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Graeme Decarie, Canadian Historian
Further Reading |
The difficulties Tecumseh faced trying to unite the First NationsWe think of Indians or native peoples as if they were all the same. They didn't think of themselves in that way. They thought of themselves as just as different from each other as Scots are from Italians, as Italians are from Portuguese. They had long histories with their own rivalries and their own hatreds. It was extraordinarily difficult to unite them.Tecumseh's great task was to attempt somehow to overcome all of those old feelings and to unite them. It was a double task, because natives understood very well the kind of power they were facing and the kind of forces that were represented by the United States and Britain. And like the Canadian militia, a native might very well look at this situation and figure, "Well, there's just no point in me getting involved, or if there is, maybe I should be on this side rather than that one." There had been a history of betrayal on the part of both the British and the Americans in the past. And so native peoples were understandably unwilling to risk themselves. So Tecumseh had his work cut out for him. He also had soldiers who were superb soldiers, but were very much like the militia in that they had other concerns besides fighting on their minds: maintaining their families, their villages. And unless they saw relatively rapid victory in sight and a series of victories, they weren't likely to stick around very long. I think the lustre of Tecumseh can still draw us because Tecumseh is King Arthur...King Arthur and Camelot in a world which had existed for millennia, which was being destroyed under an onrush of barbarians. And Tecumseh represented not only the highest ideals of the First Nations in that sense. In many respects, he represented the highest ideals of European society. The ideals which European society itself was forgetting. The chivalry, honour, the sense of vision. All of these things that pull people together that we idealize. There were other battles and other leaders after Tecumseh, but they were already lost causes before they started. Tecumseh was the one who appeared to have some chance to do it, though I don't think he really did. I think, like King Arthur, he represented all that was best in a society that had lived for a very long time, that was now being destroyed by something coarse and brutal and materialistic. And like King Arthur’s, his death, I think, is symbolic of the passing of all that had been before. |
