Northeast Ohio Valley

Mid-October 1808

CHAPTER IV

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Overhead, in deepening dusk, the night birds had begun their silent, impossible pirouettes, taking invisible insects on the wing. Squirrels and beady-eyed chipmunks with their winter hair coming thick had gone to their lairs in the trees to escape the razor-sharp talons and merciless beaks of great gray owls, and groundhogs had sought the safety of their burrows, away from the coyotes and foxes. In the far distance an owl spoke, and another answered. The crying of a great cat to the south came echoing, so close to the sound of a human baby that it could deceive experienced woodsmen. From the small streams and brooks that worked their way down through the countless mountain ravines and valleys to the great Ohio River, and from the bogs and marshes, frogs began their nightly songs.

Eli Stroud, tall, built strong, prominent nose and chin, regular features, long brown hair with streaks of gray held back by a buckskin tie, glanced at the deep purple of the eastern rim of the world where the evening star was faintly visible in the dying light of day. He was clad in a buckskin Iroquois hunting shirt and fringed buckskin breeches that reached past his ankles, partially covering his beaded moccasins. In his right hand he carried a Pennsylvania long rifle. A rolled woolen blanket was draped over his left shoulder, tied end to end on his right side, just above the black tomahawk thrust through the broad leather weapons belt about his middle. A knife in a beaded sheath was under the belt on his left side. His powder horn and the leather pouch that held his shot and linen bullet-patches, and a small bag with cracked dried corn and chunks of dried fish and hardtack and salt hung on his left side on leather cords over his right shoulder.

Frost had come early in the fall, turning the woods into reds and yellows beyond imagination. Eli felt the chill coming in the night air, and the thought came, more frost tonight. He picked a place near a small brook where the deer tracks told him the water was safe to drink, and with flint and steel from his shot pouch kindled a small fire. With his rifle leaning against a tree, he gathered boughs for his bed and spread his blanket, and was on one knee beside the fire picking dried fish from his food bag when the sound of the frogs upstream stopped, then began again, first one, then another, and then many. He showed no sign of concern as he settled cross-legged beside his tiny fire and broke the fish between his fingers and put the first piece in his mouth. He sensed a silent movement in the forest upstream, to his left, and then another to his right, but still he gave no sign as he continued eating.

Scouts. Shawnee? Tecumseh’s?

He finished the piece of fish, then for a time ground hardened kernels of corn between his teeth. In near total blackness he knelt beside the stream to dip cold sweet water with his hand and drink, then returned to the glowing coals of his tiny fire and covered them with dirt. With countless stars beginning to appear in the velvet blackness overhead, he unbuckled his weapons belt and reached for his rifle. For a long time he sat on his blanket with his rifle across his knees and his tomahawk loose at his side, unmoving, head tipped forward as he concentrated on the sounds of the night, waiting for an interruption that would tell him a human being was moving nearby. There was no interruption. With the moon rising over the northeastern rim, he lay down on his side with his rifle at hand, covered himself with his blanket, and within minutes was in the dreamless sleep of one who had covered fifty miles on foot since sunrise in the dense forest.

The morning star had faded and disappeared when he finished making a quarter-mile circle of his camp, rifle in hand, slowly picking his way through the knee-high forest undergrowth. Upstream he had found the bruised leaf of a wild cabbage and the faint impression made by a moccasin beneath it. Downstream were two moccasin imprints, close to the water.

Two. Moving north. Their village or their camp—whichever it is—can’t be far. Tecumseh? Probably. With luck.

He took a trout from the stream with his hands and within twenty minutes cooked and ate it, and hung his rolled blanket over his shoulder. Sunrise found him three miles farther north, walking rapidly in crystal-clear sunlight, rifle held before him, ready, eyes moving constantly, watching for sign on the ground, concentrating on all movement and sound in the forest. The sun had not yet reached its zenith when he caught a flicker in the thick trees to his left and heard something brush against the undergrowth. Minutes later he sensed movement to his right.

It was high noon when the smell of cookfires reached him, and the two warriors who had been shadowing him finally showed themselves, one to the east, the other the west, both less than thirty yards away. They wore buckskins, and their hair was caught up in the swept-back pompadour of the Shawnee. Both men held their interval and said nothing, nor did he, as they moved on north.

