Tecumseh & the Shawnee Prophet Native American Book CD

"Since the savages on this continent were known to civilized men, the Indian race has produced no more splendid genius than Tecumseh. He had courage and fortitude in common with most Indians, but to these he added an imagination capable of seeking the largest results, a practical wisdom that laid hold upon the readiest means of achieving his ends, and an energy rarely equaled by any commander. To this we must add the knowledge of human nature, the tact to command, the art to persuade, and the skill to mold men as he desired. He sought to unite the Indians into one vast confederacy or empire, and, putting himself at their head, to stay the progress of the whites. He was defeated, but that defeat was the result of the inherent superiority of civilization to savagery. Had his gifts been exercised in a more opportune field, he would no doubt have proven himself one of the great leaders of men. And even in his mistaken patriotism and foregone defeat, he showed himself a shrewd diplomatist, a great commander, a persuasive orator, a statesman, and a man of indomitable patience, brilliant courage, and wonderful power of gaining and holding the allegiance of his followers.

He came of one of the most energetic and warlike of the Indian tribes. The Shawnees have always been a restless people, more adventurous than any other Indians. They belong to that family of Indian nations known as the Algonquin. This family was the most numerous of all the Indian races, and spoke a language not very different in the different tribes. The tribes which the whites first encountered in Virginia and in Massachusetts spoke dialects of this Algonquin speech. To this stock belong the Six Nations of Canada, the Chippewas or Ojibbeways of Wisconsin and Minnesota, celebrated in Longfellow's Hiawatha, the Crees of British America, the Mohegans, the Delawares, the Kickapoos, the Illinois, the Otta- was, the Sacs and Foxes, and many other tribes well known in the history of the settlement of the country. The Algonquin people are supposed to have constituted half the population east of the Mississippi at the time of the settlement of the country, and to have numbered not less than ninety thousand."