Tecumseh—The Unsuccessful Thomas Paine

Taken from: algerblog.blogspot.com

Taken from: en.wikipedia.org

The speech of Tecumseh, titled “The White Men Are Not Friends to the Indians,” bears an uncanny resemblance to the battle cries of Thomas Paine.  However, unlike the successful author of Common Sense, Tecumseh fails in his task of uniting his people and freeing them from the white men.  By briefly reviewing the main points of their works as well as their historical circumstances, one may discover why Tecumseh failed in his mission.

First of all, both authors share the same purposes of independence and ridding themselves of their enemies.  Additionally, they list several grievances; with Thomas Paine, he drew his animosity from the British’s occupation and financial over-burdening, especially from the recent taxation from the French and Indian Wars (Perkins 338-40). Tecumseh then mentions the sins of the Indians’ enemies, the white men, saying,

“The white people came among us feeble; and now we have made them strong, the wish to kill us, or drive us back, as they would wolves and panthers … The white men want more than our hunting grounds; they wish to kill our warriors; they would even kill our old men, women, and little ones … The white men despise and cheat the Indians; they abuse and insult them; they do not think the red men sufficiently good to live” (516-17).

Thomas Paine and Tecumseh both promise, or acknowledge, Divine assistance in their plans.  The model Thomas Paine expresses that his “opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom can invent” (Perkins 345).  Likewise, Tecumseh ends his speech with,

“We must be united; we must smoke from the same pipe; we must fight each other’s battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirit: he is for us; he will destroy our enemies, and make all his red children happy” (517).

Then, while Thomas Paine employs optimistic future planning and stirring rhetoric as to why the oppressor is so evil, Tecumseh leaves such important sections out.  It may be easy to see for what reason Thomas Paine won America over with his details of government and legislation as well as his description of England’s continued rule as unnatural (Perkins 336, 340-44).  Conversely, as Tecumseh lacks such strong plans and reasoning, his speech of “The White Men Are Not Friends to the Indians” may have been doomed to fail.

Last but not least, the historical situations of Thomas Paine and Tecumseh greatly differ.  For one, while Paine was able to communicate quickly with a vast multitude of people through the printing press, Tecumseh was forced to travel the continent and make speeches (Perkins 515).  Then, the men had extremely different allies to assist them in their goals; Thomas Paine and the rest of the Americans were friends (and often immigrants from) all different countries of Europe, and they could rely on them for help.  Meanwhile, the Indians under Tecumseh had virtually no allies as they were rebelling from the white men, so that even the promised assistance from King George III seemed empty and counter-intuitive (517).  Indeed, with so many Indians relying on the white men’s goods, Tecumseh again seemed set up for failure, and even his great abilities as an orator would no longer help him (Ohio History Central).

Cite:

"Tecumseh's Confederation." Ohio History Central. Ohio Historical Society, 1 July 2005. Web. 06 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=637>.

Perkins, George B., and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 1. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.