The laughter of children and the ringing of axes cutting firewood reached him through the trees, and then he was out of the forest, into a large grassy meadow that bordered a clear, small lake, mirror-smooth in the still calmness of the day. It was not a permanent village with a great longhouse and dwellings in orderly rows for many families. Rather, it was a temporary village, with one small central building where government affairs and worship were conducted, and several lesser dwellings set randomly about it. Women and children moved among stew kettles hung above small fires on black iron chains suspended from smoke-blackened tripods. Some women were swinging axes, and they stopped to stare at the rare apparition of a white man in native Indian buckskins as he came into view from the forest. Responding to the village chatter, old men wrapped in blankets stepped from the dwellings into the sunlight to study him. A few held weapons. The shouts of the children at their games quieted, and some of them ran to stand beside or behind their mothers, waiting for them to bark the orders that would send them running if the intruder was a foe. Half a dozen deer hides were randomly stretched and staked to cure in the sun, prior to being scraped clean of hair and worked until soft, to become shirts, leggings, and dresses. The thick, tough hide of a bull elk lay nearby, to be cut into soles for moccasins. Two deer carcasses hung head-down from tripods, ready to be cut into thin strips of meat and hung on racks to be dried for winter. The golden pelt of a cougar was pegged to the ground, drying to become a blanket for cold nights. A great fur from a black bear was also being stretched in the sun. It would be a bed against the freeze of winter. Village dogs roamed, some gnawing on bones of animal carcasses. The odors of wild meat and hides, wood smoke, and cooking food hung in the still air.

Eli raised his hands to hold his rifle high above his head as he came on with the two scouts flanking him all the way. Women clad in one-piece doeskin garments that reached the tops of their moccasins, with long black hair braided down their backs, slowly closed in behind him, with the children following, intrigued, timid, wondering. He walked without hesitating to the larger building in the center of the clearing and stopped ten feet from the dark doorway. A man bent with age, and wrapped in a blanket, shuffled out into the bright sunlight. His face was craggy and pock-marked, and his long gray hair was in braids down his back. He stopped six feet in front of Eli and for several seconds silently studied him with watery black eyes. Many faces showed surprise as Eli spoke to him in the Shawnee dialect.

“I am Eli Stroud. I come in peace.” He lowered his rifle. “I have traveled many days—to talk with the great Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa.”

He had called the name of Tecumseh’s brother correctly, and he paused to let the startled expressions pass from the faces nearest him. Then he continued. “I come with a message from the American father far to the east. It is my hope that Tecumseh is in this village. I am honored if he will see me.”

The old man answered in a voice raspy with age. The bitterness and hostility were like something alive.

“I know who you are. I was at Fallen Timbers and saw you there. I was at Greenville with all the others. Wyandot, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Miami, Delaware, Wea, Potawatomi—and the rest—when the chiefs—fourteen of them—all signed the paper with your great white father and gave to him our land south of the river. The Ohio. I saw you there. We gave you our land. What did you give us in return? Trinkets and rum and the white man’s disease that killed many of us and left my face as you see it now. Marked forever with pits. I know who you are.”

Eli answered. “If you were at Fallen Timbers, then you know that I did not take arms against your people. You know that it was I who stood between your people and the white people and that I tried to get them to sit down at a council of peace and come to a fair agreement regarding the land. Do you remember?”

“I remember that the white men would not council. Instead they shot at us. If you did not shoot at us, I did not know that.”

“Tecumseh knows. You will ask him. With great respect I ask if he is here.”

For a long time the old, watery, black eyes peered up into Eli’s face before the answer came. “He is here. Inside.”

“Will he see me?”

“He will. We have known of your coming for many days. Ojibwa and Miami messengers said you have visited their camps inquiring of many things. You inquired to find Tecumseh. We sent scouts to find you and protect you until you arrived.” The old man turned and gestured. “Tecumseh is inside, waiting. You will follow me.”

