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Graeme Decarie and Gail Valaskakis, Canadian Historians
Further Reading |
The Brock-Tecumseh AllianceDecarie: Even if the peace treaty had set out a native territory, it's very hard to believe the Americans would have respected that. It's very hard to believe the British would be willing to fight a war in the middle of North America to protect the native peoples. It wouldn't have happened. I think Tecumseh must have come to realize that towards the end.Valaskakis: I think he did, especially in October of 1812, when Brock was killed. I think he must have realized that this was never going to happen. I think it would have been very difficult to actually remove the white people already living in those territories to create such a boundary, and he also knew that there just wasn't any commitment. He could see this constant vacillation. I think because he was suspicious of white people from the very beginning, because he had learned to be through experience, that it's really remarkable that he trusted Brock as much as he did. I find that amazing. That he trusted Procter at all. But that he trusted Brock as much as he did. He did admire him and he did trust. Decarie: That's why so much turns on the personalities of these two men. You really find two heroic figures that magically come together at just the right time. Valaskakis: Absolutely, especially after Fallen Timbers. If you read Hamlet for the first time and you don't know how it's going to end, if you look at the Tecumseh story from that perspective, you can't imagine that this man will ever, ever trust the British again, after Fallen Timbers. Decarie: No, certainly after Brock's death and after his disappointments with keeping his own people united and making it into an effective force, you get the sense towards the end, not long before his death, that he'd come to accept that as a natural and maybe even a desirable thing ... that it was all over. Valaskakis: I don't know about the desirable, but I do think that he came to accept the fact that defeat was imminent, and that to win this was an impossible dream. I think that that's true... one really feels that very deeply. And again, I think a representation of how remarkable he really was is the tradition we [First Nations Peoples] have that there was a council on the night before he died. And in that council he not only foretold his own death on the battleground, he released all the Indians there to go back to their own territory, to save themselves, not to be killed in this battle. And told them, "you needn't follow me, and there's every reason why you shouldn't follow me." And I think that represents to me again the quality of this man, not only his vision, but his selflessness in some very real ways and his integrity, and his lack of personal ego involvement in the sorts of things he accomplished. |
