s offended Tecumseh's pride and dignity.
He was the most powerful American Indian living, with
five thousand warriors at his command; holding in one
hand an alliance with Great Britain, and in the other an
alliance with the Indians of the south-west. Such was
the position he had reached, and he intended to maintain
it. Was so great a chief, ruler over a confederacy similar
to that of the white man, to visit the chief of the
Seventeen Fires without a retinue! No! He haughtily
refused to go to Washington under such conditions.

In the early spring of 1812 two settlers were put to
death near Fort Dearborn, several others near Fort Madison,
and a whole family was murdered near Vincennes. These
acts of violence threw the settlers into a panic. A
general Indian rising was feared; but at this critical
moment Tecumseh attended a grand council at Mississinewa,
on the Wabash, between Tippecanoe and Fort Wayne, and
succeeded in calming the excited fears of the Americans.
He was not yet prepared for open war. On this occasion,
in the course of his address, he said:

Governor Harrison made war on my people in my absence;
it was the will of the Great Spirit that he should do
so. We hope it will please the Great Spirit that the
white people may let us live in peace; we will not
disturb them, neither have we done it, except when
they came to our village with the intention of destroying
us. We are happy to state to your brothers present,
that the unfortunate transaction that took place
between the white people and a few of our men at our
village has been settled between us and Governor
Harrison; and I will further state, had I been at
home, there would have been no blood shed at the time.

In speaking of the recent murders, Tecumseh said he
greatly regretted that the ill-will of the Americans
should be exercised upon his followers, when the
Potawatomis, over whom he had no power, alone were guilty.

To a message from the British agent Tecumseh replied:

You tell us to retreat or turn to one side should the
Long Knives come against us. Had I been at home in
the late unfortunate affair [the attack on Tippecanoe]
I should have done so, but those I left at home were
(I cannot call them men) a poor set of people, and
their scuffle with the Long Knives I compare to a
struggle between little children, who only scratch each
other's faces. The Kickapoos and Winnebagoes have