right to sell
any portion of it without the consent of the others. The refusal of the government
jo admit this principle led him to take active steps to unite the tribes upon that
basis, in which he was seconded by his brother, the Prophet, who supplemented
Tecumtha's eloquence with his own claims to supernatural revelation. In the
summer of 1810 Tecumtha held a conference with Governor Harrison at Vineennes
to protest against a recent treaty cession, and finding after exhausting his arguments
that the effort was fruitless, he closed the debate with the words: "The President is
far off and may sit in his town and drink his wine, but you and I will have to light
it out." Both sides at once prepared for war, Teeumtlia going south to enlist the
aid of the (reek. Choctaw,and other southern tribes, while Harrison took advan-
tage of hi- ah-eii re to (one the i — ue by marching against the Prophet's town on the
Tippecanoe river, where the hostile warriors from a dozen trihe- had gathered. A
battle fought before daybreak of November 6, 1811, resulted in the defeat of the
Indian- and the scattering of their forces. Tecumtha returned to find bis plans
brought to naught for the time, but the opening of the war between the United
states and England a few months later enabled him to rally the confederated tribes
once more to the support of the British against the Americans. As a commissioned
brigadier-general in the British service he commanded 2,000 warriors in the war of
1812, distinguishing himself no less by his bravery than by his humanity in pre-
venting