How many battles did tecumseh fight in

Tecumseh led a group of raiders in these efforts, attacking American boats trying to make their way down the Ohio River. These raids were extremely successful, nearly cutting off river access to the territory for a time.

In he further proved himself at the Battle of the Wabash as one of the warriors who defeated General Arthur St. Clair and his army. Clair was forced to resign. In Tecumseh also fought in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This decisive conflict against General Anthony Wayne and his American forces ended in a brutal defeat for the American Indian Confederacy. A small contingency of about stayed with Tecumseh after the battle, following him eventually to what would become Prophetstown and a new pan-Indian alliance.

Tecumseh traveled north to Canada and south to Alabama in an effort to recruit men to his cause. Meanwhile, William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory was negotiating treaties and utilizing American forces to put pressure on those tribes still in Indiana and especially those allied with Prophetstown.

Tecumseh was away from Prophetstown on a recruitment journey when Harrison launched a sneak attack now known as the Battle of Tippecanoe. The American forces cleared the encampment and then burned it to the ground. It was a severe blow to the confederacy and a harbinger of war to come. From this movement came the idea that the land belonged to all Aboriginal people and that negotiations with individual tribes were invalid.

But groups succumbed one by one. In the Shawnee were summoned to meet on the Great Miami at Fort Finney and were intimidated into signing a treaty surrendering their homeland. The negotiators were reprimanded by the rest of the nation. In the battles that followed, Tecumseh saw his first action as a warrior. He first proved himself in an attack on a flatboat on the Ohio River in Tecumseh soon gained a reputation as a bold warrior.

Nevertheless, he missed participating in the single greatest victory by Aboriginals against the armed forces of the United States: on 4 November on the banks of the Wabash River, Major General Arthur St.

Clair with a force of 1, regulars and militia was routed by 2, warriors led by Blue Jacket and the Miami under chief Little Turtle. At Buchanan Station, south of Nashville, Tecumseh's highly regarded brother Cheeseekau was killed in an attack on a small fortification.

Tecumseh subsequently fought a number of skirmishes with the Long Knives, proving himself a worthy successor to his brother. The confederacy's dream of independence was shattered in when a well-trained American army under Major General Anthony Wayne defeated a number of First Nations attacks.

At the Battle of Fallen Timbers 20 August the Americans attacked with 3, men; though outnumbered, the First Nations fought tenaciously. Tecumseh distinguished himself when he charged a group of Americans who had a field piece, cutting loose the horses, and riding off. The Treaty of Greenville ended this phase of the conflict; though Tecumseh did not approve of the treaty, he was still only a minor chief.

Tecumseh led a band of , including some 40—50 warriors, and created an independent village on Buck Creek. With the inexorable advance of the Americans and the destruction of the hunting grounds the band moved again in the spring of to the west fork of the White River Indiana.

At the turn of the century, there were fears for their livelihood, for land, for culture and, most terrifying, for their survival in the face of epidemic diseases to which the people had no immunity. He began to preach with great emotion and became known as the Prophet. He spoke against the evils of alcohol, dishonesty, slander and particularly against loss of the old traditions. He predicted that divine intervention would deliver the people if they would purge themselves of White influence.

All through and people came to hear the Prophet, who preached racial separation and animosity to Americans, "who grew from the Scum of the great Water when it was troubled by the Evil Spirit.

On 22 June a distant event cast a shadow on Tecumseh's attempts to protect his land. The British in Canada still traded with the First Nations south of the Great Lakes , and distributed presents to them. The redcoats wanted to secure favour among the First Nations but did not want to be seen by the Americans as inciting them. These fraternizations aroused deep suspicion in the United States, and American officials "eagerly embraced a convenient paranoia," as Tecumseh's biographer John Sugden put it.

With the threat of war, Tecumseh moved his band to the headwaters of the Mississinewa, five kilometres from Tippecanoe. The move was resented by the local Miamis and Delawares. The impressive new Shawnee village, with houses, was called Prophetstown by the Whites for Tecumseh's brother, who continued preaching and who changed his name to Tenskwatawa , meaning Open Door. In an unknown Tecumseh made his first visit to Canada at Fort Amherstburg later Fort Malden , Upper Canada , in the place of his better-known brother who had been invited by William Claus.

He arrived 8 June. Tecumseh was not enthusiastic to take the king by the hand. He was deeply distrustful of the British. Nevertheless, the two sides met and Tecumseh established himself with the redcoats and raised his standing among the First Nations. He had developed into a fiery orator with a clear message: the First Nations must stand together to save their land and cultures.

This treaty vindicated Tecumseh and roused him to a fury. When he returned to talk to the British at Fort Amherstburg in he had changed his attitude. He was ready for war and to throw in his lot with the British. Tecumseh's task of building an Aboriginal confederacy was enormous given the forbidding geographical distances, the sense of powerlessness of many of the tribes, the jealousy of the older chiefs, tribal rivalries, and communication in different languages.

Even the different Algonquian groups could not understand one another without interpreters. In summer Tecumseh undertook a strenuous journey west to the upper Mississippi, down the Illinois River to Peoria, to present-day Wisconsin, then to Missouri. In October he set out for Fort Amherstburg , arriving about 12 November. By now he was certain there would be war and asked for supplies.

Tecumseh's efforts did not go unnoticed. William Henry Harrison wrote a tribute in "The implicit obedience and respect which the followers of Tecumseh pay to him is really astonishing, and more than any other circumstance bespeaks him one of those uncommon geniuses which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the established order of things. Harrison met Tecumseh at Vincennes in July Tecumseh erred by telling Harrison that he would be absent until spring.

In Tecumseh's absence, Harrison moved a force near Prophetstown at the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers. The Prophet was unable to restrain his warriors and sniping between sentries escalated into a full-scale battle. The warriors held their own but were forced to withdraw when they ran out of ammunition. Harrison followed the retreat and entered Prophetstown, finding it deserted.

His men burned the town and destroyed the food supplies. Tecumseh's absence took him some 5, kilometres and when he returned to Prophetstown he saw the grim reality of the destruction: as he told the British later, "the bodies of my friends laying in the dust, and our villages burnt to the ground, and all our kettles carried off.

It was a devastating blow to the confederacy. On 18 June the United States declared war on Britain. Tecumseh went north to find the British strengthening the defences of Fort Amherstburg and saw an impressive number of soldiers there. The British general, Henry Procter, fled on horseback and his dispirited redcoats broke ranks and surrendered. Tecumseh had placed his own men well, hidden in the thickets of a swamp. When a second battalion of Americans advanced, the Indians rose from cover and delivered a crushing volley.

Tecumseh sprinted forward to inspire his followers but was shot and killed. Such was his fame that many claimed to have fired the fateful shot. Without their leader, Tecumseh's men surrendered.

Fortunately, the Americans returned to Detroit and did not exploit their victory on the Thames. Tecumseh's inspired leadership and brilliant victories were decisive in the defence of Canada, which survived the war independent of the United States. But Tecumseh had not fought for the British but for his own people. Canadian and American historians and novelists have sung his praises, but his most enduring legacy is among the First Nations, for whom he is the ultimate symbol of courage, endeavour and fraternity.

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