Mythology
Ever since his death on the battle field Tecumseh has been a subject of much mythology. Perhaps more than any other Indigenous leader, Tecumseh has been portrayed as the quintessential “Noble Savage”. This is no modern phenomenon. Though the Shawnee leader’s agenda often flew in the face of British and American policies, non-Indigenous leaders respected Tecumseh for his eloquence and his military strategy. Tecumseh used political and military techniques familiar to those of European descent unlike his brother’s Native revivalist movement. At the same time, after many years of conflict both the British and Americans felt fairly certain that Aboriginal peoples were not a significant enough threat to halt their expansion into Indian territory. Though Tecumseh was admired for defending his homeland, knowledge of the power and motivation of his Aboriginal alliance were in conflict with popular conceptions of the inevitable decline of Indigenous peoples. Tecumseh’s death at the Battle of the Thames marked the end of his resistance movement and the start of a period of myth-making that would craft an imagined hero out of this extraordinary man.
Since his death there have been numerous works of fiction, poetry and history that have shaped ideas of Tecumseh in public memory. In the 19th century, George Longmore, John Frederick Richardson and Charles Mair published popular works that portrayed Tecumseh as a romantic and tragic figure. He has also been transformed into a Canadian hero. In the 19th century, scholars writing on the War of 1812 glorified Tecumseh’s role in the conflict. Historians such as Richardson or David Thompson emphasized Tecumseh’s gallant role in defending Canada rather than examining the leader’s motivations and loyalties. Academics have written more critical analyses of the Shawnee leader and his resistance movement since then but Tecumseh’s romanticized image persists into the modern era. In Chillicothe, Ohio the outdoor drama Tecumseh! which tells the story of the Shawnee leader, is focused around the popular myth of a romance between Tecumseh and settler Rebecca Galloway. In another contemporary example, Orson Scott Card’s 1988 fantasy novel Red Prophet casts Tecumseh as a heroic protagonist in a fictional alternate history. Evidently Tecumseh remains a favoured figure in popular culture but, unfortunately, these representations are often based much more on romantic myth rather than the leader’s actual life.
The goal of this website is to help visitors access the rich history of the famous Shawnee leader though an engagement with material culture. Even stripped of mythology, Tecumseh remains an important figure in North American history. His Aboriginal confederation marked a significant change in strategy for First Nations peoples who had seen little reason to join forces previous to the threat of settler expansion. Tenskwatawa’s religious movement may have initiated the coalescence of Indigenous peoples throughout the eastern United States and southern Upper Canada but it was Tecumseh who transformed that dissatisfaction into an organized resistance movement. More than a figure of romantic mythology, Tecumseh deserves to be recognized as the talented and nuanced Aboriginal leader his life proved him to be.