Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “And while I was there he did not tell me he was calling this big land treaty council! Brother, is this not a man of two faces?”

  “As we have long known!” Tecumseh exhaled sharply between clenched teeth and pounded his thigh with his fist. “Do our friends in those tribes now have enough voice to keep the old traitors from marking a treaty? Do you think so?”

  “I think so,” Open Door replied. “Have we not warned them again and again that Harrison will try to do what he is now trying to do? Will they not believe it now by seeing it, and speak up in time? And are not the old chiefs aware by now that if they mark another treaty, they will be known as witches?”

  Tecumseh nodded, then shook his head, brusquely, angrily. He did not like this killing of “witches” and had stopped Open Door and his zealots before, when they had been executing suspects too enthusiastically. But still the fear of such witch-hunts was very strong, and it had kept some of the government chiefs humble. “So, then,” Tecumseh said at last. “The Miamis and the Delawares and the Potawatomies will go to Fort Wayne to meet with Harrison, and there is nothing we can do to stop them from going. To try to threaten them or stop them by force would ruin the wholeness we have been trying to build here. So they will go. Many of them probably have gone already, hoping the kegs will be opened early. All we can do is encourage our people in those tribes to talk against marking it, and send a few hawks to sit in the crowd and keep a watch on them.…” His voice trailed off, then suddenly he clenched his fists until they shook and ground his teeth together. “Think, brother!” he hissed. “Think of how much land he tries to grab this time! No; rather, think how little it will leave for all the red people if he does take it!”

  He sighed. Suddenly he yearned only for someone whose presence could calm the great tightness these vexations had drawn in him. “I am hungry and tired,” he said. “Let us go over to Star Watcher’s house. I long to see my sister. And my son.”

  29

  FORT WAYNE, AT THE HEAD OF THE MAUMEE

  September 30, 1809

  LITTLE TURTLE LIMPED INTO THE COUNCIL HOUSE, WITH fourteen hundred red men watching him, their feelings a mixture of curiosity, respect, and annoyance. Though he was the most honored war chief here, it had been nearly fifteen years since he had given up to the Long Knives; he was wholly a white man’s Indian now, doing everything he could to help his people adapt to the white man’s strange and demanding ways. And though he lived closest to Fort Wayne, he had taken days and days to get to the council house because he suffered from gout and had been unable to come forth. But at last he was here, and the council could begin.

  During that long wait, the Potawatomies of Five Medals and Winnemac had begged Governor Harrison to open the whiskey kegs. But he had held them off. And many of these thirsty red men were now blaming Little Turtle for keeping them thirsty this long.

  The massive two-story blockhouses of the fort overshadowed the council house. From his table, Governor Harrison could see out the door to the old Miami town that General Harmar had attacked two decades ago before Little Turtle had trounced him.

  Now the tribes asked for whiskey again.

  But Harrison wanted these important and long-awaited talks to go quickly, and he believed it was more effective to hold out the whiskey as a reward than to get the Indians confused with it in the beginning, so he kept the kegs locked in the fort.

  Now all the chiefs at last were on hand, and Harrison began his speech. He told them why they should be willing to sell the land between the Wabash and White rivers. This land had little game anymore, he said. Although the chiefs knew this was not true, they did not interrupt him, because whiskey was waiting. He told them how important the annuity money was to the support of their people, because the cost of goods would always be going up and because the war in Europe was depressing the values of their peltries. “It is better to raise pigs and cattle for their meat and skins than to hunt game,” he said. “They are easy to keep, need little land, and they increase, while game, on the other hand, always decreases.” He gave such reasoning for two hours.

  When he felt he had convinced the Indians that the land was of little value to them, Harrison then showed a map of the piece the white people needed. It looked small on a map. But the map was a meaningless picture of a country to the eye and mind of the red man, who does not see land as lines on a flat parchment surface, so some explaining was necessary. “If,” he said, “you stood at the place where Raccoon Creek pours into the Wabash, in the middle of the morning, ten o’clock exactly, and looked toward the sun, that line between your eyes and the sun would be the northern boundary. The southern boundary will be where the northern boundary is now,” he said, “above Vincennes.”

  Now they understood. Most of them in their lives had been at the place where Raccoon Creek flowed into the Wabash-se-pe. They told the governor they would go to the Delaware camp beside the fort and hold council among themselves and give him their answer as soon as they agreed upon it. Several of the chiefs indicated that a drink of whiskey would help them think. Harrison suggested that it would be better to have the drink as a celebration for agreeing.

  AMONG TECUMSEH’S FRIENDS WHO SAT IN THE COUNCIL AND watched the opinion form were Seekabo the Creek and Billy Caldwell, a half-Irish Shawnee who had been schooled by Black Robes and could write. The council took a long time, as there were three tongues to be translated, and many misunderstandings to be labored through, many kinds of fear and eagerness.

  The Potawatomies were most eager to have the whiskey kegs opened; they were slavering at the thought of it, so they recommended the sale at once. After all, they did not even have any claim to the land south of that ten o’clock line and thus nothing to lose, but whiskey to gain. The Delawares were thirsty, too, so they agreed, although more reluctantly, as they did use some of that land.

