moonev] TECUMTHA AT GREENVILLE 683 



animal, but as a shooting star, and exceeding in size other shooting stars. This 

 monster gave name to a Shawano clan, and this clan, to which Tecumtha belonged, 

 was classed among the claw-foot animals also. The quick motion of the shooting 

 star "was correctly likened to that of a tiger or wildcat rushing upon his prey. 

 Shooting stars are supposed to he souls of great men all over America. The home 

 of the dead is always in the west, where the celestial bodies set, and since meteors 

 travel westward they were supposed to return to their western home. 



Tecumtha was now in the prime of manhood, beiug about 40 years of 

 age, and had already thougbtout his scheme of uniting all the tribes in 

 one grand confederation to resist the further encroachments of the 

 whites, on the principle that the Indians had common interests, and that 

 what concerned one tribe concerned all. As the tribes were constantly 

 shifting about, following the game in its migrations, he held that no one 

 tribe had any more than a possessory right to the land while in actual 

 occupancy, and that any sale of lands, to be valid, must be sanctioned 

 by all the tribes concerned. Hisclaim was certainly founded in justice, 

 but the government refused to admit the principle in theory, although 

 repeatedly acting on it in practice, for every important treaty after- 

 ward made in Mississippi valley was a joint treaty, as it was found 

 impossible to assign the ownership of any considerable section to any one 

 particular tribe. The Shawano themselves hunted from the Cumber- 

 laud to the Susquehanna. As a basal proposition, Tecumtha claimed 

 that the Greenville treaty, having been forced on the Indians, was 

 invalid; that the only true boundary was the Ohio, as established in 

 17(i8, and that all future cessions must have the sanction of all the 

 tribes claiming rights in that region. 



By this time there were assembled at Greenville to listen to the teach- 

 ings of the prophet hundreds of savages, representing till tlte widely 

 extended tribes of the lake region and the great northwest, all wrought. 

 up to the highest pitch of excitement over the prospect of a revival of 

 the old Indian life and the perpetuation of aboriginal sovereignty. 

 This was Tecumtba's opportunity, and he was quick to improve it. 

 Even those who doubted the spiritual revelations could see that they 

 were in danger from the continued advances of the whites, and were 

 easily convinced that safety required that they should unite as one 

 people for the preservation of a common boundary. The pilgrims car- 

 ried back these ideas to their several tribes, and thus what was at first 

 a simple religious revival soon became a political agitation. They were 

 equally patriotic from the Indian point of view, and under the circum- 

 stances one was almost the natural complement of the other. All the 

 evidence goes to show that the movement in its inception was purely 

 religious and peaceable; but the military spirit of Tecumtha afterward 

 gave to it a warlike and even aggressive character, and henceforth the 

 apostles of the prophet became also recruiting agents for his brother. 

 Tecumtha himself was too sensible to think that the whites would be 

 destroyed by any interposition of heaven, or that they could be driven 

 out by any combination of the Indians, but he did believe it possible 



