Tecumseh -- How Did the Legend and the Dream Die?

“Tecumseh's skin was bullet-proof. When he went into battle, he always wore a white deer-skin hunting shirt, around which was girt a strap. The bullets shot at him would go through his shirt, and fall harmless inside. When the weight of the bullets inside the shirt became too great, he would unstrap his belt and let them fall through to the ground. He was a brave man, as a man whom bullets could not wound would of course be; he never used a gun in battle, only a hatchet.

“Tecumseh had but one son. One day, when the great warrior had grown old and feeble, he called his son to him and said: 'I am getting old. I want to leave you what has made me proof against bullets.' Thereupon Tecumseh commenced to retch, and try to vomit. He repeated this several times and finally threw up a smooth, black stone, about three inches long.

“That stone was Tecumseh's soul. Handing it to his son, he said: 'I could not be killed by a bullet, but will die only of old age. This is to be your charm against bullets, also.' And so his son swallowed it, that he, likewise, might never be killed by a bullet. And he never was."

-- Spoon Decorah, interview by Reuben Thwaites conducted at the home of Spoon, in the town of Big Flats, Adams county, some ten miles north of Friendship, 

March 29, 1887

Tecumseh (“Shooting Star”) was a legendary Native American war chief of the Shawnee. His political leadership, oratory, humanitarianism, and personal bravery attracted the attention of friends and foes. He was much admired by both the British and the Americans as he led a large tribal confederacy (known as Tecumseh's Confederacy) which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812.

After his death in Ontario, Canada, at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, Tecumseh became an iconic folk hero in American, Aboriginal, and Canadian history. Details of his death in battle have been the subject of endless debate – a matter based on incomplete accounts, speculation, and popular lore.

How did Tecumseh die and what happened to his remains? Those mysteries still fascinate lovers of history.

Dramatic Rendition

The historian Allan Eckert's dramatic account is depicted in the Tecumseh! outdoor drama. In this version, the frontiersman Simon Kenton, who was at the battle and had met Tecumseh previously, was asked to identify the body after the battle. Although on different sides, Kenton and Tecumseh held a great deal of respect for each other. Kenton knew Tecumseh's body would be mutilated and scalped by the soldiers, and he felt the warrior deserved better, so he falsely identified a different body to allow Tecumseh to be taken away by his comrades at night to provide him a proper burial in a secret grave.

"Historical" Accounts

Historical accounts of Tecumseh's last day say recall that Tecumseh and 600 warriors screened the retreat of General Henry Procter and his British troop after William Henry Harrison and his militiamen had invaded Ontario in the fall of 1813.

On October 5 Harrison caught up with Procter at the Thames River near Moraviantown. The British general ignominiously fled, and after a single American volley, all his regular troops surrendered. Tecumseh meanwhile positioned his exhausted men in a patch of swampy woodland and told them he would retreat no farther.

At some point during the attack on Backmetack Marsh, Tecumseh was fatally shot. As word spread of their leader's death, one American account tells of the warriors giving, "the loudest yells I ever heard from human beings and that ended the fight."

Bill Gilbert of the Smithsonian magazine wrote …

“Having finished the British, Harrison sent dragoons and infantry into these thickets. After an hour of fierce fighting Tecumseh was killed, or presumably so. At least he was never again seen alive …

“The first battle reports – later embellished in bloody detail – claimed Harrison's brave boys had overcome 3,000 superb warriors led by the great Tecumseh. Naturally the public was eager to know which American hero had brought down this mighty Shawnee champion.

“Warriors who survived the battle told various stories. They had been forced to leave Tecumseh's body on the field. They had carried him off, either mortally wounded or dead, and buried him in a secret place that whites would never find.

“As for the Americans, none of those who first overran Tecumseh's position were acquainted with him. But they found an impressive-looking dead Indian who they were convinced was Tecumseh. Some cut strips of skin from this body, later tanning them for razor strops and leather souvenirs. When people arrived who did know him, some said the battered corpse was indeed Tecumseh's. Others said it was not. Even Harrison could not positively identify it.”

Still, a number of Americans claimed they had personally killed Tecumseh. Most prominent among them was Colonel Richard Johnson, a Kentucky politician who fought at the Thames as a cavalry commander and who said he shot Tecumseh just before he lost consciousness. Johnson never claimed to have killed Tecumseh until it became politically advantageous to do so.

Nonetheless, a great number of Johnson's constituents evidently supported his claim. With supporters chanting "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh," Johnson was first elected to the U.S. Senate and then, in 1836, to the Vice Presidency. With a little help from another catchy jingle, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," William Henry Harrison became President four years later.

Wyandott historian, Peter D. Clarke, offered a different explanation concerning Johnson after talking with Indians who had fought in the battle: "(A) Potawatamie brave, who, on perceiving an American officer (supposed to be Colonel Johnson) on horse … turned to tomahawk his pursuer, but was shot down by him with his pistol … The fallen Potawatamie brave was probably taken for Tecumseh by some of Harrison's infantry, and mutilated soon after the battle."

