Indian the Historian R. David

Indian

The historian R. David Edmunds'1984 biography entitled Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership is a cool, factual overview of the events of the 1812 wars in Ohio between the white settlers and the Native American residents of the area. It is also a compelling biography of one of the rebellion's greatest leaders. This uprising was unique in that it united many Indian tribes and was characterized by less tribal infighting than many previous conflicts between whites and natives. Edmunds attempts to present a cool, factual account of the life of Tecumseh, one of the most influential leaders of the rebellion, and the customs and culture of Tecumseh' people, the Shawnee.

Unlike some other historians of the period, Edmunds does not attempt to defend the rhetoric of Tecumseh, nor idealize the Indian population. He takes an ethnographic approach, drawing what is available from oral literature about Tecumseh and using this surviving data to give cultural context to the man's life. However, Edmunds does not take the opposite tact either, like one historian, focusing on the Indian warrior's most polarizing rhetoric, such as "burn their [the white's] dwellings -- destroy their stock -- slay their wives and children, that the very breed may perish...whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven!" (Love, 2002, p.1) Despite such heated words to his own populace, Tecumseh was an effective negotiator with the American government, more so than many of his contemporaries.

Such vehement words to the Indian tribes were necessary, Edmunds suggests, to create a sense of a common enemy. This is another example of how Edmunds neither demonizes Tecumseh nor turns him into the ideal of the 'pure' native American. Tecumseh was a canny diplomat, with a clear political mindset. He could deal with whites, yet spur his own people onto victory. By portraying Tecumseh in this manner, the achievement of Tecumseh becomes even more impressive, in the eyes of a contemporary reader. Achieving the unity of all the Indian population of the area, however temporarily, was a considerable feat, and only possible by a skilled tactition like Tecumseh. The Native American's ideal of unity between diverse, yet commonlly oppressed peoples still survives in the current Native American movement for justice today, as well as amongst other loosely confederated yet oppressed persons in the developing world.

Of course, Tecumseh's quest to unite the tribes and overcome the American government was a quxotic one.

Ultimately, the polices of the Jackson administration, after Tecumseh's murder in 1813 resulted in the genocide of virtually all of Native American tribes in the area. The remaining native populace was relocated to the Western Territories. But for a reader who does not know much about this period, other than the fact that such a removal occurred, this text provides a powerful introduction to the personalities of the era. It makes what seems a lost culture come to life. Also, it gives individual characteristics to the different personalities of the Indian leaders, and makes it clear that the tribes were not merely a faceless conglomerate of oppressed persons, but warring factions with intertribal conflicts, for which unity was a difficult and considerable achivement.

In contrast, historians who focus on Andrew Jackson and the significance of settlement, in enfranchizing poor whites stress Jackson's achievement in protecting settlers and the significance of providing land to a large group of poor American citizens. Viewing the Indian wars of the early 19th century highlights an uncomfortable fact -- as American civilization was being formulated, and the populist democrat Jackson was using the availability of territory to spread the weath of the nation through land, another civilization was being broken.