Tecumseh - Great Indian and Warrior and Statesman

Tecumseh, more than any Indian leader, saw the need to unite his people in resistance to the white man.  He became closer than any other Indian to persuading his people to abandon their own interests and traditions to achieve Indian unity. 

He was the son of a Shawnee war chief name Puckeshinwa and a woman (probably Creek) named Methoataske.  He was born near present day Dayton, Ohio.  His father was murdered when he was six years old by white men trespassing on tribal lands and that changed his life.  He detested white men deeply for as long as he lived.


Tecumseh was adopted by Shawnee Blackfish who had also adopted Daniel Boone.  Tecumseh was 15 when he took part in actual combat, but quickly gained a reputation as a skillful and fearless warrior.  He also developed an unusual humanness in dealing with white settlers.

By 20 years of age, Tecumseh lead his own band of warriors.  By 1792 he was the leader of the Shawnee along the southern border of the United States.  He fought incessantly, believing that no individuals or tribes had the right to sell any part of common heritage.  "Why don't you just sell air, or clouds, the great sea as well as the earth?"

At 30 years of age, Tecumseh fell in love with the daughter of a white settler, Rebecca Galloway.  Under her influence Tecumseh studied the Bible, Shakespeare and classical history.  He proposed marriage but she insisted he live as a white man.  Despite his rejection of white culture, he was greatly influenced by it.

Next time - Battle of Tippecanoe
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  On February 15, 1812,  Wilson Hunt and his party stumble into the fur-trading post of Astoria, Oregon, .having departed St. Louis more than two years earlier,
Wilson was later romanticized as the archetypal frontier hero in Washington Irving’s novel Astoria, which chronicled the early Far West fur trade.