Caleb Atwater, in his History of Ohio, remarks, that two Winnebago chiefs, Four-Legs and Carymaunee, told him, that Tecumseh, at the commencement of the battle lay with his warriors in a thicket of underbrush on the left of the American army, and that they were, at no period of the battle, out of their covert – that no officer was seen between them and the American troops – that Tecumseh fell the very first fire of the Kentucky dragoons, pierced by thirty bullets, and was carried four or five miles into the thick woods and there buried by the warriors, who told the story of his fate.

After an exhaustive study, John Sugden, who provided an in-depth examination of Tecumseh's death in his book, Tecumseh's Last Stand, could not conclude that Johnson killed Tecumseh.

In another account by Clarke, "A half-Indian and half-white, named William Caldwell … overtook and passed Tecumseh, who was walking along slowly, using his rifle for a staff – when asked by Caldwell if he was wounded, he replied in English, 'I am shot' – Caldwell noticed where a rifle bullet had penetrated his breast, through his buckskin hunting coat. His body was found by his friends, where he had laid [sic] down to die, untouched, within the vicinity of the battle ground … "

Several other of Harrison's men also claimed to have killed Tecumseh; however, none of them were present when Tecumseh was mortally wounded … or, at least alive to tell about it.

Some evidence points to Colonel William Whitley as the man who killed Tecumseh. A colorful pioneer, Whitley founded modern horse racing in the United States and made some of the first Kentucky sour mash whiskey. His recipe is still used by Evan Williams and Jack Daniels. He built the first brick home west of the Allegheny mountains as well, but his fame was that of an Indian fighter.

Whitley died in the Battle of the Thames, and his body was found very close to a body claimed to be Tecumseh. In his 1929 autobiography, Single Handed, James A Drain, Sr., Whitley's grandson, gives a detailed account by Col. Whitley’s granddaughter in which Whitley and Tecumseh killed each other simultaneously.

Sugden argued that Whitley had been killed in battle prior to Tecumseh's death. But, Whitley's grandson continued to claim that his grandfather single-handedly shot and killed Tecumseh. As Drain explained it, Whitley was mortally wounded, but he saw Tecumseh spring towards him, "intent upon taking for himself a scalp", and drew his gun "to center his sights upon the red man's breast. And as he fired, he fell and the Indian as well, each gone where good fighting men go."

Still another report came from the badly-wounded Colonel James Davidson who claimed that a man in his company, Private David King, shot Tecumseh with Whitley's rifle. It was reported King was next to Whitley when he was killed, and King picked up Whitley’s rifle, which was much better than his own and was loaded and ready to be fired, and shot Tecumseh. There were also eyewitnesses who saw King take the possessions from the body of Tecumseh, which was a common act.

Edwin Seaborn, who recorded an oral history from Saugeen First Nation in the 1930s, provides another account of Tecumseh's death. Pe-wak-a-nep, who was seventy years old in 1938, describes his grandfather's eyewitness account of Tecumseh's last battle. Pe-wak-a-nep explained that Tecumseh was fighting on a bridge when his lance snapped. Tecumseh "fell after 'a long knife' was run through his shoulder from behind." The witness, who hid in the water by “turning himself into a turtle” under a log, saw Americans take the body of another warrior to a tree and mutilate it, not Tecumseh.

John Sugden wrote that the details of how Tecumseh died remain unclear. Sugdon reported Tecumseh's body was identified by British prisoners after the battle and examined by some Americans who knew him and could confirm that its injuries were consistent with earlier wounds that Tecumseh has suffered to his legs (a broken thigh and a bullet wound). The body had a fatal wound to the left breast and also showed damage to the head by a blow, possibly inflicted after his death.

According to Sugden, Tecumseh's body had been defiled, although later accounts were likely exaggerated. Sugden also discounted some conflicting Indian accounts that indicated his body had been removed from the battlefield before it could be mutilated.

From his analysis of the evidence, Sugden firmly claimed that Tecumseh's remains, mutilated beyond recognition, were left on the battlefield. Sugden's Tecumseh's Last Stand (1985) also recounted varied accounts of Tecumseh's burial and the still unknown location of his gravesite.

Absolute and perfect evidence does not exist. It is held that eight Native Americans gave testimony in relation to the death of Tecumseh. Of these, four assert that he was killed by the first fire from the American line; and four that he fell by the hands of a horseman, some time after the commencement of the action.

One of these native witnesses states that Tecumseh was shot in the neck; another, that he was hit above or in the eyes; two others that he was killed by a ball in the hip; and again two others, that he was pierced by thirty bullets on the first fire of our troops.

Three of these native witnesses testify that the body of the fallen chief was mutilated by taking the skin from off the thigh, and three that it was not.

As to the nature of his wounds, the mutilation of his body, the time when, the spot where, and by whose hands, he fell, these various statements are wholly irreconcilable with each other, and leave the main question involved in additional doubt and obscurity.

