Painting of Black Hoof by Hal Sherman, 2010.[/caption]We Americans have named towns, libraries, and a brand of small engines after Tecumseh, the Shawnee war chief. An essential part of Tecumseh's popular appeal, of course, is that he fits into the "noble savage" stereotype. He was a traditionalist. And there is something appealing about that to both Indians and non-Indians in today's modern world.
But Tecumseh was only one of many Native leaders that had integrity. For example, Captain Hendrick Aupaumut of the Stockbridge Mohicans had integrity. He wanted to keep his people away from alcohol, and wanted them to learn to read and farm. To Captain Hendrick, "civilization" was the way to bring his people out of bad times. The fact that he turned to alcohol late in life was really not due to any weakness of his own, but rather to his discouragement over not being given a fair chance to establish an all-Indian territory at Indiana's White River - despite his loyalty to the United States.
The Miami war chief Little Turtle is another relatively unsung hero of roughly the same times and places as Tecumseh and Captain Hendrick. A brilliant military tactician, Little Turtle routed both the French and the United States on the battlefield. When he became an advocate for peace with the United States, it was a practical judgement based first on an improved US fighting force and later on an appreciation of the whites "civilization" and the possibility that the Miamis could succeed as farmers.
The two most well-known Shawnees are the war chief Tecumseh and his younger brother, Tenskwatawa, known often simply as "the Shawnee Prophet." The Shawnee brothers' opposition to the United States in the War of 1812 certainly gives them an important place in American History and nobody can take that away.
On the other hand, in a book chapter called "Forgotten Allies: The Loyal Shawnees and the War of 1812," R. David Edmunds points out that the majority of the Shawnees supported the United States.
Understandably, of course, many Shawnees tried to remain neutral as long as they could. Also, by 1800 most of the Shawnees were already west of the Mississippi (here, of course, we're only concerned with the Shawnees that remained in the Great Lakes region).
Edmunds points out that in the October 1813 Battle of the Thames, "more Shawnee warriors served in [William Henry] Harrison's army than fought with Tecumseh" (338).*
Why? well, we need to back up several years. By 1795 the Shawnees had been at war for over twenty years and many of them were sick and tired of fighting. As a part of what we might call the Miami confederacy, the Shawnees were on the losing side at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This loss led to the 1795 Treaty of Greenville in which most of Ohio was ceded to the United States.
While the treaty of Greenville was distasteful to Tecumseh and other more militant or traditional Shawnees, the terms of that same treaty were welcomed by those who were ready to stop fighting. Once a feared warrior, but now in his fifties, Black Hoof was the chief that the peace-oriented Shawnees followed. According to Edmunds
[Black Hoof] subscribed to the government's acculturation programs. In response, federal Indian agents recognized him as the spokesperson for the Shawnees, and channeled their annuities through his village.... In the decade following the Treaty of Greenville, he visited Baltimore and Washington upon several occasions, repeatedly soliciting agricultural assistance both from federal officials, and from the Society of Friends.... By June, 1808, Black Hoof's people had split rail fences, erected log cabins, and planted over 500 acres with traditional crops such as corn, beans and squash and pumpkins, but they also planted turnips, cabbage, and potatoes. In addition, they nurtured several small orchards of apples and had acquired a herd of hogs, three cattle, and two yokes of oxen.... Construction was begun on both a sawmill and a gristmill and...travelers... described the Shawnees' well-groomed fields and 'comfortable houses of hewn logs with chimneys.' Others commented upon the Shawnees' sobriety ("a matter of surprise to those who are acquainted with Indians"), and, in the fall of 1808, the War Department received a petition from white citizens near Dayton who praised the Shawnees and commented that "We find them sober and civil... and look upon them as a watchful safeguard to our habitations (339-340).*
Maybe those things are not as romantic as the things that Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa were up to during that same time, but maybe chiefs like Black Hoof should also be admired - or at least respected - for their integrity and leadership.
*Source:
Edmunds' chapter (Forgotten Allies: The Loyal Shawnees and the War of 1812) is on pages 337-341 in
Skaggs, David Curtis, and Larry L. Nelson. The Sixty Years' War for the Great
Lakes, 1754-1814. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001.
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