October 5, 1813: Hopes for a Tribal Homeland end at the Battle of the Thames

You are there: The final hope to secure a permanent Tribal Homeland vanishes when the charismatic Shawnee Chief Tecumseh is killed at Moraviantown, Canada.

By the time Europeans arrive in North America, some 600 native tribes are spread out from coast to coast. Initially relations between the white men and the natives are relatively peaceful and center around trade. But this harmony fades once the Europeans settle in – Britain along the Atlantic coast and across Canada, France along the Mississippi Rivers, Spain in Florida and the southwest. This produces competition for land, which the tribes view as belonging to all men equally and the settlers regard as property, the measure of their individual wealth.

Violence early on tends to involve local raids followed by retribution, and this is the pattern until the major powers begin their struggle for continental hegemony.

In 1754 Britain and France square off in what becomes known as the French & Indian War, with both attempting to recruit the natives to their side. The bulk of this support falls to the French:

Tribal Involvement: French & Indian War

After the British victory, lasting ill will is directed at the tribes aligned with the French. Tales of scalp-taking atrocities fan the flames, the most notorious being the Huron massacre of surrendered colonists exiting Ft. William Henry in August 1757. (This event is memorialized in James Fennimore Cooper’s popular 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans.)

Some of the heaviest fighting occurs in central Ohio, where Tecumseh – whose name means “Shooting Star” in Shawnee — is born in 1768. Six years later he loses his father, killed by white settler, and from then on he is raised by an older brother, Cheeseekau.

When the American Revolutionary War begins, Tecumseh’s Shawnees back the British believing they will better protect their tribal homelands than the Americans

Tribal Involvement: The Revolutionary War

But the conflict ends with a British defeat and the 1783 Treaty of Paris. In the document, Britain cedes all of its land west of the Appalachian Mountains to the Americans. They do so after no consultation with the tribes and no consideration for the fact that the territory is home to many of those who fought alongside them.

From then on, the immediate future of the Native Americans lies with George Washington who seeks peace with the tribes, but also initiates the process of completing “land cessions.” These are applauded by the pioneers and provide a needed source of sales revenue to operate the U.S. government.

The tone is set here in the 1784 Treaty of Ft. Stanwix. It forever reduces the influence of the Iroquois by surrendering eastern land, all claims in the Ohio territory and along the Niagara River, plus a wide swath in Pennsylvania. Seneca Chief Cornplanter signs for the Iroquois, but its full Tribal Council refuses to agree. Despite that, the treaty stands.

An alarmed Mohawk Chief, Joseph Brant, begins his call for the tribes to band together to fight off any more land grabs. Brant is a truly unique native figure. His sister is married to Sir William Johnson, overseer of Britain’s Indian Bureau, who sends him to college for a classical education and to mix with his white counterparts. In 1775 Brant accompanies Johnson to London to meet King George III and solicit Crown support for the Revolutionary War. In 1776 he is with Lord Howe joining in the assault on Manhattan Island. While the much younger Tecumseh never meets Brant, he later embraces his vision for a Tribal Confederation.

The 1790’s are marked by more bloody battles over land.

In November 1791 a Confederacy comprising Miami Chief Little Turtle and the Shawnee Blue Jacket surround U.S. General Arthur St. Clair’s 1400 troops encamped along the Wabash River in northeastern Indiana. After three hours of combat, St. Clair surrenders, with losses of 930 men, the largest tribal victory ever recorded. Washington asks for and receives St. Clair’s resignation despite his clearance by a board of inquiry.

The Americans achieve a measure of revenge in August 1794 when “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeats the Confederacy along the Maumee River at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Wayne then negotiates the 1795 Treaty of Greenville which strips away almost all of the tribal land in Ohio.

More cessions follow, initiated by General William Henry Harrison who is named Territorial Governor of Indiana in 1801 — one at St. Louis in 1804, then at Grouseland in 1805 and Ft. Wayne in 1806.

In 1810, 42 year old Tecumseh meets with Harrison and promises loyalty to America if the territories are returned. But his younger brother, Tenskwatawa, a religious seer known as “Prophet,” proceeds on his own to step up harassment of local settlers in southern Indiana.

Harrison responds by leading 1,050 U.S. regulars and militia to confront Prophet, encamped at the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers. On November 6, 1811, Harrison meets a tribal delegation under a white flag of truce near Prophetstown and agrees to hold peace talks the next day. But Prophet decides instead to launch a surprise attack, and at 4AM on November 7, war whoops from his 600 warriors ring out over the U.S. troops huddled just east of Burnett Creek. The battle rages for two hours, with the shocked Americans falling back until Harrison is able to rally them, break out of his initial trap, and eventually burn Prophetstown to the ground. The Prophet escapes the battle, but his future influence is over.

Tecumseh is not present for the Tippecanoe battle, instead spending his time trying to recruit additional tribes to join a more powerful Northwest Confederacy. His brother, Cheeseekau, has already fallen in battle, so the mantel of leadership falls to him.

As the War of 1812 breaks out, Tecumseh has expanded the Northwest Confederacy and commits it to supporting the British cause against the Americans.

Tribal Involvement: The War of 1812

The decisive contest for Tecumseh’s troops comes on October 5, 1813 at the Battle of the Thames, some 75 miles east of Detroit.

Admiral Oliver Hazzard Perry’s defeat of the Royal Navy on Lake Erie in September 1813, forces the British to retreat from their stronghold at Ft. Detroit. They exit with 800 half-starved Regulars and Tecumseh’s contingent of 500 mostly Shawnee warriors.

Chasing after is General Harrison’s overwhelming force of 3700 men. On October 4 they catch up to the British rearguard and overwhelm it near the town of Chatham. On October 5, Tecumseh convinces Proctor to retreat east to a Delaware settlement at Moraviantown where he sets up a line of defense with his right flank along a swamp and his left on the Thames River. He has one cannon at his disposal and no entrenchments.

Harrison surveys the enemy position and orders a mounted frontal assault commencing shortly after daybreak. The redcoats respond with one fusillade before fleeing from the field along with Proctor. Not so the native warriors who fight on until their leader Tecumseh is killed, after which they are demoralized and disperse through the swamps.

Reported casualty figures vary widely, but Harrison claims 72 redcoats killed and another 22 wounded and captured. Shawnee losses range from 17 to 33, while the figures for the Americans are 10-20 killed and another 30-50 wounded.

The details of Tecumseh’s death becomes surrounded by controversy. Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson brags that he killed the Chief and parlays this claim into his 1837 election as Vice-President under Van Buren. But another account related years later to Colonel James Gentry paints a different picture:

Capt. GEORGE DAVIDSON first shot TECUMSEH and wounded him, and a
young man by the name of KING, after discharging his musket, drew his
pistol and shot TECUMSEH dead.

This version also includes a gruesome account of the desecration of his corpse:

The Kentuckians rushed to the spot and completely skinned his head in small
pieces, some not larger than a cent, so that a tuft of hair was on it; and when
the head could furnish no more trophies, they skinned his body and limbs in
strips, which they called “razor straps.”

Tecumseh is 45 years old when he dies and soon becomes the stuff of legend as hero of all Native Americans attempts to preserve their homelands and their way of life from the European invaders. A small display of the respect he earns – even among his white adversaries – is evident in 1820 when another soldier, noted later for his bravery, is born in Ohio: William Tecumseh Sherman.