He turned on his heel and Eli ducked to follow him through the doorway into the dimness inside the windowless building. A fire burned in a pit at the center of the room, with the smoke rising in a straight line to disappear through a hole cut in the roof. Eli handed his rifle and tomahawk and belt knife to a man standing beside the door, then faced four men seated cross-legged on thick pelts of forest animals and waited while the old man took his place among them. They were dressed in fringed buckskins that were decorated with quills and beadwork and had blankets gathered about their shoulders—crimson blankets supplied them by the British. Half a dozen other men stood in the gloom away from the fire, near the walls, motionless, watching and listening. The only light in the room came from the doorway, the fire, and the single shaft of sunlight streaming through the hole in the roof, partially blocked by the escaping smoke.

The man in the middle of those seated stood and faced Eli. Tecumseh was slender, of average height, with coppery skin and a sharp face and piercing black eyes. His nose was long and pointed, as was his chin, and his voice was high and resonant.

“Eli Stroud. Informants told me of your coming many days ago. I sent two of my warriors to protect you. You are welcome here, but you have no promise of safety outside my camp.”

Eli nodded. “I understand. I thank you for your protection and for allowing me to speak to you.” He peered down at the man on the right of Tecumseh, still seated. “I am honored that your brother has joined in this meeting.”

Tecumseh glanced down at his brother, who briefly bowed his head to Eli but said nothing, and Tecumseh spoke. “Tenskwatawa. The Prophet. You will remember the method by which he earned his title, ‘The Prophet’? Two summers since?”

“I remember.”

Tecumseh referred to the strange, startling event that had established him as a great leader of his people, and his brother as a great religious mystic who could command the sun and the moon and stars. It occurred two years earlier. William Henry Harrison, then the American governor of the Ohio Territory, was mortally afraid of Tecumseh, whom he saw as a threat and considered the greatest living Indian on the American continent. In a desperate effort to discredit Tecumseh, along with his brother Tenskwatawa, Harrison had thrown down a challenge. If Tecumseh was as powerful as his reputation implied, he could make proof of it by commanding the sun to stand still and the moon to change course. If he failed, they would be revealed for the frauds they were. It was known that Tenskwatawa had, to that point, lived the life of a wastrel, given to drunkenness and depravity. Governor Harrison saw no way his scheme could fail. But what he did not know was that many American scientists, and many Indians who had studied the heavens, were aware that an eclipse of the sun was to shortly occur. With that knowledge, Tecumseh accepted Harrison’s challenge. He privately tore into his brother, condemning his profligate life, forbidding him the evils of rum and alcohol, ordering him to mend his ways or suffer exile. He carefully and patiently trained him for a performance that was calculated to utterly destroy the credibility of Harrison, and sent word to everyone within fifty miles of the coming event. On June 16, 1806, a great audience gathered. At the right moment, Tecumseh produced his brother in the center of the huge gathering, and, true to the training by Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa raised both hands to the heavens, threw back his head, and shouted to the sun, “I command your light to dim. Let darkness fall on this land for a time! Let it begin NOW!”

The eclipse began and gradually the northeast American continent fell into a twilight as though in obedience to the command of Tenskwatawa. Wailing broke out among the awe-struck audience, both white man and Indian, and they stood frozen, terrified that they were doomed! The eclipse began to diminish and again Tenskwatawa raised his arms and shouted, “Let your light return to save our land!” Minutes later the country was once again in full sunshine.

Tenskwatawa instantly became “The Prophet,” and the brothers became two of the most powerful Indians in the northeast. Governor William Harrison became an object of ridicule.

Eli nodded. “I know of it.”

Tecumseh sat down in his place among the council and gestured, and Eli sat down, cross-legged, facing them, waiting to be invited to speak.

The flickering firelight reflected off the lines of the dark faces of the council members as Tecumseh opened the exchange.

“You have come far. You carry a message from your white father in the east?”

“I do.” Eli drew the written paper, wrapped in oilskin, from inside his shirt and offered it to Tecumseh. With dramatic patience he unwrapped it, unfolded the document, and for a time read the writing. Tecumseh spoke enough English to engage in conversation, but he did not like it, nor could he read it well enough to understand all that James Madison had written and Thomas Jefferson had signed. After staring without full comprehension at the document, he rewrapped it and handed it back to Eli. When he spoke again it was in Shawnee, and all too well did Eli grasp the significance of the shift in language. He was being told, not so subtly, that Tecumseh was distancing himself from Thomas Jefferson, the United States, and Eli Stroud.