  But Little Turtle was not ready. Something was bothering him, and he had to go and talk to Harrison in private. He limped away, taking his interpreters with him.

  Little Turtle had to know whether the dismissal of his son-in-law Wild Potato, William Wells, from the Indian agency was going to diminish his own position in the favor of the Seventeen Fires. Harrison smiled and assured him that he would be esteemed as he had always been. So the old Miami smiled and said he would do all he could to advance the treaty, and he limped back to the Delaware camp.

  Then there followed a long squabble over the annuity dollars. In the evening the Miami chiefs sent word to Harrison that their young men were thirsty, and that if they could have a little whiskey, they would leave the chiefs alone to decide about the dollars. With a sigh, Harrison agreed to ration out a little: only two gallons for each tribe, until the rest of the agreement was done.

  With that as an appetizer, the rest of the haggling was concluded very quickly. Winnemac came to Harrison after dark, but his smile was enough to light the night. He said, “I thought our father Harrison will sleep better knowing we have agreed to accept your offer.”

  Of course Harrison was too exultant to sleep for a long time. For ten thousand dollars he had bought three million acres of the land called Indiana, meaning “Land of the Indians.”

  TECUMSEH SAT, HIS EYES SMOLDERING, HIS STOMACH CHURNING with disgust, as Seekabo related what had been done at Fort Wayne. Open Door sat beside him, huffing and gnashing his teeth.

  “After the chiefs agreed to say yes to the treaty, there were many arguments over this and that. Harrison gave the chiefs a little whiskey now and then to make them mellow. When all was ’settled, he called everyone together and spoke a long time about the British. He said the British were the cause of all the red men’s woes, that the Americans are the red men’s brothers.”

  “Hear that,” Open Door said through his teeth to Tecumseh. “Hear that!”

  “The chiefs who put their marks on the treaty were Cracking Noise, Beaver, Winnemac, Five Medals, Little Turtle, and Pacane.”

  “Hear those names and remember them,” Open Door
said just above a whisper. “They are probably witches and should all be killed.”

  “After that,” said Billy Caldwell, “Harrison rode away to Vincennes with his piece of paper. The kegs were broken open. For several days there was much drinking in the Indian camps. Several warriors were killed having fights with knives. It was a bad time. There was much anger, and the whiskey made it worse. Not many were pleased with what their chiefs had done. Many Miami warriors who have always been faithful to Little Turtle now say that he is too contemptible to speak of, that to say his name makes them vomit. There are Potawatomi warriors and Delaware warriors who told us even before we left Fort Wayne that they should have listened to your warnings, that what you said was true, but before now they could not see.”

  “Listen,” Tecumseh said when the awful report was over. “Here is what we believe, and here is what we must say to anyone, even to the Americans:

  “Those chiefs did not have a right to sell that land, which belongs to all red men. Therefore Harrison’s piece of paper means nothing. White men will never occupy that country. When they come in with their instruments to put lines on it, or with tools to cut the trees or plow the ground, they will risk their lives.

  “The chiefs who put their marks on that treaty have betrayed all red men. These chiefs are now in danger; they deserve to be killed for what they have done. Listen:

  “Harrison surely feels full of satisfaction now, for the success of his crime. But I foresee this: It will cost him more than the few dollars. It has opened the eyes of hundreds who have been blind. Now they know that we have told them the truth from the beginning, and I say that they will be coming here to join us by hundreds by the time of the next planting. I foresee that from this time the government chiefs will be losing their hold upon their people. Warriors, and all men who can think, will see now that Harrison means to take the very land they stand on, and that if this is permitted, there will not be a spot of ground anywhere for them to step back on. You know that he bought the Illinois land five years ago. There is no place for them to step back.

  “At last they can see this! At last they must come to us here and say, ‘Brothers, how can we unite and keep this from happening anymore?’ In the next summer they will be of one heart with us. I will go to the south then and embrace the Five Nations also. Brother! Today we are closer than we have ever been to standing all together, and how funny it is that it is Harrison himself with his greed and his cunning who sweeps us into each other’s arms!

  “We must guard our old boundaries, for in our eyes this new one does not exist. And we must entreat the British agents for more supplies, my brother, for this place soon will be swarming like an anthill with people whose eyes are open wide!”

  WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON HAD JUST HELD A GREAT BANQUET at Vincennes, with territorial officials and prominent settlers in attendance, to celebrate his latest remarkable land acquisition, when a letter was brought from Prophet’s Town by a messenger.

  The letter was from Open Door. It was short and direct. It made no overtures of friendliness or politeness. It warned Harrison not to send surveyors into any land north of the old boundary. It read:

  Your people should not come any closer to me—I smell them too strongly already.

  With the green of springtime began the swarm that Tecumseh had predicted. Warriors riding in small bands appeared on the distant prairies, coming from north, west, and east. They were Miamis and Delawares. They came, saying they had quit listening to their old chiefs.

