Great Leader: Main Poc of the Potawatomi (Yellow River/Kankakee)

Part of Tecumseh's talent was to gather around him other able Native leaders into a cohesive unit loyal to him and his movement.  One such was Main Poc of the Yellow River/Kankakee Potawatomi.  His Native name was Wenebeset, or Crafty One.  He had no fingers or thumb on his left hand.  Whether this was a birth defect or an injury is uncertain.  However, he was known to Whites by the French words for Crippled Hand.  A formidable shaman and leader, he was also an effective warrior.  His disability did not diminish his capacities one bit.

Little is known of Main Poc's life until 1793, when American officials in St. Louis began urging local tribes to raid the Osage, who were allies of the Spanish.  Main Poc, who otherwise opposed American incursions on U.S. territory, took up the offer, making several daring raids deep into Osage and Spanish territory.  He continued these raids for several years, keeping Spanish officials in territories neighboring the U.S. in a constant state of apprehension.  Thus, though he was opposed to American settlement, the United States found him and his warriors useful allies for the time being. 

With the Louisiana Purchase and tensions easing with Spain, Main Poc turned his energies elsewhere, still adamantly opposed to any terms with Americans that including ceding of tribal land.  In 1809 he spent the winter with the Shawnee at Fort Wayne, becoming exposed to Tenskwatawa's teachings.  He then went on a delegation to Washington and met with Thomas Jefferson before returning home to his own territory.  While the Americans believed that he might be a useful ally against the growing power of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, as he had been against the Osages, Main Poc was becoming more inclined to the Prophet's message rejecting Americans and their ways of life.  He returned to Prophetstown in 1810, originally intending to lead raids against Fort Dearborn, now modern-day Chicago.  Events intervened and he resumed his raids on the Osage, as well as on American settlements. 

Main Poc was in Canada in 1811, during the Battle of Tippecanoe, but in its aftermath, he continued to recruit Potawatomi and warriors from other tribes to fight against the Americans.  As the War of 1812 broke out, Main Poc was occupied in fighting around Fort Detroit, while other Potawatomi leaders attacked Fort Dearborn in August, 1812.  Main Poc was part of the Native contingent at the Battle of Maguaga on August 9, 1812, which happened just days before the Fort Dearborn attack.  While Tecumseh led most of his Native force in support of the British into Canada and the disaster at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, Main Poc remained in the Detroit area, intending to harass Harrison's supply columns.  General Duncan McArthur extended a truce to the local tribes and pressured Harrison to allow Main Poc to sign on, if he so wished.  Main Poc finally signed a treaty with the Americans to cease fighting, but adamantly refused any concessions for land. 

The Americans called for another treaty parley at Greenville in 1814.  Main Poc refused to attend.  He was at Fort Mackinac when the British commander there received word of the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812.  Inviting again to treaty parleys in in 1815 and 1816, Main Poc refused to attend and refused any agreements.  He died in 1816.

Great Warrior: Roundhead of the Wyandot

Great warriors and leaders had a variety of weapons in their arsenal.  They preferred negotiation, would fight when it came to it, but were not above political intrigue or ruthless removal of an enemy who stood in their way.  Roundhead of the Wyandot, c 1760-1813, had all of these qualities.

Roundhead, also known as Bark Carrier, Stayeghtha or Stiahta, came from a powerful Wyandot family that included other leaders such as Leatherlips and Tarhe.  Roundhead was born near the Sandusky River in Ohio and was a leader of the Wyandot under Tarhe at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.  Other than that, little is known about his life until he allied with Tecumseh in 1810 and became one of Tecumseh's lieutenants, as well as a strict adherent of The Prophet's teachings about returning to traditional ways and disavowing the ways and material goods of the Whites.  When Tarhe disagreed with Tecumseh, Roundhead parted ways with the older leader and joined Tecumseh wholeheartedly.  When his own brother Leatherlips also disagreed with Tecumseh and advocated co-existence with the Whites, Roundhead approved charges of witchcraft against Leatherlips and ordered his execution.