“Your white father has given you power to inquire for him. What do you wish to know?”

Eli saw the flat, dead look in the black eyes of Tecumseh, and those seated around him, and he saw the set look in their craggy faces, and he felt their bitter loathing reach across to him.

He came directly to it. “What is in the heart of Tecumseh? War, or peace, with the United States?”

He saw a flicker of surprise in the eyes of those facing him. They had expected him to be indirect, to circle the core of his reason for finding Tecumseh. His bluntness had tipped them slightly off balance.

Tecumseh considered his words before he replied. “It is in my heart to protect the land that has belonged to my people as far back as memory can go.”

Instantly Eli realized Tecumseh was not going to give a direct answer to the question regarding war or peace. Eli remained silent, waiting, and Tecumseh went on.

“White men came to our land in boats with wings nearly two hundred summers ago. We helped them live. We did not know they came to claim our land. We resisted them and they killed us. We treatied with them and they broke the treaties. We burned their villages and it did not matter. More came. Always more.”

Tecumseh paused and for long moments stared into the firelight. There was a sadness beyond description in his face. “We could not stop them. They came with muskets and then with cannon. We could not fight their weapons. We retreated ever deeper into the forests but they came on. For many summers we tried to treaty with them but even while we were in council with them, they pushed us west. Ever west, into lands owned by other tribes. Finally they told us that it was now impossible to make the Ohio River the boundary between our lands and the United States. We were not willing to give them more land, and we met them in battle at the place called Fallen Timbers. That was fourteen summers ago.”

Tecumseh stopped and locked eyes with Eli. “You were there. I was there. I know you tried to arrange a council in which we could settle our differences without war. I know you refused to bear arms against us. You acted with honor. If I did not know that, you would not be here. You would be dead.”

Again he paused while the others shifted in their blankets. Then he went on.

“The Americans killed us with their rifles and their muskets and their cannon. We lost many. We lost the battle. And we learned that we must give yet more of our land to the Americans if we were to survive. So we met with them at the place you call Greenville. That was thirteen summers ago. You and I were both there, and we both know that my people gave to yours most of what land remained in our hands. Almost the whole of what you call the Ohio Valley. Prime land. Choice land. With the great river running through.”

Again Tecumseh stopped, and for a time he stared into the firelight, remembering. “Stroud. I know your history. Raised Iroquois from your second summer until your nineteenth summer. A great warrior. I know you have sorrow in your heart when you see what the Americans have done to the Iroquois and to all the Indian nations. I know you see two sides of the trouble that divides us, and I know you have risked much and given much to try to bring my people and the Americans together. I know that. My heart is heavy when I think of the burden you have tried to carry.”

He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, then went on.

“We thought the British would become our ally. They brought muskets for us and taught us to use them. They promised to join with us in pushing the Americans from our lands. We treatied with them, and we signed their papers, and we prepared for the war that would give us back our lands.”

He drew and exhaled a tired breath before he continued. “But they did not keep their promises. After the battle at Fallen Timbers, they did not come. When we gave away our lands at Greenville, they did not come. Instead they abandoned their forts at Detroit, and at Michilimackinac, and at Niagara, and at Oswego up near the great inland sea that you call Lake Ontario, and they left us to face the Americans alone. It was then, only then, that we understood that we could not trust white men. Americans or British. What they said, what they promised, what they signed, meant nothing to them. They only wanted to use us for their own purposes, not for ours. We were nothing to them. If we wanted our lands, we would have to regain them alone.”

For a moment Eli lowered his eyes to stare into the fire, knowing that Tecumseh had spoken the truth. Feelings of sorrow rose strong in his breast. He raised his eyes and waited for Tecumseh to continue.

“Do you know I have counseled this summer with the British at Amherstburg near the Detroit River at the west end of Lake Erie?”

Eli spoke softly. “I know.”