  A large group of men with their families, bringing their belongings on travois poles pulled by horses and dogs, came into view one day, and when they rode smiling into Prophet’s Town they were recognized as the Kickapoos from the Vermillion and Sangamon river towns of Illinois. They were yearning for the favor of the Great Good Spirit. They were troubled by the closeness of the new white settlements. They had been eager all winter to pack up and come.

  After them came a messenger from Shabbona, the Charcoal Burner, a subchief of the Sauk Chief Black Hawk, saying that he would come soon with many of his people.

  “Black Hawk is a great one,” Tecumseh said with delight, “and Charcoal Burner is no less. How pleased I will be to have them live here!”

  Another large body of families soon came into sight on the prairie and proved to be all the Potawatomies of Withered Hand, with their giant one-handed chief riding at their head. He had not had nearly so many people on his first visit. But scores had turned their backs on Winnemac and Five Medals after the treaty and had come with Withered Hand.

  What Tecumseh had predicted was happening.

  BY NOW EVEN BLACK HOOF’S EYES MIGHT HAVE BEEN opened to the white man’s treachery, Tecumseh believed, so in the Raspberry Moon he rode to the Auglaize.

  Wapakoneta now looked much like a white man’s town, cabins and a mill surrounded by corn fields planted in rows instead of hills, pigs running everywhere, milk cows grazing within fenced fields.

  Tecumseh asked for a council. Black Hoof and a few of his old men would not come, but most of the warriors had been shaken out of their lethargy by news of the Fort Wayne treaty, and they came. Black Hoof sent Stephen Ruddell to attend as an observer and as a calming influence. Also present in the edge of the crowd was Johnston, the new Indian agent from Fort Wayne.

  A little council fire burned in the semicircle where Tecumseh spoke. He poured out his heart and mind to the Shawnee warriors. Never had he spoken so well. He was talking to his own people, in his own tongue, without the need to pause for a translator. Interpreters usually were unable to convey the stunning figurative language or the logic that marched forth from him, but on this audience nothing was lost. When he told them how they were being changed from a proud, free people into slaves of credit and livestock, they knew he was right, and they were pained and angry. It hurt to hear stated outright what had been eating their hearts for so long. When he invited them to leave this unnatural condition and become free men, warriors and hunters as Weshemoneto had meant them to be, the longing shone in their eyes, and for the moment, even in their drab and muddy farmers’ garb, they looked like Shawnees again.

  “All the American promises are two-tongued,” he told them. “The white men drove you to this place and told you to live here. When Black Hoof went to Washington and asked for a title to this place, did the government give him a title? No! They put him off, because they want no red man to have a written title to anyplace! If he had a title, it would be harder to chase him off. They have never given a red man a title to any piece of land—even his own!—because they do not mean to let him stay anywhere! Is this not plain to you now? When white men make a treaty, it gives them title, and tells them where they can stay, but for the red man it only says where he can not stay! How long do you think you will be here before they want this place and write a treaty to put you out?

  “Come, my brothers! Move your families to the Prophet’s town on the Wabash-se-pe at Tippecanoe. There is a land from which the red man will never let himself be moved. There live a thousand warriors now with their families, and more come every day, from all nations, and there they live in harmony with each other, favored by the Master of Life, sworn to allow no white government to push them back any farther.

  “The white people there are afraid. Because they see that we are strong and free, the white people stay at a distance. They are afraid we are preparing to attack Vincennes. The governor calls together his militia and sends to Washington for Blue-Coats. He blames the British. He blames everyone but the guilty one: himself! Now we tell this governor only the truth, which he will not believe: that we are not planning to make war, but that we prepare ourselves to stand together against him if he tries to take more of our country. Is our town a war camp? No. It is a home of free people. But if a people mean to stay free, they must be strong and ready. It is not true that we plan to attack Vincennes. We mean only to keep a place where we can stand, and burn our fires, to live as we were created to live. Brothers! Do not
stoop at the plow like white farmers! Do not eat the flesh of filthy hogs! You are red men! You are greater than hog eaters!”

  When Tecumseh had finished, the Shawnee men clearly were stirred. Their voices were an excited buzz in the council ground. And, seeing this, Stephen Ruddell came forward to speak, to try to warn them of the trouble they would be in if they went to the Wabash with Tecumseh. Ruddell had never thought he would be opposing his old friend, but it was apparent to him that Tecumseh was trying to lead them away from the path preferred by the one true God.

  Ruddell stood before them now and drew from his pocket a piece of paper. They all knew what it was. Black Hoof had had him read it to them many times. Ruddell cried:

  “My children! Give me your best attention! You see what I hold here. Warrior Tecumseh tells you that Governor Harrison is not your friend. But you know the kind words Harrison wrote in this letter to Black Hoof. You remember how he praised him, and you, for your peacefulness, for your industry, and for shutting your ears to the bad birds of the British! You remember his good words. Brother,” he said, turning to Tecumseh, “you need to read this letter, too, to hear how kind Governor Harrison is, how he loves the red—”

  As Tecumseh, eyes flashing, snatched the paper out of his hand, Reverend Ruddell remembered with pride that it was he who had taught Tecumseh how to read.