Customer Reviews

Tecumseh: A Life

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

John Sudgen's "Tecumseh: A Life" is one of the more recent biographies of the famous Shawnee leader. Upon first reading of this book, I was not greatly impressed as the text was rather dry and languid. However, after delving more deeply into other works on Tecumseh's background and history of the War of 1812, I felt this work perhaps deserved another look.

Tecumseh of course is the famous Shawnee war leader who resisted American expansion into the Northwest Territory in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He has been the subject of many books and movies, many of them fanciful presentations of the mythical image that has grown up around the man that many have called the greatest Indian leader of all time. Tecumseh's dream of a powerful pan-Indian confederacy was visionary in scope as he hoped to unite not just a few, but ALL the Indian tribes east of the Missisippi and beyond against the flood of white settlers pouring across the Appalachian Mountains. Tecumseh came closer than any others to succeeding in that vision, but the British defeat in the War of 1812 and Tecumseh's death at the Battle of Moraviantown in 1813 ended that dream forever.

Sudgen's book helps to dispel many of the myths and tries to present the known facts about Tecumseh's life. While not nearly as engaging as Allan Eckert's "A Sorrow In Our Hearts", this book serves as a decent, if still somewhat slow going telling of the life of an undeniably capable leader. Sudgen also takes time to bash research of other historians who have done work on Tecumseh, ostensibly to help clarify the many myths and misconceptions that have grown up around the Shawnee leader in the past 200 hundred years, but the chapter comes off as more of a rant against other authors and diminishes the impact of the book. After reading Sudgen's work, I would recommend checking out not only Eckert's books on Tecumseh, but also "A Wampum Denied" by Sandy Antal and "The Shawnee Prophet" by R. David Edmunds for a more in-depth understanding of Tecumseh's life and times.

My knowledge of Tecumseh has been limited to what I have seen in a school filmstrip/tape. This book is well researched and gives a thorough description of Tecumseh's efforts to unite the various Indian tribes in an effort to keep their land from the advancing whites. The Battle of Tippicanoe against Wm. Henry Harrison is covered as is The War of 1812 in which Tecumseh allied himself with the British to advance the Indians' cause in stemming the tide against the United States. The entire book seems to be one battle after another, and I guess that's the way it was for the Indians in a futile effort to keep their land. Tecumseh's brother, The Prophet, is also covered and they appear to be two complete opposites. Tecumseh is eventually killed in battle in Ontario during The War of 1812, but he certainly has to get an "A" for effort in trying to unite the Indian tribes in their common cause of keeping their land. Their is a lot of information in the book, and at times, it gets somewhat long. However, the fact that I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 is not the fault of the book. It would be because my background on the subject was nill when I started.

John Sugden's "Tecumseh" is more than a well researched biography of the great Indian chief; it is also a moving story of the clash of cultures in the Old Northwest in the late 18th and early 19th century. At no time are the Indians portrayed as the "gentle children of nature" oppressed by the wicked white man...a portrayal that has become all too common in our era where history is too often written from the viewpoint of the underclass. Instead, the Indians are portrayed as human beings ( at times noble and at times savage ) struggling to survive the whirlwind of the white world that was destroying their way of life.

Tecumseh's life and character are well documented and his dream of an Indian confederacy, united to resist the American seizure of Indian land, is the centerpiece of the book. Other Indian leaders, as well as Tecumseh's brother The Prophet, figure in the narative, as do the different approaches the various tribes took in dealing with the Big Knives. An understanding of Tecumseh's life is not the only reward derived from a reading of this book. One also comes away with a much deeper understanding of the divisions within the Indian world and the various problems they faced within a way of life on the road to extinction. At the end, one senses the true depth of the tragedy, and gains an admiration for a man of great character and nobility, who gave of all his energy, in an attempt to save his people and their way of life.

The Shawnee war chief Tecumseh was a man of true, unbridled genius. He was hailed by nineteenth-century Americans as the epitome of the "noble savage" and later became the namesake of many thousands of boys born in the early decades of that century (including Union General William Tecumseh Sherman). Whereas in death Tecumseh was hailed with pride as a worthy adversary, in life his name struck nightmarish fear into whites from Cincinnati to Buffalo, and caused nearly the whole of the US Army to be sent west in opposition to his highly successful war against what he saw as the American invasion of his native soil

This book does a spectacular job of filtering through the legend and finding the real biography of a figure whose life reads like a story of fiction. Tecumseh was a visionary (some say literally) who looked ahead and saw what the consequences of US expansion would be for the aboriginal populations of the North American continent. The preservation of his people and its culture being this wise leader's greatest priority, this amazing man laid aside his grief over the murders of two family members by expansionist whites, and at first sought to make treaties with the American government. Tecumseh kept his word and maintained peace on the frontier border, but after Washington broke its word again and again and used episodes of one-sided peace to slaughter whole Shawnee villages in Ohio, Tecumseh saw there was no alternative but to begin a war that he knew would have but one possible outcome: either the expansion of the United States into the west would be halted, or his and other native cultures would be destroyed within a generation.

Tecumseh used his charisma and eloquence to persuade ardent enemies among Indian nations to lay aside their grievances and unify in an effort to stop the white man who was yearly seizing territory in the Ohio Valley homeland of so many tribes. Tecumseh crisscrossed North America, from Florida to Canada, whipping up fierce hatred of the whites and raising an army to strike at their mutual enemy. Under Tecumseh's fearless leadership, the Indian forces--warriors from a score of diverse peoples--won victory after victory over the American settlers, militia and armies. For a time US settlement into the Shawnee homeland was halted and Tecumseh's dream almost seemed within reach...and then this tactical genius made a horrible error in allying with the English in the War of 1812. Tecumseh, a man of deep personal honor, aided this European superpower in its goals of preventing the US takeover of Canada, but the English in their stead betrayed their Indian allies, whom they regarded as mere primitives, and ultimately set them up for a battle that would result in their doom.

An American President once said that were it not for the presence of the United States, a man as gifted in all the arts of leadership as Tecumseh was would have established an empire that enclosed all of eastern America and surpassed that of the Aztecs in greatness. Certainly Tecumseh was a rare individual who came close to becoming for his people what George Washington was for his. This book untangles fact and fiction and gives us the story of one of the great men of the North American continent. It is a hefty, fulfilling read.

Sugden has put together a very important biography of this critical figure in the early national period. Tecumseh was uniquely gifted at seeing the larger picture. The tragedy of the volume is that, even given his gifts, Tecumseh was not able to bring the Native Americans together to resist those who would change their way of life. What Sugden makes clear is that, demographically speaking, it was unlikely that they could have done so. Nonetheless, that does not in any way diminish Tecumseh's accomplishments.

Unlike the Eckert volumes, which feature an uncritical inclusion of many of the myths that developed regarding Tecumseh, this is a critical biography. As a result many of the stories that grew up around Tecumseh are examined carefully--many are debunked. What emerges is an all the more remarkable individual who created a legend by serving a cause greater than self. We have Sugden to thank for painting that picture compellingly.

Sugden's book is well-written and well-organized, but suffers occasionally from a surfeit of information. It is not essential to the story or truth of the great chief's life that Sugden account for his whereabouts every waking day, as he sometimes seems to be attempting. More burdensome is his citing of sources to support his claims. This record is essential in terms of scholarship, however, and paints a portrait of a heroic figure well worth reading.

The book portrays a little focused on time & place: the frontier in the early 1800s (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois). The author depicts William Henry Harrison as a manipulative, greedy & sometimes untruthful individual. Most people are aware of the native American treaties that the government negotiated & broke with the Plains Indians later in the century; the book details the interactions between the government & Indians in an earlier time period. The author reveals the impact of Tecumseh on Canadian history & portrays him as a complex & charismatic individual.

This book lost one star right off the bat. There are two maps of the US at the time of the action, with several cities and Indian settlements marked. Almost none of the places where the action in the book takes places are marked on the maps. I would read about a battle, then spend five minutes looking for the place name on the maps, because, well, it was a big battle, it must be there. Nope. So we're starting now from a maximum of four stars.

Cartography aside, this was a not-too-bad, traditional biography. Some parts dragged, it seemed to me, because nothing exciting was happening at the time, but the author nonetheless felt obligated to describe what Tecumseh was doing at all times. Some parts were interesting and the writing was really snappy. In the end, I was left with a good view of what Tecumseh was up against, the motivations of his allies and enemies, and the state of affairs for the Indians in general.

Overall I thought this was a very good biography. It is of course difficult to document the life events of a person who lived in a society that had no written records one can research. One must rely on personal observations often recorded long after the events occured; and the historian must attempt to reconcile often conflicting accounts. This is particularly true when dealing with a subject such as Tecumseh who has been much mythologized.

It is important for the reader to feel like he can trust the evaluation of sources in these circumstances. Here I feel that Sugden really succeeds in earning his readers trust. He lays out the sources of information and draws his conclusions.

In this book you will get the story of Tecumseh with all his victories and defeats pointed out. Today Tecumseh is probably best known for his efforts to unite all the tribes of the old Northwest to fight for Indian lands. His efforts were not entirely successful and of course his confedration of Indian tribes and the British was ultimately defeated. What is interesting is that he never even convinced all the bands of his own tribe, the Shawnees, to join with him. Many other tribes also declined to join he and his brother the Prophet in their struggles agsinst the United States. In fact there was always tension between other tribal leaders who favored accomodation with the U.S. and Tecumseh and his allies. Of course in the end neither faction was successful in resisting American expansionism.

This book also was very good at describing the role of the Prophet in first bringing Tecumseh to prominence. Without him Tecumseh may never have accomplished as much as he did.

All in all a very good book and well worth reading. Definitely recommended.

The combination of excellent research and crisp narrative make this a wonderful biography. He weaves in appropriate larger issues without getting diverted from the theme of his story. One of the largest problems was discovering the truth about this legendary Indian chief, and he delivers an even-handed assessment of Tecumseh the person.