chiefs, Tecumseh held long conferences
with his younger brother and gave him strict orders to follow.
Tenskwatawa was to begin immediately to regain some of the prestige he
had lost during the year. He would retire alone to the woods and there
make a large number of sacred slabs which he was to tell the assembled
Indians he had made under the direction of the Great Spirit. The
directions for their construction was specific.
Each slab was to be of the same length, thickness and taper, and each
was to have carved , on one side only, the same symbols. The slabs were
to be made of red cedar and each was to be accompanied by a bundle of
thin red sticks. Each of the red sticks was to represent one moon, and,
when the bundle and slab was given to a particular chief, he would be
directed to throw away one of the red sticks at each full moon until
only the slab itself remained, at which time he must prepare for the
great sign to be given.
The symbols on the slab were to have a double meaning -- one to tell any
curious whites who might see them, the other to be the true meaning.
For the whites, these were to be described as heaven sticks -- symbols
which would guide them to the happy Afterlife. The symbols, reading
from bottom to top, were family, which was the most important single
factor in everyday Indian life, the earth upon which they lived,
followed by the principal features of the earth: water, lightning,
trees, the four corners of the earth, corn, fowl and animals of the
earth and air, all plant life, the sun, the blue sky and all of these
things having to be experienced and understood before the people cold
reach the uppermost symbol, Heaven.
The actual meaning of the symbolism, however, was considerable different
and much more menacing. It was for all the Indians on both sides of the
Mississippi RiverJto come in a straight direction toward Detroit at
lightning speed with their weapons; coming from the four corners of the
earth, leaving behind the tending of the corn or hunting of game or
storing of grains to become united when the great sign was given so that
all the tribes might, in one movement, by peaceable means if possible,
but by warfare if necessary, take over the place of the whites which had
been usurped from them.
Wednesday, August 28, 1811
To each of the southern tribes he visited, Tecumseh presented a sacred
slab, along with a bundle of the red sticks. But where once these stick
bundles had been large, now they were unusually small. The one he had
given the Cherokees a few weeks ago when had agreed to assemble under
his leadership had only four sticks. And when, three days ago, he had
concluded his talks with the Seminoles, their bundle had contained only
three sticks.
Everywhere he went he was listened to eagerly. His fame had spread far;
few indeed were those who could not relate exploits of the great Shawnee
chief, Tecumseh, or who failed to be impressed deeply by the scope of
his amalgamation. Thus, they readily pledged themselves to join him
with the great sign came. Along with the Cherokees and Seminoles and
Lower Creeks, there were the smaller and more scattered tribes -- the
Santee and Calusas and Catawbas and the slightly larger Choctaws and
Biloxis, the Chickasaws and the Alabamas.
Occasionally one or another of the tribes would require a show of proof
from Tecumseh -- some small sign to show that he was, indeed, under the
auspices of the Great Spirit. In most cases, minor prophecies sufficed,
such as in the case of the Seminoles. When they had hesitated to join
him, he told them that in two days where would come to Florida's coast
an ocean vessel which would be filled with arms and supplies for the
Seminoles. They assembled at the point he indicated, and at dawn on the
given day, they discovered a British ship at anchor in the bay and its
smaller boats coming ashore laden with gifts of guns and powder and
tomahawks, cloth and jewelry and foodstuffs. There was no further
hesitancy among the Seminoles to join Tecumseh.
Now the great Shawnee leader was beginning his swing northwestward
through the Alabama country to seek the important alliance formation
with the powerful Upper Creek nation. From there he would move west,
heading into the Mississippi land and Louisiana, then again northward on
the west side of the mother of rivers to Missouri again. And along the
way, he would stop to win over the Natchez and Yazoo, the Tawakonias and
Caddos and others.
But first the Upper Creeks. Big Warrior, principal chief of the Upper
Creeks, listened with a disapproving frown as Tecumseh told his people
of his great plan, its near culmination and the part he wished them to
play in it. There could be no doubt of his jealousy of this Shawnee who
could come from hundreds of miles away and sway his people so swiftly
with his reputation and his elocution. Great numbers of the Upper
Creeks had come to this village Tuckabatchee located on the Tallapoosa
River to hear the chief; but no matter how earnestly and convincingly
Tecumseh spoke, Big Warrior refused to pledge his people. Sensing his
jealousy, Tecumseh became scornful. He looked first at the large crowd,
and then she swung his gaze to Big Warrior.
"Your blood is white!" he said. "You have taken my talk and the sticks
and the wampum and the hatchet, but you do not mean to fight. I know
the reason. You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall
know. I leave Tuckabatchee directly and shall go to Detroit. When I
arrive there, I will stamp on the ground with my foot, and shake down
every house in Tuckabatchee!"
Impressed in spite of himself, Big Warrior thereupon agreed to come and
join the amalgamation -- if and when the houses of Tuckabatchee all fell
down. Tecumseh nodded. The Upper Creeks would come. What now could
stop this mighty force he had joined together?
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| David Yarrow (turtle) Econet:<jdmann> 315-675-8498 |
| Earthwise Education Center, P.O. Box 91, Camden, NY 13316 |
| "be earthwise, not clockwise" |
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