An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the name Tecumseh represented
an important part of British, US, and Indigenous struggles for land and
sovereignty. Peter Cozzens, author of Tecumseh and the Prophet (2020),
argues that Tecumseh “advocated a political and military alliance to oppose
U.S. encroachment on Indian land.” 18 The majority of these lands were in
the Northwest Territory, which consists of the present-day Midwest. He,
along with his brother, Tenskwatawa the Prophet, was someone who
struggled to bring Native people together and to keep the land that they had
intact.
The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the Revolutionary War
between the US colonists and the British. After the thirteen original
colonies received their political independence, it created further issues with
tribal nations like the Shawnee in the Northwest Territory. But it was the
Treaty of Greenville (1795) that created the largest issue. Ninety-nine chiefs
signed onto the treaty. They agreed to give up all of their land except for
northwestern Ohio. Other parts of the treaty allowed the US to construct
forts in the middle of Indigenous land. The tribes were able to continue
hunting at will and the US government agreed to protect the tribal land from
white settlers trying to take it. However, this treaty sought to fundamentally
change Indigenous people’s way of life by encouraging them to farm rather
than hunt. 19 After the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, increasing numbers of
settlers began to populate the region anyway, encroaching on Shawnee land.
In addition, the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809), which gave the US several
millions of acres in Illinois and Indiana, flooded the area with whites. But
Tecumseh never signed the treaty, as the Shawnee were excluded from it,
and the land lost as a result was the tipping point for Tecumseh and others.
In the fall of 1806, Tecumseh sent out invitations to tribes, even ones
they had fought, to join him and the Shawnee in Prophetstown, present-day
Lafayette, Indiana. Over two summers, in 1807 and 1808, Tecumseh and
the Shawnee were joined by Delawares, Ottawas, and Chippewas,
Potawatomis, Kickapoos, Miamis, Sacs, and Wyandots. They were
enamored with Tenskwatawa and his message for revitalizing their cultures
in the hopes of forever getting rid of the whites and reclaiming their land. 20
Tecumseh ultimately sought to form a confederacy of Indigenous nations to
challenge US encroachment on Indigenous land. They understood the
importance of previous attempts like that of Pontiac, who forged alliances
with tribes seeking to reclaim forts in the Midwest. However, they