t the Tippecanoe was getting to be a nuisance.
Horse-thieves and murderers used it as a shelter, and the authority of
the United States was defied. A messenger sent there by the governor
was threatened by the Prophet with death.

The message was sent to warn the brothers that the Seventeen Fires were
surely able to defeat all the Indians united, and that if there were
complaints, these should be taken directly to the President. Tecumseh
replied:

"The Great Spirit gave this great island to his red children. He
placed the whites on the other side of the big water. They were not
contented with their own, but came to take ours from us. They have
driven us from the sea to the lakes; we can go no farther. They say
one land belongs to the Miamis, another to the Delawares, and so on;
but the Great Spirit intended it as the property of us all. Our father
tells us we have no right upon the Wabash. The Great Spirit ordered us
to come here, and here we will stay."

However, Tecumseh said that he remembered the governor as a very young
man riding with General Wayne, and he would go to Vincennes and talk
with him. He probably would bring thirty of his men.

"The governor may expect to see many more than that," added the Prophet.

Tecumseh brought not thirty, but four hundred warriors, painted and
armed. Attended by a small guard, the governor stood to receive him on
the broad columned porch of the official mansion. Tecumseh, with forty
braves, approached, and halted. He did not like the porch; he asked
that the council be held in a grove near by.

"Your father says that he cannot supply seats enough there," answered
the interpreter.

"My father?" retorted Tecumseh, his head high. "The sun is my father,
the earth is my mother, and on her bosom will I repose!"

In the grove he made a ringing, fiery speech. He accused the United
States of trying to divide the Indians, so as to keep them weak. He
blamed the "village" or "peace" chiefs for yielding, and said that now
the war chiefs were to rule the tribes. He warned the governor that if
the lands along the Wabash were not given back to the Indians, the
chiefs who had signed the sale would be killed, and then the governor
would be guilty of the killing. He threatened trouble for the whites
if they did not cease purchasing Indian land.

"It is all nonsense to say that the Indians are all one nation,"
reproved Governor Harrison, who was as fearless as Tecumseh. "