Red Coat — Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief. Art by Doug Hall.
I’ve probably given Tecumseh short-shrift here at Frontier Partisans. He is widely regarded as the most talented leader of the indigenous resistance to American power and the pan-Indian movement he sought to create in the early years of the 19th Century was the last best chance to establish a genuine (non-reservation) native sovereignty in the territory that became the United States.
My relative neglect of this fascinating man and mighty historical force is not out of any negative impulse to debunk — I freely and happily acknowledge his greatness. Guess I’ve chosen to focus on men who have, unjustly, been lost in his long shadow. The Shawnee militant captain Weyapiersenwah, aka Blue Jacket fought through the American Revolution and led the coalition of Ohio Country tribes that inflicted the worst defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Army at the hands of the native resistance. I profiled Weyapiersenwah in Warriors of the Wildlands because he doesn’t get his due. He blazed the trail for Tecumseh, and the young militant literally learned at his campfire. Tecumseh, who was named after a comet, The Panther Passing Across, was not a unique native genius — though an extraordinary one; he was part of a tradition of militant leadership among the Shawnee and other Ohio Country peoples.
All that is a long preamble to announcing that Frontier Partisan Wade McKnight has scouted up a major forthcoming biography.
The first biography of the great Shawnee leader in more than 20 years, and the first to make clear that his misunderstood younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was an equal partner in the last great pan-Indian alliance against the United States.
Until the Americans killed Tecumseh in 1813, he and his brother Tenskwatawa were the co-architects of the broadest pan-Indian confederation in United States history. In previous accounts of Tecumseh’s life, Tenskwatawa has been dismissed as a talentless charlatan and a drunk. But award-winning historian Peter Cozzens now shows us that while Tecumseh was a brilliant diplomat and war leader–admired by the same white Americans he opposed–it was Tenskwatawa, called the “Shawnee Prophet,” who created a vital doctrine of religious and cultural revitalization that unified the disparate tribes of the Old Northwest. Detailed research of Native American society and customs provides a window into a world often erased from history books and reveals how both men came to power in different but no less important ways.
Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet.
I must admit that I have been dismissive of Tenskwatawa exactly the way Cozzens describes. That’s certainly down to the powerful influence of Allan W. Eckert in The Frontiersmen and A Sorrow In Our Hearts. Eckert did, in fact, portray Tenskwatawa as a talentless charlatan, a burden to his noble and heroic brother, one who nearly destroyed his movement by engaging American forces at Tippecanoe in 1811. Like most white Americans from Tecumseh’s adversary William Henry Harrison down to the present day, I find Tecumseh’s military and political acumen more relatable than Tenskwatawa’s Great Awakening. That leads to some biases that distort the nature of the brothers’ movement. I look forward to having my understanding enlarged and corrected.
The book is due out in September.
PBS’s series We Shall Remain (the title of which comes from one of Tecumseh’s eloquent orations) features a chapter on the Shawnee leader.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErtZSqfGjoY
Amazon Prime features a well-done four-part documentary on the War of 1812 that does a fine job of setting Tecumseh’s role in context.
Vinny Singh says
John Sugden’s book on Tecumseh also pays homage to the influence of Tenskwatawa. However his book, good though it is, it’s also dry, and less entertaining than Eckert’s.
JimC says
I had the same experience with his biography of Blue Jacket. Dry to the point of lifelessness, which is a shame.