Tecumseh joined Col. Henry Proctor's British forces at Fort Detroit, with Roundhead as his second in command.  He led warriors at the Battle of Brownstown and the Battle of Magagua, in August 1812.  Proctor had given Tecumseh a beautiful officer's sash, which Tecumseh presented to Roundhead, saying that the sash should be worn by an older and more experienced warrior.  It was the ultimate accolade.  Not wanting to cause jealousy among the other Native leaders, Roundhead put the sash away for the time being.  He participated in the capture of Fort Detroit, and later Fort Miami and Fort Miegs.  He was also present at the Battle of the Raisin River on January 22, 1813.  Tecumseh had given command of the Native auxiliaries with Proctor's army over to Roundhead, who led 800 Native warriors against almost 600 Americans commanded by Gen. James Winchester.  Winchester was captured by Roundhead, who turned him over to Proctor, saving his life. 

Proctor abandoned Fort Detroit and returned to Canada.  Tecumseh, Roundhead and their men following.  On October 5, 1813, at the Battle of the Thames/Moraviantown, Roundhead was killed and Tecumseh either died in battle or shortly thereafter.  As William Henry Harrison toured the battlefield after the fight, he asked frontiersman Simon Kenton to identify Tecumseh's body.  Kenton pointed out Roundhead's corpse instead.  Was it because Tecumseh had managed to leave the field on his own power, or because neither Kenton nor Harrison wanted Tecumseh's body despoiled?  Was the tell-tale sash a giveaway?  We'll never know.  Roundhead's body was taken over by souvenir hunters on the battlefield.  Meanwhile, the question of whether to support Tecumseh's movement or cede more land to Whites had become a divisive feud within Wyandot society, and Roundhead's treatment of Leatherlips didn't help the breach any.  The Wyandot people would move further west, and eventually decide to cooperate with the Americans as best they could. 

Places: the Wabash River

This river, which arises in Ohio, flows across Indiana to form part of the border between Indian and Illinois before draining into the Ohio River, is packed along most of its 503 miles with history.  Wabash is an English corruption of the French Ouabache, which itself is a corruption of a Miami word meaning White River or River of White Stones, referring to the clarity of the water in certain areas.  The French considered the Ohio a tributary of the Wabash before realizing it that it was the other way round.  The Wabash is the main northern tributary of the Ohio.

Several Battles have been fought along or near this River, including some we've already touched on.  In date order, they are: Battle of Vincennes, 1779; Harmer's Defeat, 1790, St. Clair's Defeat, 1791; Attack on Fort Recovery, 1794, Battle of Tippecanoe, 1811, Siege of Fort Harrison, 1812; and Siege of Fort Wayne, 1812. 

Did It Happen: Who Killed Tecumseh?

One of the more enduring mysteries of the Battle of the Thames/Battle of Moraviantown on October 5, 1813 is, who killed Tecumseh and what became of his body?  Stories have morphed into fact and names became legendary, but the truth of what happened that day is elusive.

During his revolt and afterwards, Tecumseh achieved a celebrity status that only Osceola would approach during the pre-Removal era, and that it would take the likes of Sitting Bull and Geronimo to reach again.  People in America and Canada during and after the War of 1812 were fascinated with Tecumseh.  That he could speak some English, was known to be generous to captives, and could conduct himself like a gentleman in the presence of Whites helped spread a legend of which he was probably unaware.  In the years after his death, babies were named for him (see Sherman, William Tecumseh), as were warships (HMS Tecumseh), a Naval Base in Canada, a courtyard at the Naval Academy in America, towns, buildings, geography were named for him.  There were coins, memorial plaques, paintings, poems and plays.  Tecumseh's Revolt was more famous in its time than the War of 1812, as though he had posed a bigger threat than the British.  William Henry Harrison held political rallies on Tippecanoe Battlefield, billing himself as Tippecanoe and Tyler too, riding that all the way into the White House. 

