Tecumseh and Brock

by James Laxer

  Under Article 9, both the United States and Great Britain agreed to end hostilities with native tribes and “forthwith to restore to such tribes or nations, respectively, all the possessions, rights and privileges, which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and eleven, previous to such hostilities: provided always, that such tribes or nations shall agree to desist from all hostilities against [the United States or Britain in the respective sections referring to each side], their citizens and subjects [“subjects” only in the case of Britain], upon the ratification of the present treaty being notified to such tribes or nations, and shall so desist accordingly.”2 Simply put, this clause resolved that native tribes on both sides of the border were to be accorded the status they had enjoyed prior to the war, with the understanding that they would desist from undertaking any hostile acts against either the United States or Britain.

  Article 9 was all that remained of Britain’s pledge to Tecumseh to stand with the native confederacy in the struggle to regain lands lost to the United States. In the negotiations, the British had abandoned the concept of a native state in the Ohio country. Instead, all the native people were left with was lands not yet signed away in treaties with the U.S. government or claimed by American settlers. Effectively, this did nothing to block the western tide of settlement, and it allowed the United States to deal with native tribes exactly as it pleased.

  Tecumseh lived and died as a warrior in the Endless War, which began in North America nearly two centuries before his birth and continued well after his death. The quest on which he had staked everything, for a native state in North America, expired on Christmas Eve 1814, when American and British diplomats signed the Treaty of Ghent.

  Epilogue

  Two Mysteries

  THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN the impetuous British general and the Shooting Star did not endure long. Two months after they met, Brock was dead. Tecumseh never found another British commander willing to take the fight to the enemy with the same élan. A year after Brock was killed on Queenston Heights, Tecumseh died on the battlefield at Moraviantown.

  Had Brock and Tecumseh lived, it is reasonable to speculate that Brock would have used whatever influence he had to win the deal for Tecumseh to which he had committed himself. But how much influence would he have had? The diplomats who negotiated the peace treaty with the United States in Ghent were acting on the instructions of the government at Westminster. And the British cared above all about their broad imperial interests.

  Tecumseh’s confederacy was the final occasion in history when native forces played a crucial role in determining the outcome of a geostrategic struggle in North America. The inspired concept of a native state reached the peak of its influence in the years prior to the War of 1812 and during the first year of the conflict. With the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, the concept became a lost cause.

  The British were glad to put the War of 1812 behind them. They regarded it as a strategic annoyance imposed on them by the Americans. In their view, its outcome was satisfactory: no imperial territory was lost, and the British did not even have to concede to the United States on the issue of impressment. While British diplomats argued for a time in favour of a native state in North America, they quite easily shelved the concept when it became a barrier to achieving peace. On June 18, 1815, three years to the day after the American declaration of war, the British and their allies fought and won the decisive Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon was defeated and exiled to St. Helena, a small, windswept island in the South Atlantic. The year 1815 marked the dawn of Pax Britannica, the century in which Britain was the world’s leading imperial power, a period of dominance that ended only with the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

  Americans look back on the War of 1812 as a decisive trial through which the nation passed, emerging stronger and more united. American historians have depicted the conflict as the country’s second war of independence, or as the war that forged a nation.1

  Were it not for the repeated American claim in books, songs, and films that the United States won the War of 1812, the assertion would seem self-evidently absurd. After all, the U.S. initiated the conflict and gained no territory as a result. There is no question, though, that the young republic held its own on the battlefield against the world’s greatest power and put an end to British intervention in American–Native affairs.

  The war also pushed the Americans to overcome the dangerous ideological division that had plagued the country since the 1780s. The split between Republicans and Federalists reflected the great ideological-philosophical conflicts of the age of the French Revolution and the succeeding Napoleonic era. During these volatile decades, Americans, like Europeans, positioned themselves along a spectrum that extended from those who identified with the French Revolution to those who feared the Revolution and sided with the British resistance to France. By the end of the war, Americans had left behind the preoccupations of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic age to embark on a more exclusively American journey.

