714 



TECUMIGIZHTK — TEDY DSK UTTa 



tS. A. H. 



Gecualme.— Orozco y Berra, Geog., 280, 1864 (mis- 

 print). Jecualme. — MotaPadi 11a misquoted, ibid., 

 277. Tecualmes.— Mota Padilla (1742), Conq. 

 Nueva Galicia, 21, 1872. 



Tecumigizhik. See Tikumigizhik. 



Tecumseh ( properly Tikamthi or Tecurn- 

 tha: 'One who pas^ses across intervening 

 space from one point to another,' i. e. 

 springs (Jones); the name indicates that 

 the owner belongs to the gens of the Great 

 Medicine Panther, or Meteor, hence 

 the interpretations 'Crouching Panther' 

 and 'Shooting Star' ) . A celebrated Shaw- 

 nee chief, born in 1768 at the Shawnee 

 village of Piqua on Mad r. , about 6 m. s. w. 

 of the present Springfield, Ohio. It was 

 destroyed by the Kentuckians in 1780. 

 His father, who was also a chief, was 

 killed at the battle of Point Pleasant in 

 1774 (see Cornstalk). His mother is said 



to have been by birth a Creek, but this 

 is doubtful. It must be remembered that 

 a considerable body of Shawnee were 

 domiciliated among the Creeks until long 

 after the Revolution. On the death of 

 his father, Tecumseh was placed under 

 the care of an elder brother, who in turn 

 was killed in battle with the whites on 

 the Tennessee frontier in 1788 or 1789. 

 Still another brother was killed by Te- 

 cumseh's side at Wayne's victory in 1794. 

 While still a young man Tecumseh dis- 

 tinguished himself in the border wars of 

 the period, but was noted also for his 

 humane character, evinced by jiersuading 

 his tribe to discontinue the practice of 

 torturing prisoners. Together with his 

 brother Tenskwatawa the Prophet (q. v. ), 

 he was an ardent opponent of the advance 



of the white man, and denied the right 

 of the Government to make land purchases 

 from any single tribe, on the ground that 

 the territory, especially in the Ohio val- 

 ley country, belonged to all the tribes in 

 common. On the refusal of the Govern- 

 ment to recognize this principle, he un- 

 dertook the formation of a great confed- 

 eracy of all the western and southern 

 tribes for the purpose of holding the Ohio 

 r. as the permanent boundary between 

 the two races. In pursuance of this ob- 

 ject he or his agents visited every tribe 

 from Florida to the head of the Missouri 

 r. While Tecumseh was organizing the 

 work in the S. his plans were brought to 

 disastrous overthrow by the premature 

 battle of Tippecanoe under the direction 

 of the Prophet, Nov. 7, 1811. On the 

 breaking out of the War of 1812, Te- 

 cumseh at once led his forces to the sup- 

 port of the British, and was rewarded 

 with a regular commission as brigadier- 

 general, having under his command some 

 2,000 warriors of the allied tribes. He 

 fought at Frenchtown, The Raisin, Ft 

 ]Meigs, and Ft Stephenson, and covered 

 Proctor's retreat after Perry's decisive vic- 

 tory on L. Erie, until, declining to retreat 

 farther, he compelled Proctor to make a 

 stand on Thames r. , near the present Chat- 

 am, Ont. In the bloody battle which en- 

 sued the allied British and Indians were 

 completely defeated by Harrison, Tecum- 

 t^eh himself falling in the front of his 

 warriors, Oct. 5, 1813, being then in his 

 45th year. With a presentiment of death 

 he had discarded his general's uniform 

 Ijefore the battle and dressed himself in 

 his Indian deerskin. He left one son, 

 the father of Wapameepto, alias Big Jim 

 ( q. V. ) . From all that is said of Tecumseh 

 in contemporary record, there is no rea- 

 son to doubt the verdict of Trumbull that 

 he was the most extraordinary Indian 

 character in United States history. There 

 is no true portrait of him in existence, 

 the one commonly given as such in Loss- 

 ing's War of 1812 (1875) and reproduced 

 in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American 

 Biography (1894), and Mooney's Ghost 

 Dance (1896), being a composite result 

 based on a pencil sketch made about 1812, 

 on which were mounted his cap, medal, 

 and uniform. Consult Appleton Cycl. 

 Am. Biog., VI, 1894; Drake, Life of Te- 

 cumseh, 1841; Eggleston, Tecumseh and 

 the Shawnee Prophet, 1878; Law, Colo- 

 nial Hist. Vincennes, 1858; Lossing, War 

 of 1812, 1875 ; McKenney and Hall, Ind. 

 Tribes, i, 1854; Mooney, Ghost Dance 

 Religion, in 14th Rep. B. A. E., pt. ii, 

 1896; Randall, Tecumseh, in Ohio Ar- 

 cha3ol. and Hist. Quar., Oct. 1906; Trum- 

 bull, Indian Wars, 1851. (j. m.) 



Tedyuskung (possibly a variant of Ke- 

 keuskung, or Kikeuskund, of the Munsee 

 dialect, which signifies 'the healer,' 'one 