But, one election cycle earlier, another political candidate had risen to fame claiming even better (in the eyes of public opinion at the time).  Van Buren's running mate, Col. Richard Mentor Johnson boasted that he had actually killed Tecumseh.  A jingle during his campaign ran, "Rumpsey-dumpsey, Col. Johnson killed Tee-cum-see!"  By that time, Johnson wasn't the only man boasting of having killed Tecumseh, and some men even had relics to "prove" their story in the form of scalps, fingers, pieces of dried skin or other items taken from or on dead warriors at the Battle of the Thames.  Then as now, fact-checking was beside the point and probably impossible anyway.

So, who killed Tecumseh?  When?  And where did he die/get buried?

Let's go back to October 5, 1813.  In the aftermath of the battle, Harrison and his senior commanders toured the battlefield.  This was custom in those days, even Wellington and Napoleon often toured scenes of their victories.  But there was no doubt that they had heard Tecumseh had been killed and were looking for that particular body.  According to tradition, Harrison asked frontiersman Simon Kenton to make the identification.  Kenton picked out another body, possibly the body of Wyandot leader Roundhead and stated that he was Tecumseh.  Souvenir hunters took out their grim satisfaction on that body, even though Tecumseh's body was nearby.  They left it alone.  There's a problem with this story.  While Simon Kenton was adopted by the Shawnee (and nearly killed by them several times, earning the name Cutahota, or Condemned Man), and would have possibly known Tecumseh on sight, Harrison was had also had two close encounters with him.  If Kenton deliberately lied and chose another body to be Tecumseh, would Harrison have gone along with it?  Probably.  Harrison had an ego and wouldn't like to have been shown up by another man telling him he was wrong.  If he saw Tecumseh's body there, it would've been enough to satisfy him.  The souvenir hunters could get their penny's worth elsewhere, for all he cared. 

Johnson's account, as witnessed by others, indicated that, as his troops became enmeshed in the swamp where the Native battle positions were at the Thames, he became tangled up with an impressive warrior whom he took to be Tecumseh.  It's doubtful Johnson and Tecumseh ever met.  Johnson would naturally assume that the most flashy-dressed Native on the battlefield, drawing the most attention to himself, would be the Shawnee leader.  Others who knew Tecumseh better indicated that he, like Osceola, tended to dress for practicality during a battle, saving his finer regalia for meetings and ceremonial events.  Some accounts indicate that the warrior Johnson tangled up with was a Potawatomi.  No matter.  Johnson survived a one-on-one combat with a Native warrior showing great skill and bravery on both sides.  He killed the Potawatomi, who couldn't argue that he wasn't Tecumseh.  At that point, would Johnson really care if he had killed the right man?  By that time, rumors were rife that Tecumseh had been killed by somebody.  As long as Johnson said he was the man, who would argue? 

Col. William Whitley might have been one, but he also died during the battle and his account was preserved by others.  William Whitley was a Revolutionary War veteran and a bona fide friend of Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark and other Kentucky luminaries.  His family was one of the first to use Boone's wilderness road.  He was also a horse racing pioneer in Kentucky.  The leader of a mounted militia unit and riding an early prototype of a walking horse, he cut a fine figure.  He was one of those who followed Johnson into the swamp from which the rest of Harrison's army had to extricate them even after the Natives had left the fight.  According to witnesses, and later embellished by his granddaughter, Whitley found himself face to face with another Native in full battle regalia.  Each shot and killed the other.  Whitley's horse, rifle, pistol and other personal effects were sent home to his family while he was buried on the battlefield.  With him dead, nobody else could steal Johnson's thunder and, for some reason, Whitley's family didn't make the story public until decades later.

Both of these accounts seem to suggest that Tecumseh, or someone like him, was killed during the battle and thus would've been lying on the battlefield for anyone to view.  But did he die during the battle, or shortly thereafter?