  For the French Canadians, the war was the latest in a long history of invasions from the south. During the Patriot invasion of Quebec in 1775, Americans had managed to occupy Montreal for a time, but no major regions or towns in Lower Canada were taken and held by U.S. forces in the War of 1812. The most noteworthy episode of the war for French Canadians was the Battle of Chateauguay in 1813, when Lieutenant Colonel de Salaberry led a small, largely French-Canadian militia unit to rout a much larger American force. De Salaberry emerged as a French-Canadian folk hero. His statue can be seen today at the National Assembly in Quebec City, sword in hand, beckoning his men to follow him.

  The War of 1812 was Upper Canada’s War of Independence. Upper Canadians emerged from the conflict with a North American sensibility and a conservative political culture. Loyalty to the Crown became the highest expression of public virtue. Those who refused to proclaim their loyalty were tainted with the double sin of being both overtly or covertly republican and pro-American. In sharp contrast to the Americans, Upper Canadians believed that maintaining strong ties to the British Crown was the route to independence — not within the Empire, but from the United States. The fact that they developed their unique character by clinging to an empire has always made the Upper Canadian identity perplexing.

  The unpopular war did have one enduring historical consequence: north of Mexico, there were to be two great continental states, one of them much more populous and powerful than the other, to be sure. Against all odds, a transcontinental Canada, embracing many cultures and adopting two official languages, would take its place alongside the rising global power to the south. That Tecumseh and Brock, neither of whom was Canadian, are among the country’s immortals attests to the enigma that is Canada.

  A testament to the enduring legacy of these towering figures is the fact that two mysteries, one concerning Brock and the other Tecumseh, linger still today.

  General Isaac Brock took to his grave the answer to a question about which observers remain divided: did he have an unacknow-ledged romance with a young woman by the name of Sophia Shaw?

  To outward appearances, Brock appears to have been singularly devoted to his military career and his advancement in the army. He never married, and it is generally accepted that there is no evidence he ever established a relationship with a woman. But ever since his death, some have claimed that General Brock was engaged to Miss Sophia Shaw, a young woman who lived in York with her family. According to one story, as Brock set out on his horse Alfred en route to Queenston on the morning of his death, he encountered Sophia, dismounted briefly to accept a beverage from her, and then resumed his journey to the battle. Some claim, although the evidence is slight, that when Brock fell in battle at Queenston Heights in 1813, he muttered the name “Sophia” as he died. Years after the end of the war, Miss Shaw, heavily veiled and dressed in mourning clothes, appeared at a garden party at
Government House in York.

  If the stories about Miss Shaw are true, why did the general keep it a secret? There is evidence that Brock’s friends in England would have regarded a marriage to any Canadian as beneath him. In April 1811, from Hampton Court Park in England, Colonel J. A. Vesey wrote to the general to tell him that he wished he “had a daughter old enough for you, as I would give her to you with pleasure. You should be married, particularly as fate seems to detain you so long in Canada — but pray do not marry there.”2 A month later, the colonel wrote again to Brock to commiserate with him about “the stupid and uninteresting time you must have passed in Upper Canada.”3

  Given the large age gap between the two — Sophia Shaw was in her late teens and Brock was forty-three when he died at Queenston — some historical analysts, among them Gillian Lenfestey in Guernsey, believe that Sophia was infatuated with the general and developed the delusional idea after his death that she and Brock had been betrothed.

  The second mystery concerns the death of the great Shawnee chief and his subsequent resting place.

  After it was known that Tecumseh had fallen on the battlefield in October 1813, Kentucky soldiers found a corpse they believed to be his and cut slices of flesh from the body to take home as souvenirs. Later it was believed that the body of the decoratively attired warrior was not that of Tecumseh, whose custom was to wear simple clothes into battle. The day after the fight, William Henry Harrison was taken to see the body of the warrior believed to be Tecumseh, but he did not recognize the swollen and disfigured remains as those of his old foe.

  From there, the mystery goes in three directions. Some have insisted that Tecumseh was buried near the place where he fell — of this faction, some believe his bones have since been dug up and moved elsewhere, while others say that the great chief still lies in a grave on the battlefield and that someday his bones will be unearthed and his broken thigh bone will reveal his identity. Another theory holds that Tecumseh’s body was removed from the field of battle to be buried in a grave in what is now the east end of London, Ontario. Yet another view is that Tecumseh’s body was taken from the battlefield by native warriors and was transported for burial to the native territory of St. Anne Island, located on the Ontario side of the St. Clair River, across from the state of Michigan and adjacent to Walpole Island.

