The Canadian Brothers | Page 6

of nations long rendered familiar
by personal intercourse, not only with the inhabitants of the district, but
with the troops themselves; and these, from frequent association with
the whites, had lost much of that fierceness which is so characteristic of
the North American Indian in his ruder state. Among these, with the
more intelligent Hurons, were the remnants of those very tribes of
Shawanees and Delawares whom we have recorded to have borne, half
a century ago, so prominent a share in the confederacy against England,
but who, after the termination of that disastrous war, had so far
abandoned their wild hostility, as to have settled in various points of
contiguity to the forts to which they, periodically, repaired to receive
those presents which a judicious policy so profusely bestowed.
The reinforcement just arriving was composed principally of warriors
who had never yet pressed a soil wherein civilization had extended her
influence--men who had never hitherto beheld the face of a white,
unless it were that of the Canadian trader, who, at stated periods,
penetrated fearlessly into their wilds for purposes of traffic, and who to
the bronzed cheek that exposure had rendered nearly as swarthy as their
own, united not only the language but so wholly the dress--or rather the
undress of those he visited, that he might easily have been confounded
with one of their own dark blooded race. So remote, indeed, were the
regions in which some of these warriors had been sought, that they
were strangers to the existence of more than one of their tribes, and
upon these they gazed with a surprise only inferior to what they
manifested, when, for the first time, they marked the accoutrements of
the British soldier, and turned with secret, but unacknowledged awe
and admiration upon the frowning fort and stately shipping, bristling
with cannon, and vomiting forth sheets of flame as they approached the
shore. In these might have been studied the natural dignity of man.
Firm of step--proud of mien--haughty yet penetrating of look, each
leader offered in his own person a model to the sculptor, which he
might vainly seek elsewhere. Free and unfettered in every limb, they
moved in the majesty of nature, and with an air of dark reserve, passed,
on landing, through the admiring crowd.
There was one of the number, however, and his canoe was decorated

with a richer and a larger flag, whose costume was that of the more
civilized Indians, and who in nobleness of deportment, even surpassed
those we have last named. This was Tecumseh. He was not of the race
of either of the parties who now accompanied him, but of one of the
nations, many of whose warriors were assembled on the bank awaiting
his arrival. As the head chief of the Indians, his authority was
acknowledged by all, even to the remotest of these wild but interesting
people, and the result of the exercise of his all-powerful influence had
been the gathering together of those warriors, whom he had personally
hastened to collect from the extreme west, passing in his course, and
with impunity, the several American posts that lay in their way. In
order more fully to comprehend the motives and character of this
remarkable man, it may not be impertinent to recur summarily to events
that took place prior to the declaration of war by the United States
against England.
It being a well established--and even by themselves
uncontradicted--fact, we can have no hesitation in stating (what we
trust no American will conceive to be stated in illiberality of spirit,
since such feeling we utterly disclaim) that the government of the
United States, bent on the final acquisition of all the more proximate
possessions of the Indians, had for many consecutive years, waged a
war of extermination against these unfortunate people, and more
especially those residing on the Wabash, to which the eye of interest or
preference, or both, had directed a jealous attention. For a series of
years the aggression had been prosecuted with fearful issue to the
Indians, when, at length, one of those daring spirits, that appear like
meteors, few and far between, in the horizon of glory and intelligence,
suddenly started up in the person of Tecumseh, who, possessed of a
genius, as splendid in conception, as it was bold in execution, long
continued to baffle the plans and defeat the measures of his most
experienced enemies. Whether the warrior owed his original influence,
or rather the opportunity for development of his extraordinary talents,
both diplomatic and warlike, to the fact of his being the brother of the
Prophet--a similar, and rather mean looking person, whom a deep
reading of the prejudices of his followers had bound to him in an
enthusiasm of superstitious credence --whether, we repeat, Tecumseh
owed his