Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet | Page 8

number does not exceed eighteen hundred.
They have ever been considered a courageous, powerful and faithless
race; who hare claimed for themselves a pre-eminence not only over
other tribes, but also over the whites.[B] Their views in regard to this
superiority were briefly set forth by one of their chiefs at a convention
held at fort Wayne, in 1803.
[Footnote A: John Johnston.]
[Footnote B: General Harrison considers the Shawanoes, Delawares
and Miamis, as much superior to the other tribes of the west.]
"The Master of Life," said he, "who was himself an Indian, made the
Shawanoes before any other of the human race; and they sprang from
his brain: he gave them all the knowledge he himself possessed, and
placed them upon the great island, and all the other red people are
descended from the Shawanoes. After he had made the Shawanoes, he
made the French and English out of his breast, the Dutch out of his feet,
and the long-knives out of his hands. All these inferior races of men he
made white and placed them beyond the stinking lake.[A]
"The Shawanoes for many ages continued to be masters of the
continent, using the knowledge they had received from the Great Spirit
in such a manner as to be pleasing to him, and to secure their own
happiness. In a great length of time, however, they became corrupt, and
the Master of Life told them that he would take away from them the
knowledge which they possessed, and give it to the white people, to be
restored, when by a return to good principles they would deserve it.
Many ages after that, they saw something white approaching their
shores; at first they took it for a great bird, but they soon found it to be
a monstrous canoe filled with the very people who had got the
knowledge which belonged to the Shawanoes. After these white people
landed, they were not content with having the knowledge which
belonged to the Shawanoes, but they usurped their lands also; they
pretended, indeed, to have purchased these lands; but the very goods
they gave for them, were more the property of the Indians than the

white people, because the knowledge which enabled them to
manufacture these goods actually belonged to the Shawanoes: but these
things will soon have an end. The Master of Life is about to restore to
the Shawanoes both their knowledge and their rights, and he will
trample the long knives under his feet."
[Footnote A: Atlantic Ocean.]
It has been already stated that, for a series of years, the several tribes of
Indians residing in the territory now forming the state of Ohio, made
violent opposition to the settlement of the whites, west of the
Alleghanies. Among the most formidable of these were the Shawanoes.
The emigrants, whether male or female, old or young, were every
where met by the torch, the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. The
war-cry of the savage was echoed from shore to shore of the beautiful
Ohio, whose waters were but too often reddened with the blood of
women and children. Many of those who escaped the perils of the river,
and had reared their log-cabins amid the cane-brakes of Kentucky, were
doomed to encounter the same ruthless foe, and fell victims to the same
unrelenting cruelty. While the feelings are shocked at these dreadful
scenes of blood and carnage, and the Indian character rises in hideous
deformity before the mind, it is not to be forgotten that there are many
mitigating circumstances to be pleaded in behalf of the aborigines.
They were an ignorant people, educated alone for war, without the
lights of civilization, without the attributes of mercy shed abroad by the
spirit of christianity. They were contending for their homes and their
hunting grounds--the tombs of their forefathers--the graves of their
children. They saw the gradual, but certain, encroachments of the
whites upon their lands; and they had the sagacity to perceive, that
unless this mighty wave of emigration was arrested, it would
overwhelm them. They fought as savage nature will fight, with
unflinching courage and unrelenting cruelty. But it was not alone this
encroachment upon their lands, which roused their savage passions.
The wanton aggressions of the whites oftentimes provoked the fearful
retaliation of the red-man. The policy of the United States towards the
Indians has generally been of a pacific and benevolent character; but, in
carrying out that policy, there have been many signal and inexcusable
failures. The laws enacted by congress for the protection of the rights of
the Indians, and to promote their comfort and civilization, have, in a

great variety of cases, remained a dead letter upon the statute book. The
agents of the government have often proved unfaithful, and have
looked much more to their own