Born c.1768 near Springfield, Ohio, Tecumseh was involved in Shawnee resistance to American expansion in three separate battles in the 1790s. After the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, he became chief of a band of Shawnees who moved to various locations in Ohio and Indiana before settling in Greenville, Ohio, in 1805. As his younger brother Tenskwatawa, assumed a more influential role as The Prophet (see note to I,241), Tecumseh was able to politicize the religious movement associated with his brother by pushing it towards a commitment to resist further white expansion into Indian territory. He consistently argued for a position based on common ownership of Indian lands, thereby frustrating the strategy of American agents eager to negotiate agreements with individual chiefs and bands.

After arguing this case with Governor Harrison at Vincennes, Indiana, in the summer of 1810, Tecumseh was recruiting allies among tribes further south when Harrison marched on Prophetstown on the Tippecanoe River and successfully goaded the forces gathered there under the leadership of Tecumseh and The Prophet into an ill-advised attack. The Battle of Tippecanoe on June 7, 1811, left Tecumseh’s ranks decimated and demoralized, but by the summer of 1812, he had rebuilt his numbers to about 1,000 men and had allied himself with the British in the war declared by the United States on June 19, 1812.

In April, 1813, Tecumseh joined his forces with those of Major-General Procter in the siege of Fort Meigs. This campaign was unsuccessful, but an American relief force was captured when approaching the fort and several hundred prisoners were taken. Both contemporary reports and subsequent historiography differ on the complicity of Procter in the subsequent killing of many of these captives by the Indian forces, but all agree that the massacre was halted as soon as Tecumseh arrived. A second siege at Fort Meigs in July also failed, with the British and Indian forces suffering heavy casualties.

In the battle that serves Richardson as a focus for Canto I of Tecumseh, the defeat of Commander Barclay’s naval force on Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, left the forces of Tecumseh and Procter isolated from their supply lines in eastern Canada. Thus, Procter, apparently without consulting the Indians, ordered the desertion of the British base at Fort Amherstburg and a retreat from the encroaching American land forces under General Harrison. Having opposed the retreat, Tecumseh insisted that a stand be taken near the village of Moraviantown, and in the ensuing battle on October 5, 1813, he was killed. His death ended the last attempt to organize an effective Indian confederacy to resist white expansionism south of the Great Lakes.

  form’d to dight  Formed into array.

instant of alarm  The Battle of Moraviantown or the Battle of the Thames was fought on October 5, 1813. After the defeat of British naval forces in the Battle of Lake Erie, all of the western peninsula of Upper Canada was vulnerable to American invasion. General Procter’s decision to retreat up the Thames was based on a continuing shortage of supplies for his own troops and on the conviction that his forces could not successfully repel an American attack at Fort Amherstburg.

Richardson’s dedication of the first edition of Tecumseh to "Captain Barclay, and Other Officers Serving with the Right Division of the Army of Upper Canada, During the Late American War" reflects his concern with vindicating the conduct of those serving with both the naval and land forces of the Right Division. The historigraphy of the battle suggests that the British-Canadian line broke early in the battle leaving Tecumseh and his Indian forces vulnerable to a crushing defeat. For Richardson, however, the defeat was directly attributable to a failure in leadership by Procter.

Despite their victory, the American army returned to Detroit after the Battle of Moraviantown and made no attempt to exploit the strategic advance that their victory represented. With Perry’s victory on Lake Erie and Harrison’s at Moraviantown, however, the war on the western frontier of Upper Canada was effectively over.

nine sail  Perry’s squadron actually consisted of ten vessels.