“Do you know I told the British that if their king should be in earnest and appear in sufficient force, then our warriors of many tribes would hold fast with the British?”

“I was told. That is part of the reason I have come to counsel with you.”

“And do you know the British agreed that if we would show restraint until the right moment, they would join with us to push the Americans back to the east? Retake the land that is rightfully ours?”

“I know of it.”

Tecumseh continued in Shawnee, and his hands were working with signs as he spoke. “I have spent the remainder of this summer visiting Indian nations here and far to the south. It is my intention to continue to do so until I can bind them together in a confederacy strong enough to defeat the Americans, with or without the British.”

Eli answered, “I learned of this on my way here. I visited the leaders of some of the other nations.”

Tecumseh leaned forward and his voice raised. “It was them that sent messengers to me that you were coming. Wyandots, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Miami, Delaware—others. They told me of your inquiries.”

Eli nodded. “And they told me that you had come to them. Some—perhaps many—are in agreement with you.”

Tecumseh raised a hand in gesture. “I know of them.” His voice raised. “And I will continue to visit them until we are all united—until we are strong enough to reclaim our lands from the Americans!”

A low, guttural murmur arose from those seated beside Tecumseh. Eli sat in silence while it faded and the spirit of angry rebellion dwindled and was gone. Then Eli spoke.

“I know of the broken promises. I know of the taking of your land. I believe it was wrong. I can only say that the United States is a young country. The people have not yet learned the lessons necessary to take their place among nations. They have made mistakes and they will make more mistakes while they learn. I have come to seek your understanding. To ask you to overlook their errors. Find it in your hearts to come one more time to council with them. I am commissioned of our father in the east to arrange such a council. Here, if you wish. He seeks a peaceful solution to the problems now dividing us.”

Eli stopped, and for a time the only sounds were those of the Indian village outside. Then he continued. “I do not believe Tecumseh wishes to have war. I believe Tecumseh sees the wisdom of a peace council. I ask permission to take the message back to the father in the east that Tecumseh will attend such a council if the hearts of the Americans are in favor of peace. Do I have permission to do so?”

Eli fell silent, and minutes passed while Tecumseh pondered his words.                

Slowly he spoke. “My thoughts are troubled. I cannot force them to come clear and straight. I must counsel with my people, and I must seek the guidance of the Master of Life. I ask that you remain here for one night, and I will answer your question tomorrow in the morning. You will be under my protection while you are here.”

Eli bowed his head. “I am honored that you will consider my request. I will remain here for the night. I thank you for your hospitality.”

The old man with the pocked face stood, and Eli followed him to the door where the man who had taken his weapons returned them. He was led to a small dwelling less than ten yards from the central building. Inside was a bear skin to sleep on, and the stomach of a goat filled with water hanging on one wall. He laid his weapons down on the thick bear skin as the old man turned and disappeared, and then sat down beside them. For a long time he sat still with memories and scenes of the battle at Fallen Timbers passing before him, and the gathering at Greenville one year later in which he watched the Shawnee and other tribes sign away the rich beauty of the Ohio Valley, where they had lived free for as far back as memory and legend existed.

The sun was casting long shadows when a woman appeared in the doorway with a clay bowl of venison stew and a sweet potato roasted in the ground. He finished his supper, set the bowl beside the door, drank long from the skin of water, and resumed his seat on the thick bear hide, lost in thought, unable to judge whether Tecumseh would consent to one more meeting with a commission authorized by President Thomas Jefferson. The owls were talking when he stretched out full length and drifted into a troubled sleep.

The morning star was still bright when he walked silently to the lake to wash his face and work his hair, and he was aware that two warriors were in the shadows, following him. He returned to his dwelling and buckled on his weapons belt and waited to be summoned. The sun was half risen when the same woman brought the clay bowl filled with yellow corn mush and goat’s milk and honey. He finished his breakfast and set the bowl by the door and sat back down, waiting.

More than an hour passed before the old man appeared in the doorway and led him back to the central building. Inside he was invited to sit, once again facing the council. This time Tecumseh did not rise, but remained seated to speak.

