Tecumseh Changed My Brain

Brief Background

Some weeks ago I decided to remove the facebook app from my phone. The platform is designed to keep people in a constant state of fight or flight and will paralyze folks from thinking and acting like a human being. The platform is flooded with ai bots and foreign influence that isn't conducive to human behavior or thought.

So I pulled out my Kindle Paperwhite and whenever I thought I wanted a doom-scroll, I opened a digital book. I figured out how to load books from the Gutenberg Project into it and of late I have been reading through "The life of Tecumseh and His Brother the Prophet" by Benjamin Drake.
Located here : https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15581

This whole post is about that reading and what has been sticking as a mystery in my thoughts.

To Catch You Up

To summarize what is unshakable in my head, and bring folks who care up to date with the mystery:

Tecumseh (1768-1813) was a Shawanoe (Shawnee) that never sat still. He was, by all American historical recollection and writings, charismatic, strong, handsome, and probably a literal genius. He was a brilliant and impassioned speaker, but I also have come to realize, a legendary hustler that had the survival of his people at heart. Some of the US generals of the day have mused that had the whites not come to the shores, Tecumseh may have raised a civilization here in the US to rival that of that Mayans.

The US aboriginal tribes had a real problem with white Europeans arriving, breeding, and blindly claiming land as their own. Just willy-nilly, they'd show up, consider the native tribes "heathen" because they had a different religion, and therefore invalid. The whites were overflowing, combative, and had already pushed the native people that didn't convert off the eastern coast. This is not to say the tribes weren't combative either. The Shawnee were legendary warriors and war among tribes was real.

About this time in the 1800s, the British were mounting hostilities with the US and were trying desperately to sway the natives into joining them against the "17 Fires" (U.S. settlements).

gathered there were starting to believe Tecumseh and the Prophet were connected to Creator. Tecumseh gathered hundreds of listeners before his departure and told them, "You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall know. I leave Tuckabatchee directly, and shall go straight to Detroit. when I arrive there, I will stamp on the ground with my foot and shake down every house in Tuckabatchee."

The Creeks counted the days and exactly on December 16th, 1811 the New Madrid Earthquakes hit the area and destroyed many houses. The Creeks and all who heard him, were sold and joined Tecumseh because of this.

This is what has stuck in my head. HOW did Tecumseh nail this event to the day? Yes there were signs of some lesser seismic activity, but he nailed a big earthquake to the day. Did he, in frustration with Big Chief, just pick a day and got lucky? Tecumseh's strategic mind didn't really lend itself to blind luck.

Later at the battle of Tippecanoe, the Prophet disregarded Tecumseh's instructions to keep peace with the US at all costs until his return. He had perhaps convinced himself he was a prophet. He foretold to hundreds of warriors to charge into battle promising the US bullets would drop at their feet. while the battle broke out and raged on, the Prophet sat in his tent chanting and singing.... which rose the fervor and bravery of the warrior, but many fell to bullets that did indeed, not drop harmlessly at their feet. This disregard of Tecumseh's strategy ruined the prophet's reputation, enraged his brother Tecumseh, and disbanded their confederacy of tribes.

He did join the British eventually in the war of 1812, seeing it as a path to push the whites back to their land. He died in battle in 1813.

Summary

I have found myself much better adapted and able to get through these days in this rise of modern Fascism by reading instead of doom scrolling propaganda. I have also taken away some lessons of history and fantasy in this new habit. In The Time Machine, I realized the Morlocks were akin to magats, and came to know other people who have faced trying times in the past. People like Tecumseh, who, in a tidal wave of opposition, dug in his heels and chose to fight with whatever tools he had. And indeed had he not, even though in the end he may not have "won" it is because of him  and others like him that maintained any semblance of the tribal history today.