Read an Excerpt
THE LIFE OF TECUMSEH. CHAPTER I. Pventage of Tecumseh—his sister Tecumapease—hie brothers Cheesei;- kau. Sauweeseekau, Nehasseemo, Tenskwautawa or the Prophet, and Kumskaukau. There are not wanting authorities for the assertion that both the Anglo-Saxon and Creek blood ran in the veins of Tecumseh. It has been stated that his paternal grandfather was a white man, and that his mother was a Creek. The better opinion, however, seems to be, that he was wholly a Shawanoe. On this point we have the concurrent authority of John Johnston, late Indian agent at Piqua; and of Stephen Ruddell, formerly of Kentucky, who for near twenty years was a prisoner among the Shawanoes. They both possessed ample opportunities for ascertaining the fact, and unite in asserting that Puckeshinwa, the father of Tecumseh, was a member of the Kiscopoke, and Methoataske, the mother, of the Turtle tribe of the Shawanoe nation. The parents of Tecumseh removed from Florida to the north side of the Ohio, about the middle of the eighteenth century. The father rose to the rank of a chief, and fell in the celebrated battle of the Kanawha, in 1774, leaving six sons and one daughter. Of these, one or two were born at the south, the others within what now constitutes the state of Ohio. They will be briefly noticed in the order of their birth. Cheeseekau, the eldest, is represented to have taken great pains with his brother Tecumseh, laboring not only to make him a distinguished warrior, but to instil into his mind a love of truth, and a contempt for everything mean and sordid. Cheeseekau fought by the side of his father in the battle of Kanawha; and, some years afterwards, led a small band of Shawanoes on apredatory expedition to the south, Tecumseh being one of the party. While there, they joined some Ch...
