ORIGIN OF THE



you could crush us to nothing; and you demanded from
us a great country, as the price of that peace which you:
had offered to us; as if our want of strength had de-
stroyed our rights. Our chiefs bad felt your power, and
were unable to contend against you, and they therefore
gave up that country, What they agreed has bound
our nation, but your anger against us must by this time
be cooled, and although our strength is not increased,
nor your power become legs, we ask you to consider
calmly. \\ ere the terms dictated to us by. your corn-
misioners reasonable and just ?"



SPEECH



OF TECUMSEH



  Speech of Tecumseh in a council at Vincennes, upon
the 12th August, 1810, before Governor Harrison.
   It is true I am a Shawanee. My forefathers were
warriors. Their son is a warrior  From them I only
take my existence; from my tribe I take nothing. I am
the maker of my own fortune; and, that I could make
that of my red people, and of my country, as great as the
conceptions of my mind, when I think of the Spirit that
rules the universe. I would not then come to Governor
Harrison, to ask him to tear the treaty, and to obliterate
the landmark ; but I would say to him, sir, you- have
liberty to return to your own country.
  "The being within, communing with past ages, tells



me, that once, nor
on this continent.



children |
Spirit tha
its produ4
a happy ]
ple, who
The way
is, for all



ntil late
That it ti



ly, there was no wiht
hen belonged all to ri



itL
Ad



] men
men,



of the same parents, placed on it by the Great
It made them, to keep it, to traverse it, to enjoy
:tions, and to fill it with the same race. Once
race. Since, made miserable by the white peo-
are never contented, but always encroaching.
,and the only way to check and stop this evil,
the red men to unite in claiming a common and



244