The first edition supplies a much longer account of the stratagem that plays a central role in the plotting of Richardson’s Wacousta: "As the reader is, perhaps, not generally aware of the circumstance here alluded to, the following account, completely illustrative of Indian craft and invention, may not prove unacceptable:—During the original European wars in America, when the French had still a decided influence over the character and services of the natives, the latter, availing themselves of the opportunity afforded during an interval of peace, when the British garrison slumbered in security, had conceived and matured a plan for the reduction of the two important posts of Detroit and Michilimakinac [sic]. The artifice resorted to was one well worthy of the Indian character; and although the garrisons were several hundred miles distant from each other, the execution of the project was fixed for the same day. According to their custom, but in greater numbers than usual, the warriors assembled early on the morning of the day appointed, on a common adjoining the former fort, where they usually played at ball:— their guns had been cut short to facilitate their concealment, and every thing was in readiness, when, at a given signal, the ball was, as if accidentally, thrown within the walls. The request, that they might be permitted to enter for it, was instantly accorded; but no sooner were the gates thrown open than they all rushed forward for the completion of their enterprise. Greatly to their astonishment, however, and not less to their disappointment, they perceived the whole of the line under arms, and the artillerymen at their guns. It is almost needless to add, that rage and mortification were their predominant feelings. The governor had been apprised of the scheme by an Indian woman, who, grateful for certain little kindnesses shewn her by his household, formed the laudable resolution to save the unsuspecting garrison, even at the risk of incurring those torments she well knew must follow detection. It is gratifying to humanity to know, that suspicion even did not attach to her; and in her old age she was wont to speak on the subject to many of the English families in terms of the highest exultation and self-satisfaction. With the other ill-fated fortress the scheme proved but too successful; for those within had no guardian-angel to warn them of their danger. On the same day, and at the same hour, the ball was thrown into the fort, the gates of which were opened with blind and heedless confidence;—need I conclude?— the greatest part of the garrison were massacred, and the most cruel indignities offered to the unfortunate and surviving sufferers."

Mr. Campbell  Thomas Campbell, author of Gertrude of Wyoming, a Pennsylvanian Tale; and Other Poems (London: Longman,1809). Consisting of eighty-seven stanzas divided into three parts, Campbell’s poem is a narrative of domestic tragedy set in a highly idealized depiction of the Wyoming Valley of the Susquehanna River in eastern Pennsylvania. Campbell’s portrait of Joseph Brant as "the monster Brandt" and "Accursed Brandt" was based, by Campbell’s own account, on the "the common Histories of England, all of which represented him as a bloody and bad man (even among savages), and chief agent in the horrible desolation of Wyoming." When Brant’s son visited England in 1821 and requested a retraction, Campbell added the following sentence to all subsequent additions: "The name of Brandt, therefore, remains in my poem a pure and declared character of fiction." Anna Jameson reflects on both Brandt and Campbell in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada: "Brandt, who had intelligence enough to perceive and acknowledge the superiority of the whites in all the arts of life, was at first anxious for the conversion and civilisation of his nation; but I was told by a gentleman who had known him, that after a visit he paid to England, this wish no longer existed. He returned to his own people with no very sublime idea either of our morals or manners and died in 1807. He is the Brandt whom Campbell has handed down to most undeserved execration as the leader in the massacre at Wyoming. The poet indeed tells us, in the notes to Gertrude of Wyoming, that all he has said against Brandt must be considered as pure fiction, ‘for that he was remarkable for his humanity, and not even present at the massacre;’ but the name stands in the text as heretofore, apostrophised as the ‘accursed Brandt,’ the ‘monster Brandt;’ and is not this most unfair, to be hitched into elegant and popular rhyme as an assassin by wholesale, and justice done in a little fag-end of prose?" (Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. II, London: Saunders and Otley, 1838. pp.105-106).

     The final sentence of Richardson’s note is an addition to the 1828 version.