.lane batot says
SO MANY accounts of Tecumseh(and yes, well deserved), and so few of other influential Shawnee leaders, that you shouldn’t feel neglectful featuring Blue Jacket, for instance. Blue Jacket certainly SURVIVED far more than Tecumseh ever did, and even ended up adapting fairly well to the inevitable engulfing of his world and culture by the European invasion. And although Eckert’s portrayal of Blue Jacket as an adopted white captive that CHOSE to live with the Shawnee, in accordance to well-entrenched frontier legend, has been debunked by modern DNA tests from both Marmaduke Van Swearingen’s surviving family members, and the SHAWNEE Blue-jacket’s descendants–I still wonder…..One must be careful debunking history quite so decisively–there might be some truth to the tales that persisted so long. One question regarding this issue I always had, once this “truth” had been “proven” by Science(modern man’s New Religion, it seems, at times–NOT to be questioned! Although TRUE Science should ALWAYS be questioned–that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to work!)….), is that it SHOULD be understood by any historian that the name “Blue Jacket” was NOT uncommon at the time, as well as a plethora of “Red Shirts”, “Yellow Coats” etc. etc. So did the DNA-testers get the RIGHT Blue Jacket descendants? Perhaps there also WAS a Blue Jacket adopted white captive that chose to live with the Shawnee–maybe he never rose above a common warrior in prominence, but because of his name, was often confused with the true Shawnee-blooded Blue Jacket? Science has made “definitive” discoveries before that have turned out to be premature, or just flat out false. I’m doubting that the Blue Jacket portrayal in Eckert is very accurate, but I think there might well be SOMETHING to that legend–hopefully one day, somehow, it will come to light. Speaking of Eckert–I just got(and re-read) a copy of his “Silent Sky”–which I had read many years ago in grade school, but not since. It is an account of the last years of the Passenger Pigeons, and the human waste and greed is depressing, to say the least–but an excellent account. Eckert DID do his research, that’s for sure…..I’m still WAITING for some film about the early American frontier to CGI one of those MASSIVE flocks of Passenger Pigeons that took DAYS to pass overhead–I can’t believe no one has done that yet!
JimC says
I think you’re on to something re: Blue Jacket. There’s every possibility that the van Swearingen story relates to “a” Blue Jacket, but not THE Blue Jacket.
Outlander actually did the PP thing.
Starts at 3:23 of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tIOfzA_WRA
.lane batot says
AWRIGHT! AT LAST! “Outlander” does it again! It HAD to have been one of the most awesome natural phenomenons. If it occurred today, though, I bet most folks would just whine about their cars getting pooped on……
David Wrolson says
Ran across a recent book on a neglected area of frontier history.
“Terror on the Sante Fe Trail: Kit Carson and the Jicarilla Apache”
JimC says
Uh-oh…
Ted Franklin Belue says
HI Jim:
Quick query.
I’m writing for MUZZLELOADER mag an essay on AW Eckert, good friend of mine whose King Snake I read when I was a boy was actually my first book of his, and am wondering, as I’m including a few quotes re: AWE in my essay, if you minded if I lifted your grand AWE quote and a few related tidbits from your 7/31/2011 blog?
I’ll give full credit of course along with a blurb.
Great site … I love perusing through here. And superlative Shawnee pic up top as well.
Oh, also one of your pics posted way back, maybe called The Shawnee, that you credit to Bob Griffin was actually painted by David Wright. I was the model (I work cheap), have all the pics and all the geegaws and feathered-quilled gastoweh are in fact my own. Would that my face looked more like the painting.
Excuse haste … tfb Again, keep up the great work. We need folks like you. Excuse typos, rushing out door to go camp with David.
Best, Ted Franklin Belue
JimC says
It would be an honor. Thank you.
I made a correction on that post — David sent me a nice and funny note.
tfb says
Much thanks.
David’s a great guy except when he eats my food in camp. I collected my first piece of David Wright art in 1964–Battle of Franklin, clipped from the Nashville Banner. I was 10. He had just got sent to ‘Nam via Uncle Sam. I had no idea he’d painted it until 1992 or so when we were collaborating on our 1820 Harding-Lewis BOON. re-release for the KY Bicentennial and I saw it laying on a pack of old newspapers. I lost interest in the CW by 4th grade because the guns didn’t have rocks.
You might like my 3-part article in last 3 issues of MZ mag speculating on D. Boone’s possible foray in the Rockies and the evidence thereof–in January through June, 2020. Mostly new, previously unpublished Boone research.
Again, deepest thanks. tfb
JimC says
Loved your series.
I hear that the recently-departed Peter Bowen has an unpublished novel on Boone’s alleged time in the Rockies. Supposed to be released in 2021. Sure to be a wild and wooly tall tale.