In November 1811, Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory led a detachment of nearly one thousand soldiers on mission to disband the Native American village Prophetstown. The settlement, founded by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, or the “Prophet,” served as the headquarters of a tribal confederacy that opposed the United States’ encroachment upon native lands (Mahon 1991).
William Henry Harrison
As the governor’s soldiers established a camp at the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers, Tenskwatawa daubed his warriors with sacred clay, assuring them that the white man’s bullets would turn to mud, and ordered them to attack. What became known as the Battle of Tippecanoe was a quick, albeit brutal, affair. Contrary to the assurances of the Prophet, several Indian fighters succumbed to the hail of gunfire unleashed by Harrison’s forces, and the natives were compelled to abandon both the battlefield and their village. Soon thereafter, the governor’s men marched on Prophetstown and burned it to the ground (Mahon 1991).