—The capital of the Shawnee Confederacy in the heart of the Miami country.

Before entering upon the final details of the struggle between Harrison and Tecumseh, it may not be uninteresting to recur to a point of time just before the Treaty of Fort Wayne, when the two Indian leaders removed from the neighborhood of the white settlements at Greenville, Ohio, and established the Prophet's Town on the Wabash river in the month of June, 1808. This was to be the spot from whence should emanate all those brilliant schemes of the brothers to merge the broken tribes into a confederacy; to oppose the further advance of the white settlers, and with the aid of the British power in Canada, to drive them back beyond the waters of the Ohio. It was, as General Richard P. DeHart has aptly remarked, "the seat of Indian diplomacy and strategy for many years."

In leading their followers to this new field, the brothers were guided by certain lines of policy which were both remarkable in their conception, and signal for their farsightedness. The rendezvous at Greenville had been marked by intense enthusiasm, hundreds of red men flocking thither to imbibe the new faith and to commune with the Prophet; so many in fact, that Governor Harrison had ordered them to be supplied from the public stores at Fort Wayne in order to avert trouble. But it was evident to the new leaders that all this congregating did not turn aside starvation; that warriors could not be held together who were hungry and who lacked corn; that the proximity of white traders was conducive to drunkenness; that if back of outward appearances any warlike exercises were to be indulged, or the emissaries and arms of the British were to be received, that these things would require secrecy and seclusion until the plot was ripe; that some strategic position must be secured on one of the great waterways of the interior, within quick striking distance of the settlements and easily accessible to the British posts.

Such a spot was the site of the old French and Indian trading post on the right bank of the Wabash and about ten miles above the present city of Lafayette. To the west about one and one-quarter miles is the marble shaft of the Battleground, and going from thence east across the fields and open woodlands you come to the fringe of woods that still lines the river. You have walked over the old Indian corn fields and are now standing on the exact location of the old Prophets's Town. The scene is one of great beauty even at this day, when the forest has been despoiled and nature ravished of her choicest charms. Here, the river extends in an almost unbroken line for three or four miles, bordered by sycamores and maples, and with a wealth of clinging vines, crab-apple blossoms and blooming flowers on either bank. The old trading post of Petit Piconne was located on a series of high cliffs, crowned with huge forest trees, and commanding the river through vistas of foliage. The face of these cliffs is frequently broken by sharp ravines, that extend on back among the hills with many devious windings. At the foot of the steep slopes, extends a long, narrow tableland of forest bordering directly upon the river; this is interspersed with springs of fresh water that burst from the hillsides. On the cliffs stood the camps and cabins of the warriors and their followers; below, and on the tableland and next to the water, the horses were tethered, and canoes were drawn up out of the river.

Thither the Prophet and his brother now turned their eyes. The whole upper valley, including the basins of the Tippecanoe and the Wildcat, was the rightful possession of the Miamis and the Weas, but the brothers now secured a pretended right or license from the Kickapoos and the Potawatomi to establish a camp. The Miamis of the north, and the Delawares of the south, were alike alarmed. The Delawares in particular had been the friends of the white people and adherents of the Governor. They divined, and divined truly, that the Prophet's plans ultimately involved mischief. To avoid a possible war they sent a deputation of chiefs to the Prophet, who refused to see them, but deputed Tecumseh to answer their remonstrances. On this mission he was entirely successful. By threats and persuasion he turned them back, although they had received strict instructions from their tribe to oppose a new settlement. On a visit shortly afterwards by John Conner, interpreter for the Delawares, on a search for stolen horses, he found the Prophet safely ensconced in his chosen position, with a following of thirty or forty Shawnees, and about ninety others, consisting of Potawatomi, Chippewas, Ottawas and Winnebagoes.

