Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
3.16.2 Reading and Review Questions
1. By whose perspective do we judge Eliza Wharton’s character? Why? How
does the epistolary genre contribute to this perspective?
2. What is Eliza’s place in society, and why? Who supports her, and why?
How do they communicate with, or for, her?
3. How liberated, or free, is Eliza Wharton? How do you know?
4. What are the forces, if any, that constrain Eliza, and why?
5. How, if at all, is Eliza’s rebelliousness and desire for freedom confused
with immorality? Why?
3.17 TECUMSEH
(1768–1813)
Tecumseh was born a Shawnee
in what is now Ohio. His father was a
Shawnee chief who fought white settlers
and died in the Battle of Point Pleasant
(1774). Tecumseh, too, would ght the
ever-increasing westward expansion of
white settlement. In 1811, William Henry
Harrison (1773–1841) would describe
Tecumseh to then secretary of war William
Eustis (1753–1825) as an “uncommon
genius” capable of founding an empire.
Tecumseh’s brother Tenskwatawa (c.
1775–1836), known as the Prophet, would
also caution against Native American
assimilation to white culture.
In 1809, the Shawnees ceded huge
tracts of their land to the United States.
Tecumseh had already declared his
Image 3.25 | Tecumseh
view that such cession of land by one Artist | Unknown
Source | Wikimedia Commons
tribe was illegal without the consent
License | Public Domain
of all other tribes. He responded to his
tribe’s cession of land by forming a multi-tribal alliance, a great confederation
intended to stem the tide of white settlement. Tecumseh gave his Speech to
the Osage as part of this unifying eort. With careful rhetoric, it persuades its
audience of their commonality, of their all being children of the Great Spirit and
enemies of the whites.
To add to the forces he already gathered, Tecumseh traveled in the south,
leaving Tenskwatawa to act as leader. During Tecumseh’s absence, Tenskwatawa’s
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