A Nation Rising by Kenneth C. Davis Page B

heavily in debt, which forced the tribes to cede enormous tracts of their lands to the federal government. In the midst of these increasingly corrupt and often underhanded dealings, aggressive white settlers were also raising tensions by swarming into the contested territories. Tribal lands, once held communally, were swallowed at an alarming rate, and although the Creeks attempted to accommodate white ways, their existence as a people was under assault. Also, to the typical white settler, the Indians were for the most part “savages,” with no rights to land to which they had no deeds.
    This was the crisis facing William Weatherford’s Creek people as the War of 1812 approached. A turning point in Weatherford’s life and in the future of the Creek nation came with the arrival in Creek territory of Tecumseh, a charismatic Shawnee leader who was trying to unite the disparate Native American tribes against the American government. Tecumseh had been born around 1768 in what is now Dayton, Ohio. Part Creek on his mother’s side, he grew up at war with Americans. As a teenager, he joined the British during the Revolution. After the war, he fought on the losing side in several of the notable battles that secured American control over the future states of Ohio and Indiana.
    While living in Ohio, Tecumseh apparently fell in love witha white woman: Rebecca Galloway, the daughter of a farmer. She taught him history, Shakespeare, and the Bible. 11 But she wanted him to abandon his traditional ways, and Tecumseh refused. Around 1805, Tecumseh and his brother, Tenskwatawa—usually called “the Prophet”—became part of a militant Native American religious revival in which all tribes were urged to reject white ways and stop ceding lands to the United States. Just as the Great Awakening had transformed colonial American society and politics in the 1740s, this Native American “awakening” was succeeding in creating a united front against the inexorable westward movement of Americans into Indian lands in the Midwest.
    Tall, impressive in his demeanor, and a natural orator, Tecumseh set out on a mission to create a confederation of Indian nations that could roll back the American advance and restore native traditions. Between 1809 and 1811, he began to preach “red unity” as a means of survival. Tecumseh provided political leadership, and his brother, the Prophet, gave their mission the feel of a religious crusade. He appealed mainly to the “Young Turks,” angry young Indian men who did not want to be forced out of their land by the white settlers.
    â€œTecumseh’s movement was a coalition of warriors, not of tribes,” writes the Dartmouth historian Colin Calloway. “Warriors from far and wide cast aside their venal chiefs and gravitated to Tecumseh and his vision of a still-strong Indian nation that would stand up to American aggression.” 12
    In 1811, Tecumseh took that vision to the Southeast, holding a series of tribal councils with leaders of the Civilized Nations, including the Creeks. His appeal merely divided the Creek leadership between two rival camps: those who wanted to join Tecumseh—and some actually did ride off with the Shawnee general—and the “accommodationists,” who thought that the prospect of war with America was suicidal. William Weatherford was initially caught between the two, but he would eventually be brought to the side of the warriors. This fundamental fissure within Creek ranks eventually contributed to a Creek tribal civil war that, fatefully, led to the attack on Fort Mims, and after that, the wider Creek War.
    While Tecumseh was still on his recruiting mission through the Southeast, however, events spun beyond his control. His brother, the Prophet, who lacked Tecumseh’s military genius and tactical skills, was contending with an American army led by the governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison.