Talk:Tecumseh

I have long admired Tecumtha, but I am just beginning to study some of the discrepancies in the accounts of his statements to Harrison. One idea that I have surmised as a possible explanation of the discrepancy in dates given for the August 1810 statement, is that he might have narrated a letter on the eleventh, that was delivered on the 12th, because some accounts state or imply that he spoke the words, and others state or imply they were delivered in a letter. ~ Kalki 17:56, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Misattributed == ==="Let the White Race Perish"

The following was marked as misattributed over 2 years ago in Jan. 2017. It has not been disputed. Without studying pages of policy & procedures, am assuming it's ok to move it here. Tecumseh's forces fought alongside the (white) British against the (white) US... Suggesting 1) that he was not racist & 2) that the "misattributed" charge is based on fact. Cheers. Om777om (talk) 18:59, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Misattributed

"Let the White Race Perish" (October 1811)

• The Muscogee was once a mighty people. The Georgians trembled at your war-whoop, and the maidens of my tribe, on the distant lakes, sung the prowess of your warriors and sighed for their embraces. Now your very blood is white; your tomahawks have no edge; your bows and arrows were buried with your fathers. Oh! Muscogees, brethren of my mother, brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery; once more strike for vengeance; once more for your country. The spirits of the mighty dead complain. Their tears drop from the weeping skies. Let the white race perish! They seize your land, they corrupt your women, they trample on your dead! Back! whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven! Back! back — ay, into the great water whose accursed waves brought them to our shores! Burn their dwellings! Destroy their stock! Slay their wives and children! The red man owns the country, and the pale-face must never enjoy it! War now! War forever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig their very corpses from the graves! Our country must give no rest to the white man's bones.
  • Speech to the Creek people, quoted in Great Speeches by Native Americans by Robert Blaisdel. This quote appeared in J. F H. Claiborne, Life and Times of Gen. Sam Dale, the Mississippi Partisan (Harper, New York, 1860). However, historian John Sugden writes, "Claiborne's description of Tecumseh at Tuckabatchie in the alleged autobiography of the Fontiersman, Samuel Dale, however, is fraudulent. … Although they adopt the style of the first person, as in conventional autobiography, the passages dealing with Tecumseh were largely based upon published sources, including McKenney, Pickett and Drake's Life of Tecumseh. The story is cast in the exaggerated and sensational language of the dime novelist, with embellishments more likely supplied by Claiborne than Dale, and the speech put into Tecumseh's mouth is not only unhistorical (it has the British in Detroit!) but similar to ones the author concocted for other Indians in different circumstances." Sugden also finds it "unreliable" and "bogus." Sugden, John. "Early Pan-Indianism; Tecumseh’s Tour of the Indian Country, 1811-1812." American Indian Quarterly 10, no. 4 (1986): 273–304. doi:10.2307/1183838.