The location selected was certainly ideal. "By a short portage the Indians could go by canoe to Lake Erie or Lake Michigan, or by the Wabash reach all the vast system of watercourses to the north and west. It was only twenty-four hours' journey by canoe, at a favorable stage of water, down stream to Vincennes, the capital of the white man's territory;" the British post at Malden was only a few days distant. As to the Indian tribes, the Prophet's Town was almost centrally located in the Miami confederacy; to the north as far as the post of Chicago and Lake Michigan extended the realm of the Potawatomi; on the Vermilion below, and to the west of the main stream, lay the villages of the Kickapoos, whose hardy warriors, second only to the Wyandots, had accepted the new faith; the Sacs and Foxes, the Winnebagoes, Ottawas, Chippewas and Wyandots, were all within easy reach, and secret embassies and negotiations might be carried on without much fear of detection.

The brothers now resolved to pursue the following course—to wean their followers entirely away from the use of whiskey, which was fast destroying their military efficiency; to teach them, if possible, the ways of labor, so that they might raise corn and other products of the earth, and thus supply their magazines against a time of war; to dupe the Governor into the belief that their mission was one of peace, and undertaken solely for the moral uplift and betterment of the tribes—in the meantime, by the constant practice of religious ceremonies and rites, to work on the superstition of the warriors; win them, if need be, from the chieftains who might counsel peace, and by a series of warlike sports and exercises, hold together the young bucks and train them for the inevitable conflict between the races.

What strange mysticism did the Prophet practice to make the Indians of the Wabash "abandon whiskey, discard textile clothing, return to skins, throw away their witch-bags, kill their dogs, and abandon the white man's ways, even to giving up flint and steel for making fires?" That he had gained fame and ascendency among the neighboring tribes since the episode of the eclipse in 1806, is testified to by the fact that when Richard McNemar, the Shaker, visited him in 1807, at Greenville, Ohio, he found a temple of worship one hundred fifty feet in length, surrounded by wigwams and cottages, and the Indians then told McNemar that they all believed implicitly in the Prophet and that he could "dream to God." The Prophet had at that time also gone so far as to institute the confessional, and all sinful disclosures were made to himself and four accompanying chiefs. The question was asked: "Do they confess all the bad things they ever did?" Answer: "All from seven years old. And cry and tremble when they come to confess." A sort of nature or sun worship had already been introduced. McNemar thus describes a salutation to the lord of the day: "Next morning, as soon as it was day, one of their speakers mounted a log, near the southeast corner of the village, and began the morning service with a loud voice, in thanksgiving to the Great Spirit. He continued his address for near an hour. The people were all in their tents, some at the distance of fifteen or twenty rods; yet they could all distinctly hear, and gave a solemn and loud assent, which sounded from tent to tent, at every pause. While we stood in his view, at the end of the meeting house, on rising ground, from which we had a prospect of the surrounding wigwams, and the vast open plain or prairie, to the south and east, and which looked over the big fort, toward the north, for the distance of two miles, we felt as if we were among the tribes of Israel, on their march to Canaan."

By weird incantations, symbolic ceremonies, and practice of the black art, the Prophet had gone far. He was now regarded as invulnerable, and his person sacred. But that which gave point to his oracles, and authority to his imposture, was his Shawnee hatred of the pale face. To incite their growing jealousy and malice, he told his dupes, that the white man had poisoned all their land, and prevented it from producing such things as they found necessary to their subsistence. The growing scarcity of game, the disappearance of the deer and buffalo before the white settlements, were indisputable proofs of his assertions. Says Harrison: "The game which was formerly so abundant, is now so scarce as barely to afford subsistence to the most active hunters. The greater part of each tribe are half the year in a state of starvation, and astonishing as it may seem, these remote savages have felt their full share of the misfortunes which the troubles in Europe have brought upon the greater part of the world. The exclusion of the English from the continent of Europe, where they were accustomed to dispose of the greater part of the peltries imported from Canada, has reduced the price of those articles almost to nothing; the Indians can scarcely procure for them the necessary ammunition, and they are often induced to forego the purchase of this necessary article to gratify their passion for whiskey." All these evils were attributed by the Prophet to the extension of the American settlements. To drive back these invaders who polluted the soil and desecrated the graves of their fathers—what more was needed to incite the savage warriors to a crusade of blood and extermination? About this time it was noticed that the Potawatomi of the prairies, who were under the influence of the Prophet, were frequently holding religious exercises, but that these exercises were always concluded with "warlike sports, shooting with bows, throwing the tomahawk, and wielding the war-club."

In the meantime, the relation of these religious ceremonies at the Prophet's Town and their seemingly good effect upon the red man, completely disarmed the Governor for the time being. He now entertained the idea that the great Indian leader might be "made a useful instrument in effecting a radical and salutary change in the manners and habits of the Indians." To stop the use of ardent spirits and to encourage the cultivation of corn, were two important steps, as the Governor thought. Events which succeeded but added to Harrison's deception. In June, 1808, messengers appeared at Vincennes, and one of them stated that he had listened to the Prophet for upwards of three years, and had never heard anything but good advice. "He tells us we must pray to the Great Spirit who made the world and everything in it for our use. He tells us that no man could make the plants, the trees, and the animals, but they must be made by the Great Spirit, to whom we ought to pray, and obey in all things. He tells us not to lie, to steal, or to drink whiskey; and not to go to war, but to live in peace with all mankind. He tells us also to work and to make corn."

In August of the same year, the crafty Prophet himself appeared and remained at Vincennes for more than two weeks. The Governor was surprised at the great address and ease with which he handled his followers, and had the pleasure of listening to a speech, in which the Prophet professed the most pacific intentions, constantly haranguing his retinue upon the evils of war and liquor, and holding out to them the advantages of temperance and peace. It seems that the Governor even made a few personal experiments to determine whether the Indians were in earnest about their pretensions, but could induce none of them to touch fire-water. The interview closed to the entire satisfaction of the Governor, the Prophet promising to keep him fully informed as to anything that might be inimical to the settlements, and receiving in return many presents from the Governor in the way of implements of husbandry, arms, powder and other things which the Indians claimed that they were in sore need of. On the first of September, 1808, in a communication to Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War, the Governor wrote as follows: "The celebrated Shawnee Prophet has just left me after a visit of more than two weeks. He is rather possessed of considerable talents, and the art and address with which he manages the Indians is really astonishing. I was not able to ascertain whether he is as I at first supposed, a tool of the British or not. His denial of being under any such influence was strong and apparently candid. He says that his sole purpose is to reclaim the Indians from the bad habits they have contracted, and to cause them to live in peace and friendship with all mankind, and declares that he is particularly instructed to that effect by the Great Spirit. He frequently harangued his followers in my presence, and the evils attendant upon war and the use of ardent spirits was his constant theme. I cannot say how successful he may be in persuading them to lay aside their passion for war, but the experiment made to determine whether their refusal to drink whiskey proceeded from principle, or was only empty profession, established the former beyond all doubt. Upon the whole, Sir, I am inclined to think the influence which the Prophet has acquired will prove rather advantageous than otherwise to the United States."

How vain this trust! Scarcely had the Prophet returned to his town, before he was entertaining an emissary and spy of the British government, who urged war on the United States. In the following spring of 1809, the Chippewas, Ottawas and Potawatomi were being urged by the Prophet to take up arms against the inhabitants of Vincennes, and to destroy the settlers along the Ohio, as far up as Cincinnati. Reports of these proceedings were confirmed by Michael Brouillette, an Indian trader, and by Touissant Dubois, a confidential agent of the Governor. Harrison probably averted an Indian attack, by promptly organizing two additional companies of militia and throwing them into the vicinity of Fort Knox, to guard the approaches to the capital by land and water. The Indians, however, seeing this prompt action, deserted the Prophet and returned to their homes. The Governor was not fooled a second time. The Prophet again visited him in the summer of 1809, and made the same old pretensions of peace. But the Governor forced him to admit that he had entertained the British the fall before, and that he had been invited, as he said, to join a league of the Sacs and Foxes against the whites in the early spring, and he could make no satisfactory explanation as to why he had not imparted these facts to the government, when he had been solemnly enjoined so to do. From this time on, the Prophet was regarded with a just suspicion, and Harrison diligently regarded every movement of the new faith.