Portrait of the Shawnee military and political leader Tecumseh, ca. 1800-1813. He worked with his brother Tenskwatawa, known as 'The Prophet,' to unite American Indian tribes in the Northwest Territory to defend themselves against white settlers.
During the early 1800s, Tecumseh, a leader of the Shawnee, attempted to unite American Indian tribes west of the Appalachian Mountains into a confederation. Tecumseh believed that the land did not belong to a single tribe. In reality, no one owned the land except for the Master of Life, the Shawnees' principal god. Tecumseh believed that the only way that American Indians could transfer land to the Americans was if every tribe agreed to it. Tecumseh wanted to force the Americans to deal with all of the tribes in unison. Separately, the individual tribes did not have much power. Together, Tecumseh hoped, they would be a major deterrent to white expansion.
Tecumseh explained his views in a letter to William Henry Harrison in 1810:
. . .the only way to stop this evil [white settlement of the Indians' land], is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land as it was at first, and should be now - for it never was divided, but belongs to all. . . .Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit [Master of Life] make them all for the use of his children
