1/August 20: On this day in 1810, Tecumseh (Shawnee), one of the greatest Native American leaders of all time, delivered a lecture on settler colonialism and genocide. 219 years later, it has inspired an obscure professor to write a twitter thread.
2/The audience for Tecumseh's lecture was William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory and a future U.S. president.
3/Tecumseh’s lecture to Harrison is not nearly as well known as Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “What To the Slave is the Fourth of July.” But it is equally critical of the United States (maybe even more so).
4/Tecumseh and Harrison were meeting at Vincennes, the territorial capital of Indiana, on lands taken from the Shawnees in the 1795 Greenville Treaty (the result of a war of conquest).
5/Tecumseh had come to Vincennes to contest the legitimacy of recent treaties Harrison had “negotiated” using some pretty shady tactics.
6/Robert Owens details Harrison’s modus operandi in his wonderfully titled book MR. JEFFERSON’S HAMMER (Harrison being the blunt instrument President TJ used to take Indian lands).
7/After several days of discussions, Tecumseh gave his lecture. It started with some history.
8/First item: The Gnadenhutten massacre of 1782. “Men women and children murdered” (96 total) by a Pennsylvania militia. This is the sort of thing you guys do.
9/Second item: Americans’ murder of Shawnee peace chief Moluntha in 1786 under a white flag. Also, this is the sort of thing you guys do.
10/Third item (much farther back in time): “When Jesus Christ came to earth and you killed him and nailed him to a cross.” How could a people who killed the Son of God be trusted?
11/After this history lesson, Tecumseh criticized Harrison’s deceitful practices in treaty making, especially his divide-and-conquer strategy, which pitted Indians against each other.
12/Tecumseh also accused Harrison of biological warfare: When Harrison issued annuity goods to Kickapoos just a few months before, “you killed many.” Why? The goods carried “smallpox by which many died.”
13/Tecumseh’s accusation that Harrison intentionally infected Kickapoos with smallpox is pretty amazing, isn’t it? But historians who have summarized Tecumseh’s speech to Harrison have either ignored or glossed over this point.
14/Maybe it seems too explosive to acknowledge that one of the most famous Native Americans of all time accused a future U.S. president of biological warfare. But he did.
15/Did Harrison actually distribute smallpox infected blankets to Kickapoos? I don't know. To me the important thing is that Tecumseh believed that Harrison had done it and that it was typical of Americans to do things like this.
16/All told, Tecumseh’s lecture added up to a powerful indictment of U.S. Americans. Not only did they take Native lands, they consistently used violence and biological warfare to do it.
17/The phrase “settler colonialism” did not exist, but that’s what Tecumseh was talking about. The word “genocide” hadn’t been coined, but that what he was accusing of Harrison of doing.
18/I talked about Tecumseh's lecture to Harrison in an article describing "an indigenous consciousness of genocide." I also gave lots of examples of Native people saying: "Americans want to take our lands, and to do it, they intend to kill us all." bit.ly/2MrmfQ8 end/
Correction: 209 years later.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.