“The council talked far into the night. I sought the spirit of the Master of Life. My thoughts have cleared and my heart and mind are straight.”

Eli’s breathing slowed.

Tecumseh’s words came slow and measured. “I cannot think of a white man that I can trust, except you. You have never spoken an untruth that I know of. You have risked much to seek peace many times. I know of no promise you have ever made that you did not keep. I believe you expect me to tell you the truth no matter the consequences. I believe you are a man of honor. It is for these reasons that I give you my answer true.”

It ran through Eli’s mind like a chant—war—war—war—war.

“It is my plan to bring my people to a confederacy that is strong enough to push the whites from our land. British or American, it is all the same to us. I will travel as far as I must, and I will talk to my people as long as I must to accomplish this. I will not meet with the Americans because I and others have met with them for nineteen summers that I know of and at no time have they ever kept their word or honored their own treaties. If the British care to join with us to drive out the Americans, then so be it.”

Tecumseh stopped to take a deep breath and select his final words.

“If this means war between my people and the Americans, then we will go to war. That will be decided by the Americans. All we want is the return of our land.”

Again Tecumseh stopped and ordered his thoughts.

“Stroud. I have given you the truth that is in my heart because I honor and respect you. You will always be under my protection in my camp, but I cannot protect you from others. Be careful. It would sadden me if others caught you and killed you. You are welcome to remain here for a time if you wish, but I advise you to return to your people now. Today. Do you understand?”

Eli looked him steadily in the eye. “I understand. I will carry your message to the father in the east. I thank Tecumseh for his words and for the honesty of his thoughts. I thank you for your protection. I will leave today, now.”

Tecumseh stood, and Eli stood to face him as Tecumseh spoke. “So be it. Two of my warriors will accompany you to the limits of the land that belongs to the Shawnee. Is that agreeable?”

“It is agreeable. I thank you.”

Eli stopped at the small dwelling in which he had slept and collected his blanket and his weapons before he walked back out into the sunlight, south, away from the lake, back into the woods. He saw the two warriors, each twenty yards away on either side, move into the woods with him as the sounds of the Indian village faded and were gone.

Notes

The description of the Shawnee Indian chief and leader, Tecumseh, is accurate. See Antal, A Wampum Denied, pp. 72–74; p. 92; and see the painting, p. 73.

The British had in fact armed the American Indians and were stirring them to rise up against the Americans. See Antal, A Wampum Denied, pp. 14–20; Tecumseh sought guidance from his God, whom he called “The Master of Life,” p. 19.

The battle of Fallen Timbers, referenced in this chapter, was fought August 20, 1794, on the Maumee River, near present-day Toledo, Ohio, at a place where a violent storm had uprooted trees. The Indian army consisted of Shawnees led by Blue Jacket, Delawares led by Buckongahela, and Miamis led by Little Turtle, as well as Wyandots, Ojibwas, Ottawas, Potawatomis, and Mingos. The Indians were outflanked and retreated to Fort Miamis where the British commander, who was not authorized to start a war with America, refused to open the gates to the Indians. See Sudgen, Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees; Antal, A Wampum Denied, pp. 18–20.

The Indian defeat at Fallen Timbers led to the Treaty of Greenville the following year, August 3, 1795, at a village called Greenville, in the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River. Fifteen Indian tribes signed the treaty, which gave to the United States much, if not most of the great Ohio Valley land, which had belonged to the Indians from time beyond memory.

See Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Volume II (Treaties), compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler, LL. M., clerk to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1904; Antal, A Wampum Denied, pp. 18–20.

The remarkable event wherein the wastrel brother of Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, mended his derelict ways and was trained by Tecumseh to meet the challenge of Ohio Territory governor William Henry Harrison, who greatly feared Tecumseh, by causing the sun to darken, is accurately described. Few people knew that the loss of the sun was actually a predicted eclipse. Among the few who knew of the date the eclipse would occur was Tecumseh. Thus, on June 16, 1806, when Tenskwatawa ordered the sun to disappear, and it did, and then reappeared on his command, Tenskwatawa was immediately elevated to the position of one of superhuman powers and became The Prophet. See Drake, Life of Tecumseh and of His Brother The Prophet.