There are other accounts, one provided by Billy Caldwell/Sauganash, a Potawatomi leader whom we've already run across and who would become a local legend in Chicago.  According to him, he came across Tecumseh leaving the battlefield after the fight was over.  He had a gunshot wound in his chest but was still ambulatory.  "What happened?" Billy asked.  "I'm shot," Tecumseh replied in English and moved on.  Billy had grown up among the Mohawk and spoke Mohawk as well as his Native Potawatomi.  He supported Tecumseh's Confederacy and even became a trusted lieutenant of Tecumseh.  He would know Tecumseh if he saw him.  Possibly, they were speaking in English either because Billy did not know Shawnee, or to keep their conversation away from the ears of any Natives who might be listening and who didn't need to know right then how badly their leader was hurt.  Billy Caldwell, a mixed-race Native, was not someone whose word would have counted for much in a 19th century Presidential race.  He died of cholera in 1841, having been removed with his people to Iowa. 

Other Native accounts also indicate that Tecumseh survived the battle somewhat ambulatory.  One describes him as still trying to direct his men and fend off attackers with a lance stuck in his shoulder or run through his body.  A lance, not a gunshot wound, suggests that he was attacked by another Native.  Was it a disgruntled member of his own command?  Was it one of Harrison's auxiliaries.  The Chickasaw and Choctaw who came with Harrison were not in sympathy with Tecumseh's movement.  Could one of them have seen his chance to off a troublemaker? 

Over 203 years later, we'll never know the real answers to these mysteries.  If Johnson didn't kill Tecumseh, and Whitley might have, or someone else, he died in the battle.  If not, and if Caldwell's account and other Native accounts are correct, he walked away after the battle on his own power and died later.  The main takeaway is that people who claimed to have taken relics from or desecrated his body are most likely stretching the truth, as Johnson himself later stated.  Most likely, Tecumseh's body was not desecrated and was either off the battlefield by the time Harrison and the other brass toured, or shortly thereafter.  Either Tecumseh walked away, was helped away, and later died.  Or, his body was later removed and buried in an undisclosed location.  At least, in death, he wasn't disrespected. 

Natives versus Settlers: Battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813

This battle, although part of the larger War of 1812, was at its heart a Natives versus Settlers encounter because the stakes were highest for the Natives (Tecumseh's Confederacy) and William Henry Harrison's men (and his future military career and political reputation).  The British were just there to defend Canada.

As the war of 1812 spread into 1813, the need to shatter Tecumseh's revolt and drive the British out of Detroit forever grew more imperative.  The Americans knew that the British had never given up their plans for the American frontier following the Revolution and, with things heating up in the South with the Red Stick Creeks, and continued diplomatic machinations between Britain and Spain, the time for a final decisive victory was now or never.  In the summer of 1813, the famous battles on Lake Erie between Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and Richard Heriot Barclay left the Americans in position of Lake Erie and able to choke off supplies to Fort Detroit.  General Henry Proctor saw no feasible means of holding onto Detroit and decided to evacuate the town and fort.  Tecumseh, knowing his options were fading fast, implored him not to abandon the Natives.  Proctor ignored the entreaties and left, letting Tecumseh and his warriors follow if they would.

While Isaac Brock had been a beloved commander who inspired leadership and respected his Native auxiliaries, Henry Proctor was a strictly by-the-book commander unwilling to hazard any battle he couldn't win.  Not only was Tecumseh angry with him, so were Proctor's own subordinates in the British Army.  Facing them was William Henry Harrison, still a hero after his triumph at Tippecanoe in 1811 and wanting to steal back some laurels from the Navy after Lake Erie.  Proctor had about 800 British regulars and anywhere from 500-1,000 Native auxiliaries.  His force was infantry, with only one light six-pounder gun to speak of.  On the other hand, Harrison was bringing 2,381 militia and 1,000 mounted volunteers, with only a few regulars 120, and 260 Native auxiliaries, mostly Chickasaw and Choctaw warriors.  These warriors did not sympathize with Tecumseh.  Further, riding with Harrison force was a group of men from the Raisin River area under Col. Richard Mentor Johnson, bent on revenge and one man.  Meanwhile, compounding Proctor's problem were the large number of refugees crowding into Amherstburg, just across the Detroit River from Fort Detroit.  The pressure on him to give battle, if at least to keep Tecumseh's Natives from deserting to find more willing allies, was increasing. 

