It began with an eclipse. In 1806, the Shawnee leader Tenskwatawa ("The Open Door") declared himself to be in direct contact with the Master of Life, and therefore, the supreme religious authority for all Native Americans. Those who disbelieved him, he warned, "would see darkness come over the sun." William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory and future American president, scoffed at Tenskwatawa. If he was truly a prophet, Harrison taunted, let him perform a miracle. And Tenskwatawa did just that, making the sun go dark at midday. In The Gods of Prophetstown, Adam Jortner provides a gripping account of the conflict between Tenskwatawa and Harrison, who finally collided in 1811 at a place called Tippecanoe. Though largely forgotten today, their rivalry determined the future of westward expansion and shaped the War of 1812. Jortner weaves together dual biographies of the opposing leaders. In the five years between the eclipse and the battle, Tenskwatawa used his spiritual leadership to forge a political pseudo-state with his brother Tecumseh. Harrison, meanwhile, built a power base in Indiana, rigging elections and maneuvering for higher position. Rejecting received wisdom, Jortner sees nothing as preordained-Native Americans were not inexorably falling toward dispossession and destruction. Deeply rooting his account in a generation of scholarship that has revolutionized Indian history, Jortner places the religious dimension of the struggle at the fore, recreating the spiritual landscapes trod by each side. The climactic battle, he writes, was as much a clash of gods as of men. Written with profound insight and narrative verve, The Gods of Prophetstown recaptures a forgotten turning point in American history in time for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Tippecanoe.

*Includes pictures *Explains the roles played by Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison before, during, and after the battle *Includes various accounts of what happened at the battle according to both sides *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents The Battle of Tippecanoe, fought on November 7, 1811 near present-day Lafayette, Indiana, involved forces of fewer than 2,000 Native American warriors and white soldiers, and only about 300 men were killed or wounded on both sides. Given those numbers, it's apparent that the battle was far from being a Saratoga or a Gettysburg in terms of its scale or significance as an historical turning point, yet it was one of the most important battles in shaping American history during the early 19th century. The battle also involved an epic confrontation between two important American figures: William Henry Harrison, who would become the 9th president of the United States by running on his success in the battle, and the Shawnee war chief Tecumseh, arguably the most famous Native American leader in American history. From the American Revolution up through the Battle of Tippecanoe, Native Americans in the Old Northwest (today's Midwestern states) had been putting up stout resistance to that region's settlement by white land speculators and settlers. Things came to a head when Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet Tenskwatawa, spearheaded a movement in the region that greatly influenced the area's Native Americans. In 1806, Harrison began to publicly denounce Tenskwatawa to other tribal leaders, calling him a fraud and charlatan, but the Shawnee Prophet responded by accurately predicting a solar eclipse, which embarrassed Governor Harrison, and after this event, which tribal leaders took as a sign of Tenskwatawa's authenticity, his movement grew even more rapidly. By 1808, Tenskwatawa and his followers had moved west and founded a large, multi-tribal settlement near the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers, called Prophetstown or Tippecanoe. Assisted by his brother Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa's settlement grew tremendously and eventually became the largest Native American settlement in the region. It also served as a Native American cultural center and provided a steady cadre of warriors ready to hear the Prophet's message that they should return to their ancestral lifestyles and force the white settlers and their culture out of their territory. Although accounts of the battle conflict, all agree that sentinels aroused the main body of the American troops when they detected Native American warriors attacking the Americans' perimeter from the south. The initial Native American attack struck the southern point of the defensive perimeter around 4:30 a.m. on November 7, 1811, and almost immediately the warriors rushed in among the American defenders manning that sector. Soldiers defending the southern side of the perimeter suffered the highest casualties, with the Yellow Jackets suffering a 30% casualty rate, but in fighting lasting about two hours Harrison's force of roughly 1,000, suffered only 62 dead and about 120 wounded. As the sun rose, the warriors began running low on ammunition, and the light revealed their small numbers, leading them to break off the attack and retreat towards Prophetstown. The battle was hardly a decisive victory, but at the end of the fighting the Americans still held their perimeter, allowing them to claim victory. While Tippecanoe was clearly not a total victory, and Native American resistance would continue through the War of 1812, the battle is widely considered the end of Tecumseh's War and did help bring about the decline of Native American ascendancy in the region. The Battle of Tippecanoe: The History and Legacy of the American Victory That Ended Tecumseh's War analyzes the background that led up to the battle and its aftermath.

This is the gripping story of the Tippecanoe campaign of 1811: 'The prophet's battle'. It was a conflict born out of festering tensions inscribed by the 1795 Treaty of Greeneville, which had concluded the Northwestern Indian War and attempted to prevent white settlers' encroaching onto newly defined Indian territories. For 16 years there had been peace, but in 1811 the number of settlers in the Ohio territory had swollen from 3,000 to 250,000. War was again coming to the North West. Within these pages John F. Winkler explores the dramatic build up to the conflict as 'The Prophet' Tenskatawa and his brother Tecumseh rallied the tribes to drive back the American settlers once and for all. Through superb illustrations and maps, Winkler provides a clear view of the intense fighting that followed at Tippecanoe and the true impact that it would come to have on the War of 1812.

An original, readable narrative of the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe and the role of religion in the history of the American West

Excerpt from The Battle of Tippecanoe: Historical Sketches of the Famous Field Upon Which General William Henry Harrison Won Renown That Aided Him in Reaching the Presidency; Lives of the Prophet and Tecumseh, With Many Interesting Incidents of Their Rise and Overthrow Republic, whose warmest personal and party friends refer to the Hero of Tippecanoe with reverence and pride. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.