American Indian Warrior Chiefs: Tecumseh, Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Geronimo [SOLD]

Excerpt from the Book:

Uncommon Genius

As the fledgling European settlements in the North-east of North America grew in size, friendly contact with the native Americans inevitably dissolved into a bitter dispute for land. Among the tribes of the eastern Woodlands, and of the Old Northwest of settled America, there were a succession of Indian leaders with the vision and influence to unite the scattered tribes in concerted defence. Metacom of the Wampanoags, known to the whites as King Philip, forged the first great Indian alliance in 1675. Almost a century later, the Ottawa leader Pontiac again welded a number of Woodlands tribes together in a brief repulsion of the white man’s burgeoning civilisation.

No Indian, though, attempted to unite the tribes on the scale visualized by Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief and visionary. Repudiating tribal rivalries, Tecumseh conceived the Indians as a distinct people, not as a succession of divided nations. He attempted to unite not merely a few select tribes, but all the eastern Indians from Canada to the deep south. He denied any right of the whites to purchase land from whichever tribe would sell it, and insisted upon common ownership by all the Indians. By pursuing passionately his grand vision—that of a single Indian confederacy and even an American Indian state—Tecumseh embodied the eastern Indians’ last hope of saving their culture.

His breadth of vision, the eloquence with which he recruited tribes to his cause, and his constant humanity towards his enemies earned him great respect from the Indians and whites alike. He is often spoken of as the greatest of all the remarkable chiefs to have emerged during the long struggle of the Indian Wars.