threatening demonstrations. The Governor's guards, which stood a little way off, were marched up in haste, and the Indians, awed by the presence of this small armed force, abandoned what seemed to be an intention to make an open attack on the Governor and his attendants. As soon as Tecumseh's remarks had been interpreted, the Goveruor reproached him for his conduct, and commanded him to depart instantly to his camp. On the following day Tecumseh repented of his rash act, and requested the Governor to grant him another interview, and protested against any intention of offense. Governor Harrison consented, and the council was re-opened on the twenty-first, when the Shawanee chief addressed him in a respectful and dignified manner, but remained unmovable in his policy. The Governor then requested Tecumseh to state, plainly, whether or not the surveyors who might be sent to survey the lands purchased at the treaty of Fort Wayne, in 1809, would be molested by Indians; and whether or not the Kickapoos would receive their annuities. Tecumseh replied: "Brother, when you speak of annuities to me, I look at the land, and pity the women and children. I am authorized to say that they will not receive them. Brother, we want to save that piece of land. We do not wish you to take it. It is small enough for our purpose. If you do take it you must blame yourself as the cause of the trouble between us and the tribes who sold it to you. I want the present boundary line to continue. Should you cross it, I assure you it will be productive of bad consequences." This talk terminated the council. On the following day the Governor, attended only by his interpreter, visited the camp of the great Shawanee, and in the course of a long interview, told him that the President of the United States would not acknowledge his claims. "Well,” replied the brave warrior, "as the great chief is to determine the matter, I hope the Great Spirit will put sense enough into his head to induce him to direct you to give up this land. It is true, he is so far off he will not be injured by the war. He may sit still in his town, and drink his wine, while you and I will have to fight it out." CHAPTER XIII. HARRISON'S CAMPAIGN, CONTINUED. AT the commencement of the session of the new territorial legislature, in 1810, Governor Harrison, in his message, called attention to the dangerous views which were held and expressed by the Shawanee Prophet and his brother, Tecumseh,*"to the pernicious influence of alien enemies among the Indians; to the unsettled condition of the Indian trade; to the defects in the revenue laws, the judiciary system, and the militia laws; to the policy of extinguishing Indian titles to lands, and to the subject of popular education." The Governor further remarked that although much had been done toward the extinguishment of Indian titles in the territory, much still remained to be done. There was not yet a sufficient space to form a tolerable State. The eastern settlements were separated from the western by a considerable extent of Indian lands; and the most fertile tracts that were within the territorial bounds were still their property. Almost entirely divested of the game from which they had drawn their subsistence, it had become of little use to them; and it was the intention of the government to substitute, for the pernicious and scanty supplies which the chase affords, the more certain support which is derived from agriculture, and the rearing of domestic animals. By the considerate and sensible among them, this plan was considered as the only one which would save them from utter extirpation. But a most formidable opposition was raised to it by the warriors, who would never agree to abandon their old habits, until driven to it by absolute necessity. As long as a deer was to be found in their * Dillon's Early History of Indiana. forests, they would continue to hunt. It was, therefore, supposed that the confining them to narrow limits was the only means of producing this highly desirable change, and averting the destiny which seemed to await them.* Are, then," con tinued the Governor "those extinguishments of native title LAWRENCE B. STOCKTON, ESQ. which are at once so beneficial to the Indian, the territory and the United States, to be suspended upon the account of the intrigues of a few individuals? Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined, by the Creator, to * Governor Harrison's Message. give support to a large population, and to be the seat of civilization, of science, and true religion?" In the same message the Governor referred to the necessity of establishing a popular system of education, in these words: "Let me earnestly recommend to you, that, in the system of education which you may establish in those schools, the military branch may not be forgotten. Let the masters of the inferior schools be obliged to qualify themselves, and instruct their pupils in the military evolutions; while the university, in addition to those exercises, may have attached to it a professorship of tactics, in which all the sciences connected with the art of war may be taught. I can see no reasonable objection to this plan; it will afford healthy exercise and amusement to the youth, inspire them with patriotic sentiments, furnish our militia with a succession of recruits, all of them habituated to the performance of military evolutions, and some of them with considerable attainments in the higher branches of tactics. The sole additional expense to the ordinary mode of education, independent of the additional professorships in the university, will be the procuring for each subordinate school a number of mock firelocks of wood, a few martial instruments, and, for the higher schools, a few hundred real guns, of the cheapest manufacture." Among the acts passed by this legislature, there was one which authorized the president and directors of the Vincennes library to raise the sum of one thousand dollars, by lottery. A petition was sent to Congress for a permanent seat of government for the territory, and commissioners appointed to select the site. power With the beginning of the year 1811, the British agent for Indian affairs adopted measures calculated to secure the support of the savages in the war which, at this time, seemed almost inevitable. Meanwhile Governor Harrison did all in his to destroy the influence of Tecumseh and the Prophet, and thus break up the Indian confederacy which was being organized in the interests of Great Britain. It soon became a difficult matter to preserve peace between the pioneer settlers of Indiana and the followers of the Prophet. Straggling parties of Indians occasionally committed depradations on the property of the settlers; now and then an Indian was killed, and then a white man was scalped in return. Thus matters continued until Governor Harrison sent the following speech to Tecumseh and the Prophet: "BROTHERS: Listen to me. I speak to you about matters of importance, both to the white people and to yourselves. Open your ears, therefore, and attend to what I shall say. Brothers: This is the third year that all the white people in this country have been alarmed at your proceedings. You threaten us with war; you invite all the tribes to the north and west of you to join against us. Brothers: Your warriors but I have received the who have lately been here, deny this; information from every direction. The tribes on the Mississippi have sent me word that you intended to murder me, and then to commence a war upon our people. I have also received the speech you sent to the Pottawatomies, and others, to join you for that purpose; but if I had no other evidence of your hostility to us, your seizing the salt I lately sent up the Wabash is sufficient. Brothers: Our citizens are alarmed, and my warriors are preparing themselves, not to strike you, but to defend themselves and their women and children. You shall not surprise us, as you expect to do. You are about to undertake a very rash act. As a friend, I advise you to consider well of it; a little reflection may save us a great deal of trouble, and prevent much mischief; it is not yet too late. Brothers: What can be the inducement for you to undertake an enterprise when there is so little probability of success? Do you really think that the handful of men you have about you are able to contend with the Seventeen fires? or even that the whole of the tribes united could contend against the Kentucky fire alone? Brothers: I am myself of the Long Knife fire. As soon as they hear my voice you will see them pouring forth their swarms of hunting-shirt men, as numerous as the musquitoes on the shores of the Wabash. Brothers, take care of their stings. Brothers, it is not our wish to hurt you. If we did, we certainly have power to do it. Look at the number of our warriors to the east of you, above and below the |