The Tecumseh confederacy was made up of a group of Native Americans in the Old Northwest part of the United States (Sugden, 8). The group was developed by a prophet from their community as early as 1808. The group later grew to have several thousands of warriors led by a man called Tecumseh from the Shawnee tribe (Edmunds, 14). Tecumseh was an older brother to the prophet who founded the confederacy.
The rationale of Tecumseh in forming the Indian Confederacy was to unite the Indians to fight for their land and defend their culture in the United States (Cave, 21). In a letter written in 1810 to William Henry Harrison Tecumseh explained that the only way red men (native Indians) would be to unite and claim their common and equal right-land since in their culture land was not to be divided (Edmunds, 28).
Tecumseh wanted the native Indians to unite and resist the growing encroachment of their land by whites who were invading their land. According to Sugden, any Shawnees living in Ohio Valley were also becoming increasingly dependent on trade with Americans (16). The native Indians were dependent on the Americans for cloths, metal goods and guns. Tecumseh was not amused by the growing dependence on Americans and called for his people to return to traditional Indian ways. This was also another reason why he wanted to form the United Indian States. He therefore moved to persuade the Indians living in the Deep South states ad those in the Old Northwest to unite into a confederation (Edmunds, 36). Indians from as far as Minnesota and Massachusetts heeded Tecumseh’s call and by 1810 Tecumseh had successfully established the Ohio Valley Confederacy in which Indians of the Potawatomi, Shawnee, Wenominee, Kickapoo, Wyandot and Ottawa tribes united to resist the whites (Cave, 22).
Tecumseh’s decision to unite the native Indians against the whites was not a strategic decision and was not good for his people. The Indian Confederacy succeeded for sometime in defending their land, until 1811 when William Henry Harrison marshaled troops to attack the Indian Confederacy’s base at Tippecanoe River (Sugden, 116). During the attack Tecumseh was visiting the South states to convince them to join the Indian confederacy. Though the battle was fierce, Harrison won and killed many of Tecumseh’s warriors.
Works cited
Sugden, John Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Holt. 1997. Print
Cave, Alfred, The Shawnee Prophet, Tecumseh, and Tippecanoe: A Case Study of Historical Myth-Making. Journal of the Early Republic, winter 2002, Vol. 22 Issue 4, p637-74
Edmunds, David. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.