On October 5, 1813, with Harrison's force mounted and coming on fast, Proctor ordered his men to draw up in battle on the bank of the Thames River the mission at Moraviantown, hence the other name for this battle, the Battle of Moraviantown.  He planned to trap Harrison against the river, though how he intended to do this with one artillery piece and no cavalry no one knows.   He did not dig his men in or try to fortify the area, such as was usually done with cavalry.  Proctor's half-hearted preparation suggested he did not believe in this battle.  Tecumseh formed his men in a swamp area alongside the British lines.  Oral history indicates Tecumseh was certain this was his last battle.  Prior to the fight, either out of gratitude or respect, he visited the British lines, shaking hands with several officers before departing to join his own men. 

When Harrison arrived on scene, he saw that no preparations had been made for a cavalry attack and ordered the mounted volunteers forward.  Before Proctor could fire his cannon, the American broke through his line and the British regulars fell back.  Proctor and about 250 men fled the battlefield, while others dropped their weapons and gave themselves up.  Johnson focused his attention on the Natives in the swamp area and his forces became bogged down.  Johnson pressed forward, looking for Tecumseh.  There were other men looking for him, too, including a Kentuckian named William Whitley.  During the fight, both Johnson and Whitley engaged with warriors who appeared to be in command of the Native contingent and each believed they were facing Tecumseh.  Johnson would go on to make his killing of Tecumseh a talking point in his successful Vice-Presidential campaign.  Whitley died attacking whoever was attacking him.  His horse, rifle, powder horn and other belongings were returned to his family, who preserved their claims of him killing Tecumseh. 

When the smoke cleared, Harrison's losses totaled 10-27 killed and 17-57 wounded.  The British lost 12-18 killed, 22-35 wounded and captured, and 579 captured otherwise.  Among Tecumseh's contingent, 16-33 killed, unknown wounded or captured.  As Harrison and other commanders toured the battlefield after the fight, Harrison is supposed to have spotted a dead Shawnee warrior and asked frontiersman Simon Kenton if this was Tecumseh.  He was told no.  Other men, too, were looking for the Shawnee leader as word spread that he had been killed.  But he was not to be found.

So, who killed Tecumseh and what happened to his body? 

Places: Tippecanoe Battle Site

As the saying goes, to the victor belong the spoils.  Victors also write the history and receive the lion's share of the credit and commemoration.  Nowhere is that more true that at the Tippecanoe Battlefield Park near Lafayette, Indiana.

In 1811, Tecumseh had left his brother, Tenskwatawa, in charge at Prophetstown, where Natives from several tribes had gathered in support of his opposition to further White encroachment into Indiana territory.  While Tecumseh traveled to forge alliance with other tribes, he had left Tenskwatawa with orders to evacuate Prophetstown should William Henry Harrison, the military governor of Indiana, advance toward it with his army.  This Harrison did in early November 1811.  For reasons known only to himself, Tenskwatawa defied those orders and convinced the assembled warriors to fight under his command.  The result was disaster.  After a four-hour battle, Tenskwatawa's forces retreated.  That night, as the Shawnee Prophet was stripped of his powers and authority, people began to flee the doomed village.  Harrison's men burned what was left the following day.  Tecumseh's followers would flee to Canada, hoping to find refuge there.

In the years following the battle, the land was claimed by a Settler, John Tipton, who had been present at the site.  He later gave the land to the state of Indiana in 1836, in time to celebrate the twenty-fifth year anniversary of the battle.  It was used a rallying place during Harrison's campaign for the White House in 1840.  The site became so popular that a refreshment stand was operated there and it later became a church youth camp.  It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.  A large white obelisk commemorates the battle.  Before it is a statue of the victor, William Henry Harrison.  Neither Tecumseh nor Tenskwatawa have a statue there.