| Term Paper Title | Indians |
| # of Words | 684 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 2.74 |
Indians
On New Year's eve, 1801, there was only one way for the native peoples
of
North America to survive as a race. Band together. Or so thought the
great
Shawnee chief Tecumseh, 33, who in his youth had learned first-hand of
the
white man's ability to push his people, specifically those in the then
North West Territory, out of their homeland and toward the uncharted
West.
At best, beleaguered tribes were bought off; at worst, entire villages
were
massacred. The task at hand--to unite all Indians against their common
enemy, the white man--became the crusade and the crucible of Tecumseh.
Tecumseh's plan was hatched on the first day of a new century. A blanket
of
snow surrounded the Ohio River Valley log cabin he shared with friends
and
family; midnight stars shone above what is today the state of Indiana.
The
conversation that night began with talk of a 27-year-old white man named
William Henry Harrison. President John Adams had recently appointed the
youthful redhead as Governor of the vast Indiana Territory. To the
Shawnee,
Harrison was the defacto King, holding, wrote Tecumseh biographer, Allan
Eckert, "such powers as had never before been bestowed upon any
individual,
civilian or military, since the organization of the United States."
Harrison had secured three Indians--including Spemica Lawba, Tecumseh's
nephew--as interpreters and sources for background tribal information.
"Harrison sees too clearly for one with eyes so young," Tecumseh told
his
New Year's gathering, "and his eyes are set upon even more distant
things
that will affect all of us."
By "all of us" Tecumseh was no longer referring to individual tribes,
but
to an entire race. A union of five or six tribes had been tried in the
past--and had failed. Tecusmeh's idea of a single Indian nation "may
take
ten or twelve summers," he said, "but in the union I foresee, where they
will be joined as brothers, without regard to tribe, all under a single
strong leadership against the most deadly foe in any of our histories,
the
enemy will be swept away as the autumn leaves before...Read entire document
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