  In 1931, when Wilson Knaggs and his family moved into the home of the elderly Sarah White on Walpole Island, Knaggs poked around in the attic, where he discovered a burlap bag containing human bones. When informed of the find, Mrs. White was not at all surprised. She told Knaggs that her late husband, Chief Joseph White, had placed the bones there, and that their presence was to remain a secret. Knaggs pressed further for an explanation, and Mrs. White finally told him that the bones were those of Tecumseh.4

  According to the story, Chief White had acquired the bones from a Dr. Mitchell, who had himself obtained them from a burial site on St. Anne Island. Fearing that various parties would want to take possession of the remains, Chief White hid them around his property in a number of locations. Mrs. White had intended to go to her death without revealing her husband’s secret.

  Feeling the weight of responsibility for the find, Knaggs decided to tell the Walpole Island Soldiers’ Club, consisting of native veterans of the First World War. The veterans acted quickly. They called in experts and shared their discovery with others, some of whom were skeptical. Dr. W. B. Rutherford of Sarnia, Ontario, was called in to examine the bones and managed to assemble the skeleton of a medium-sized male. What was missing was the critical piece of evidence: the thigh bone.

  The veterans of Walpole Island held to their claim that Tecumseh had been found. Frustrated by the absence of any effort to honour Tecumseh with a monument and burial place on the island, they held a ceremony on a sunny day in August 1934. Guests from both Canada and the United States convened on Walpole Island to commemorate the life of the great leader, the discovery of his bones, and the plan to establish a burial site.

  Progress toward establishing the site proceeded slowly. Finally, on August 25, 1941, several thousand people journeyed to Walpole Island to attend a ceremony in which the great Shawnee chief’s bones were placed inside a casket made especially for the occasion. The casket was then sealed inside a stone cairn located on the northwest corner of the island, overlooking the St. Clair River.5 As far as the veterans on Walpole Island were concerned, Tecumseh had found a resting place on native soil.

  Notes

  Chapter 1: Tecumseh, the Shooting Star

  Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 269.

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 215.

  Stephen Ruddell, Reminiscences of Tecumseh’s Youth (Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003), 120; online facsimile edition at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-155.

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 23.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 9.

  Ibid.

  Albert Gallatin, A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States East of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1836), 65–68.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 61–65.

  E. B. O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, vol. 8 (Albany: Weed, Parsons, 1857), 111–37.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 34.

  Stephen Ruddell, Reminiscences of Tecumseh’s Youth (Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003), 121; online facsimile edition at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-155.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 47–49.

  Ibid., 67.

  John S. C. Abbott, Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky (New York: Dodd and Mead, 1872), 194–209.

  Ibid., 224.

  Ibid., 244.

  Colin G. Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 369–70.

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 4–5.

  Ibid., 36.

  Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty, Canada and Its Provinces, vol. 4 (Toronto: Publishers’ Association of Canada, 1914), 712–13.

  Colin G. Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 372–73.

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 45–46.

  Ibid., 44–45.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 67–68.

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 39–40.

  Stephen Ruddell, Reminiscences of Tecumseh’s Youth (Wisconsin Historical

  Society, 2003), 124; online facsimile edition at www.americanjourneys.org/aj-155.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 68.

  Chapter 2: A Warrior’s Odyssey

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 46–47, 49.

  Henry A. Ford, A. M. and Mrs. Kate B. Ford. History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches (Cleveland: L. A. Williams, 18
81), 56–65.

  Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, http://www.biographi.ca.

  Stephen Ruddell, Reminiscences of Tecumseh’s Youth (Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003), 125–26; online facsimile edition at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-155.

  Ibid., 123.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 69.

  Stephen Ruddell, Reminiscences of Tecumseh’s Youth (Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003), 126; online facsimile edition at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-155.

  John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 61.

  S. P. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory (Cincinnati: H. W. Derby; New York: A. B. Barnes, 1848), 222–25.

  Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet; with a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians (Cincinnati: E. Morgan, 1841), 37.

  William B. Kessel and Robert Wooster, eds., Encyclopedia of Native American Wars and Warfare (New York: Facts on File, 2005), 280.

  Stephen Ruddell, Reminiscences of Tecumseh’s Youth (Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003), 126–27; online facsimile edition at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-155.