Said to be the rifle that shot Tecumseh

Burial Grounds

One of the natives who carried Tecumseh's body away from the battlefield was said to have been Oshawana (variously given as Shawnoo, Shawanaw, and Oshawahnoo) also known as Chief John Nahdee. He had been with Tecumseh in his last battle. He settled in the Township of Anderdon.

In 1848, Chief Nahdee and members of his band surrendered the 300 acres they held at Anderdon and moved to Walpole. He is said to have buried Tecumseh's bones on St. Anne Island and, when he died, passed on the knowledge of where they were. They were in the care of Chief John White when the Soldiers' Club reburied them.

No record exists of the exact location of Tecumseh’s grave. But Ken Tankersley, a University of Cincinnati archaeologist who is an enrolled member of the Piqua Shawnee and sits on the tribe’s Council of Elders, says that isn’t important. “For indigenous people, and the Shawnee in particular, what’s important is for the dead to ‘make the journey,’ or allowing the body to decompose, creating nutrients in the soil, and thus allow the cycle of life to continue.”

Tankersley notes that Shawnee will occasionally visit the battlefield and leave a tobacco offering. “We know where the battle was, and the whole battlefield is considered a sacred site, and that is close enough.” He predicts that protests would erupt if an archaeologist or anyone else ever tried to find Tecumseh’s remains. Even using noninvasive remote-sensing technology to locate the burial would be considered unacceptable, says Tankersley. “No one should ever go looking for Tecumseh.”

Of the eight native witnesses who say they saw the body, one says it was there the day after the action, lying on the battle ground; a second bears witness that it was buried on the spot the night of the battle; and a third, that it was carried four or five miles into the woods, and there interred.

There is further evidence suggesting that Tecumseh's remains may be buried on Walpole Island in Canada. Tecumseh was known to have had a broken thigh bone suffered in a fall from his horse while hunting buffalo on the Illinois prairies. Old bones were found there fitting this description. Of course, this does not prove the bones were Tecumseh's. According to an examination of the bones in the 1930s before the skeleton was reburied, the thigh bone was missing. That seems convenient, doesn't it?

The Dying Tecumseh

The Legend

A decade or so after his death Tecumseh had become “The Noble.” Towns, businesses and people were named for him. It was widely believed that his was the face that appeared on the "Indian Head" penny – a legend that overrode the facts as is often the case. No other declared enemy of the United States has been so well regarded for so long as has Tecumseh.

Praise for noble enemies – those dispatched and gone – is part of a long heroic tradition.

Whatever the accuracy of the details, Tecumseh's death remains a matter of interest and an enduring story of brave resistance. His skin was not “bullet proof.” Perhaps, his memory is.

One undeniable truth of the great leader sustains his tragic fame. Tecumseh’s single-minded mission, a secure Indian homeland, died with him in Ontario, Canada, at the Battle of the Thames. This was the demise of a truly American dream.

The Fear of Death

By Tecumseh

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Sources

“Autumn 1813 – Tecumseh's death launches artwork and political careers: Richard M. Johnson Campaign Slogan for Vice President.” National Park Service.

Dale K. Benington. The Death of Tecumseh Marker. July 23, 2013.

Peter Dooyentate Clarke. Origin and traditional history of the Wyandotts and sketches of other Indian tribes of North America, true traditional stories of Tecumseh and his league, in the years 1811 and 1812. 1870.

Spoon Decorah. "Narrative of Spoon Decorah. In an Interview with the Editor." Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed. Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Vol. 13 Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society.1887.

Donald Fixico. “A Native Nations Perspective on the War of 1812.” WOSU Public Media.

Geheo. October 5, 2011.

Bill Gilbert. “The Dying Tecumseh and the Birth of a Legend.” Smithsonian Magazine. July 1995.

Charles Hamilton, ed. Cry of the Thunderbird: The American Indian's Own Story. New York: Macmillan Company. 1950.

John Sugden. Tecumseh's Last Stand. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1985.

“Tecumseh, Shawnee Leader.” Archaeology. August/September 2013.

Jason Winders. "Lecture Revisits Western's Archives and Tecumseh's Death.” March 27, 2014.

Historical Note: Commentary. "Spoon Decorah" – the interview by Reuben Thwaites was conducted "at the home of Spoon, in the town of Big Flats, Adams county, some ten miles north of Friendship, March 29, 1887. Moses Paquette, of Black River Falls, acted as interpreter. Spoon, who died in a cranberry marsh northwest of Necedah, Oct. 13, 1889, was a tall, well-formed, manly-looking fellow, with a well-shaped head, pleasant, open features, and dignified demeanor ... The old man told his story in a straightforward, dignified manner, his memory being occasionally jogged by Doctor Decorah, his nephew. The Doctor is a medicine-man, held in high esteem by the Decorah, or mixed-blood element of the Wisconsin Winnebagoes, who live chiefly upon homesteads in Adams, Marquette, and Jackson counties. ... Paquette is a faithful and intelligent interpreter, and in ease carefully rendered both questions and answers. The result I have formulated into two continuous narratives, following as closely as possible the Indian manner of speech; as here printed, they meet with Paquette's approval."

Spoon