The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Complete. Major Richardson
discovered them, to his companions. The elder Indians who sat near the spot on which the officers stood, were made acquainted with what even their own sharp sight could not distinguish unaided by the glass. One sprang to his feet, raised the telescope to his eye, and with an exclamation of wonder at the strange properties of the instrument, confirmed to his followers the truth of the statement. The elders, principally chiefs, spoke in various tongues to their respective warriors. The sports were abandoned, and all crowded to the bank with anxiety and interest depicted in their attitudes and demeanor.
Meanwhile, the dark specks upon the water increased momentarily in size. Presently they could be distinguished for canoes, which, rapidly impelled, and aided in their course by the swift current, were not long in developing themselves to the naked eye. These canoes, about fifty in number, were of bark, and of so light a description, that a man of ordinary strength might, without undergoing serious fatigue, carry one for miles. The warriors who now propelled them, were naked in all save their leggings and waist cloths, their bodies and faces begrimed with paint: and as they drew neater, fifteen was observed to be the complement of each. They sat by twos on the narrow thwarts; and, with their faces to the prow, dipped their paddles simultaneously into the stream, with a regularity of movement not to be surpassed by the most experienced boat's crew of Europe. In the stern of each sat a chief guiding his bark, with the same unpretending but skilful and efficient paddle, and behind him, drooping in the breezeless air, and trailing in the silvery tide, was to be seen a long pendant, bearing the red cross of England.
It was a novel and beautiful sight to behold that imposing fleet of canoes, apparently so frail in texture that the dropping of a pebble between the skeleton ribs might be deemed sufficient to perforate and sink them, yet withal so ingeniously contrived as to bear safely not only the warriors who formed their crews, hut also their arms of all descriptions, and such light equipment of raiment and necessaries as were indispensable to men who had to voyage long and far in pursuit of the goal they were now rapidly attaining. The Indians already encamped near the fort, were warriors of nations long rendered familiar by personal intercourse, not only with the inhabitants of the district, but with the troops themselves; and these, from frequent association with the whites, had lost much of that fierceness which is so characteristic of the North American Indian in his ruder state. Among these, with the more intelligent Hurons, were the remnants of those very tribes of Shawanees and Delawares whom we have recorded to have borne, half a century ago, so prominent a share in the confederacy against England, but who, after the termination of that disastrous war, had so far abandoned their wild hostility, as to have settled in various points of contiguity to the forts to which they, periodically, repaired to receive those presents which a judicious policy so profusely bestowed.
The reinforcement just arriving was composed principally of warriors who had never yet pressed a soil wherein civilization had extended her influence—men who had never hitherto beheld the face of a white, unless it were that of the Canadian trader, who, at stated periods, penetrated fearlessly into their wilds for purposes of traffic, and who to the bronzed cheek that exposure had rendered nearly as swarthy as their own, united not only the language but so wholly the dress—or rather the undress of those he visited, that he might easily have been confounded with one of their own dark blooded race. So remote, indeed, were the regions in which some of these warriors had been sought, that they were strangers to the existence of more than one of their tribes, and upon these they gazed with a surprise only inferior to what they manifested, when, for the first time, they marked the accoutrements of the British soldier, and turned with secret, but unacknowledged awe and admiration upon the frowning fort and stately shipping, bristling with cannon, and vomiting forth sheets of flame as they approached the shore. In these might have been studied the natural dignity of man. Firm of step—proud of mien—haughty yet penetrating of look, each leader offered in his own person a model to the sculptor, which he might vainly seek elsewhere. Free and unfettered in every limb, they moved in the majesty of nature, and with an air of dark reserve, passed, on landing, through the admiring crowd.
There was one of the number, however, and his canoe was decorated with a richer and a larger flag, whose costume was that of the more civilized Indians, and who in nobleness of deportment, even surpassed those we have last named. This was Tecumseh. He was not of the race of either of the parties who now accompanied him, but of one of the nations, many of whose warriors were assembled on the bank awaiting his arrival. As the head chief of the Indians, his authority was acknowledged by all, even to the remotest of these wild but interesting people, and the result of the exercise of his all-powerful influence had been the gathering together of those warriors, whom he had personally hastened to collect from the extreme west, passing in his course, and with impunity, the several American posts that lay in their way. In order more fully to comprehend the motives and character of this remarkable man, it may not be impertinent to recur summarily to events that took place prior to the declaration of war by the United States against England.
It being a well established—and even by themselves uncontradicted—fact, we can have no hesitation in stating (what we trust no American will conceive to be stated in illiberality of spirit, since such feeling we utterly disclaim) that the government of the United States, bent on the final acquisition of all the more proximate possessions of the Indians, had for many consecutive years, waged a war of extermination against these unfortunate people, and more especially those residing on the Wabash, to which the eye of interest or preference, or both, had directed a jealous attention. For a series of years the aggression had been prosecuted with fearful issue to the Indians, when, at length, one of those daring spirits, that appear like meteors, few and far between, in the horizon of glory and intelligence, suddenly started up in the person of Tecumseh, who, possessed of a genius, as splendid in conception, as it was bold in execution, long continued to baffle the plans and defeat the measures of his most experienced enemies. Whether the warrior owed his original influence, or rather the opportunity for development of his extraordinary talents, both diplomatic and warlike, to the fact of his being the brother of the Prophet—a similar, and rather mean looking person, whom a deep reading of the prejudices of his followers had bound to him in an enthusiasm of superstitious credence—whether, we repeat, Tecumseh owed his elevation to this circumstance in part, or wholly to his own merit, it is difficult to determine with certainty, but it is matter of history, that plausible and powerful as the Prophet had rendered himself, his more open and generous brother, while despising in his heart the mummeries practised by his wily relative, was not long in supplanting him in the affections, as he rapidly superseded him in authority and influence, over his people—All looked up to him as the defender and saviour of their race, and so well did he merit the confidence reposed in him, that it was not long after his first appearance as a leader in the war-path, that the Americans were made sensible, by repeated defeat, of the formidable character of the chief who had thrown himself into the breach of his nation's tottering fortunes, resolved rather to perish on the spot on which he stood, than to retire one foot from the home of their forefathers. What self-ennobling actions the warrior performed, and what talent he displayed during that warfare, the page of American history must tell. With the spirit to struggle against, and the subsequent good fortune to worst the Americans in many conflicts, these latter, although beaten, have not been wanting in generosity to admire their formidable enemy while living, neither have they failed to venerate his memory when dead. If they have helped to bind the laurel around his living brow, they have not been the less willing to weave the cypress that encircles his memory.
In almost every encounter with them, Tecumseh was more or less successful; but, like the conqueror of other days, he might have exclaimed, "another such victory and I am lost." Weakened in a constant succession of engagements, the Indians, and the Shawnees in particular, now presented but a skeleton of their former selves, while the Americans, on the contrary, with an indefatigability that would have done credit to a better cause, kept pouring in fresh forces to the frontier, until, in the end, opposition to their purpose seemed almost hopeless. It is doubtful, however, what would have been the final result of a contest against a warrior of such acknowledged ability and resource as Tecumseh, had it not unfortunately happened that the Americans, taking advantage of the performance of some of those mummeries by which the Prophet still sought to uphold his fast declining power, managed to surprise the Shawanee encampment in the dead of night, when, favoured by circumstances, they committed fearful havoc, nearly annihilating their enemies.