5/21/12

Tenskwatawa “the Shawnee Prophet”



Historian: Tecumseh's brother was spiritual leader


LIMA — Most people have heard of Tecumseh few know much about his brother, Tenskwatawa (the Shawnee Prophet) about a war fought 200 years ago? ” said Professor Gregory M. Miller, of the University of Toledo".

Tecumseh was born around 1768 in old Piqua, along the Mad River, His brother was born a few years later.

The boys' father was killed in battle in 1774 in West Virginia; their mother fled west around 1780, leaving her young sons with their elder sister.

As a child,
Tenskwatawa was called “Lalawethicka,” which translates as “The Rattle” for his nonstop talking.

Miller said, indicating the boy's penchant for talk may have been a compensation for his sense of abandonment.

Lalawethicka gave up drinking and began calling himself Tenskwatawa (the Open Door).

He also provoked territorial governor William Henry Harrison at the time Harrison was negotiating the Treaty of Fort Wayne.

Tenskwatawa moved the settlement to the northwest, where the Tippecanoe River empties into the Wabash in Indiana, the War of 1812 actually began in November 1811, when Harrison attempted to intimidate the American Indians in Prophetstown, and ends with Tecumseh's death on the battlefield near present-day Chatham, Ontario, on Oct. 5, 1813, Miller said.

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