The first edition supplies a much longer note: "While the right division were engaged in the siege of Fort Meigs, General Clay, who was rapidly descending the Miami with a reinforcement of 1500 men, received an order from General Harrison, through the medium of a courier, despatched through the besieging lines during the night, to land and possess himself of the batteries erected on the right bank of the river, which were literally unsupported. The plan was well conceived; and had General Clay confined himself to the letter of his instructions, his success would have been complete. The batteries were taken without opposition, and the guns immediately spiked. The flying artillerymen had, however, given the alarm, and as the enemy, emboldened by the facility of their conquest, and contrary to the express command of their General-in-Chief, remained in quiet possession, two companies of the 41st regiment, under Brevet-Majors Muir and Tallon, supported by Tecumseh and a body of Indians, were despatched to repossess themselves of the ground. The assault was conducted in the most spirited manner; and the enemy were driven, literally at the point of the bayonet, from each battery in succession, one of which was carried in the most gallant and conspicuous style by Major Chambers, of the 41st, acting Deputy Quarter-Master-General, supported merely by four or five followers. The Americans were finally driven from the plain into the wood, where a sharp and destructive fire had already commenced on the part of Tecumseh. The result was, that only 150 succeeded in making their escape. About 450 prisoners were despatched under an escort, to the camp, established at the distance of a mile: scarcely had they reached it, when a number of cowardly Indians, who had borne no share in the action whatever, came up, and selecting each a captive from the throng, commenced the work of blood. An old, intrepid, and worthy soldier, in attempting to save a victim from his infuriated destroyer, received a rifle-ball in his heart. At this moment, Tecumseh, apprised of what was going on, rode up to the miserable wretches, and with an eye darting fury and dissatisfaction, raised his arm, and swore to punish each offender in the most exemplary manner, if they did not immediately desist. Even on those lawless people, to whom command and coercion were hitherto unknown, the energetic threat of the indignant warrior produced an instantaneous effect, and they retired at once humiliated and confounded; not, however, before several victims had sunk beneath their treacherous steel. Never did Tecumseh shine more truly himself than on this melancholy occasion. I have extended the relation of this affair beyond the usual limits of a note; but the interest of the scene altogether must plead my apology. To this I may add another motive,—a desire to instance a decided contradiction to the statement of "An Englishwoman," a writer very severely and properly handled in one of the Quarterly Reviews for 1821, which, by mere accident, fell into my hands a few days since. To her ungenerous assertion, that prisoners were wantonly delivered into the hands of the Indians, every officer serving in Canada can afford a most positive refutation. Let the Americans not blame us for having employed the natives: had we not, they certainly would; and on the principle of self- defence alone, the measure was one of necessity. Theirs was a war of invasion and of aggression; nor can they with justice deny, that every effort had been made by themselves to attach the Indians to their party. Had they succeeded, Upper Canada must have fallen; and unless the natives are our allies, most probably will, in the event of any future rupture."

     An Englishwoman  [Frances Wright, afterwards D’Arusmont]; Views of Society and Manners in America; In a Series of Letters from that Country to a Friend in England, During the Years 1818, 1819 and 1820.  By an Englishwoman. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, 1821. "Article III" in the Quarterly Review, XXVII (April, 1822), 71-99, reviews four volumes dealing with North American travels, Views of Society being the last considered. The reviewer begins: "The fourth and last article is an impudent attempt, we conceive, to foist into public notice, under a spurious title, namely that of an Englishwoman, a most ridiculous and extravagant panegyric on the government and people of the United States; accompanied by the grossest and most detestable calumnies against this country, that folly and malignity ever invented. An Englishwoman, with the proper spirit and feeling attached to that proud title, would blush to be thought the author of such a work." The specific passage to which Richardson refers reads: "A single extract from the Letters of the pseudo-Englishwoman will be sufficient to show the general feeling by which the writer is influenced towards England. In speaking of the affair of Frenchton [sic] on the river Raisin, a story is told of the massacre of ‘a detachment of the choicest sons of Kentucky, by the Indians under Colonel Proctor [sic], after a surrender by capitulation on honourable terms,’ which concludes thus: ‘The British commander marched off his troops, gave his prisoners in charge to the savages, and left them, with the wounded and the dying, to be tomahawked and roasted at the stake.’ A more infamous and detestable falsehood than this was never fabricated." Richardson says that this volume of the Quarterly Review "by mere accident, fell into my hands a few days since." A long account of the War of 1812 appeared in the July, 1822, issue of the same volume.