of Indians, a high degree of superstitious excitement. An old Delaware chief, whose name was Tate-e-bock-o-she, through whose influence a treaty had been made with the Delawares in 1804, was accused of witchcraft, tried, condemned, and tomahawked. His body was then consumed by fire. The wife of the old chief, his nephew, who was known by the name of Billy Patterson, and an aged Indian whose name was Joshua, were then accused of witchcraft, and condemned to death. The two men were burnt at the stake; but the life of the wife of Tate-e-bock-o-she was saved by her brother, who suddenly approached her, took her by the hand, and, without meeting with any opposition from the Indians who were present, led her out of the council-house. He then immediately returned and checked the growing influence of the prophet by exclaiming, in a strong, earnest voice: The evil spirit has come among us, and we are killing each other.'"*

As soon as Governor Harrison was made acquainted with these events he sent a special messenger to the Indians, strongly entreating them to renounce the Prophet and his works, which, to a small extent, destroyed the Prophet's influence. In the spring of 1808, having aroused nearly all the tribes of the lake region, the Prophet, with a considerable number of followers, settled near the mouth of the Tippecanoe river, at a place which afterwards bore the name of the Prophet's Town.

Taking advantage of the influence which the Prophet was exerting over the tribes, as well as of his own popularity as a warrior, Tecumseh actively engaged himself in forming the various tribes into a confederacy. In his speeches before the many Indian councils that he assembled, he proclaimed that the treaties by which the United States had acquired lands northwest of the river Ohio, were not made with fairness, and should be considered void. He said that no single tribe of Indians was invested with the power to sell lands without the consent of all the other tribes, and that he and his brother, the Prophet, would oppose and resist all future attempts

* Dillon's Early History of Indiana.

which the white people might make to extend their settle ments in the lands that belonged to the Indian.

Early in the year 1808, Governor Harrison sent a speech to the Shawanee tribe of Indians, which was delivered to them in the presence of the Prophet. It contained this passage: "My children, this business must be stopped; I will no longer suffer it. You have called a number of men from the most distant tribes to listen to a fool, who speaks not the words of the Great Spirit, but those of the devil and the British agents. My children, your conduct has much alarmed the white settlers near you. They desire that you will send away those people, and if they wish to have the impostor with them, they can carry him along with them. Let him go to the lakes; he can hear the British more distinctly." This message wounded the pride of the Prophet, and he prevailed on the messenger to inform Governor Harrison that he was not in league with the British, but that he was truly speaking the words of the Great Spirit.

In August the Prophet visited Vincennes, and remained at that place several weeks, for the purpose of holding interviews with Governor Harrison. At one of these interviews the Prophet said: "Father, it is three years since I first began with that system of religion which I now practice. The white people and some of the Indians were against me; but I had no other intention but to introduce, among the Indians, those good principles of religion which the white people profess. The Great Spirit told me to tell the Indians that he had made them, and made the world; that he had placed them on it to do good, and not evil. I told all the red skins that the way they were in was not good, and that they ought to abandon it; that we ought to consider ourselves as one man; but we ought to live agreeable to our several customs-the red people after their mode, and the white people after theirs- particularly that they should not drink whisky; that it was not made for them, but the white people, who alone knew how to use it; and that it is the cause of all the mischief's which the Indians suffer; that we must always follow the directions of the Great Spirit, and we must listen to Him, as it was He that made us.

140

Determine to listen to nothing that is bad.

Do not take up

the tomahawk, should it be offered by the British or Long Knives,"

At these interviews Harrison was led to believe that the

Prophet's motives were honest, but it was not long before he discovered that he was designing, cunning, crafty, and unreliable; that both he and Tecumseh were enemies to the United

States and friends of the English, in sympathy with them, and that in case of a war between the United States and Great Britain they would induce the tribes to join the latter.

In 1809, the Prophet again visited Vincennes, with assurances that he was not in sympathy with the English, but the Governor was not disposed to believe him, and in a letter to the Secretary of War, in July, 1809, he stated that he regarded the bands of Indians at the Prophet's Town as a combination which had been produced by British intrigue and influence, in anticipation of a war between them and the United States.

In the face of all these difficulties, Governor Ilarrison continued to prosecute the work of extinguishing Indian titles to the lands in the Indiana territory with very good success. In the latter part of the year 1809, the total quantity of land ceded to the United States, under treaties which had been effected by Governor Harrison, exceeded thirty million acres. He prosecuted this work in direct opposition to the influence of Tecumseh and the Prophet.

As a part of the history of Indiana, we should state in this connection, that between the summer of 1805 and the spring of 1807, the unpatriotic movements of Aaron Burr in the Ohio valley, caused considerable excitement in Indiana. The full scope of Burr's intentions are not given to us in history, but enough is known to warrant the belief that he intended to invade Mexico, and meeting with success in this enterprise, to found an independent republic composed of States lying west of the Alleghany mountains. Walter Taylor, in a letter to Governor Harrison, dated Louisville, January, 1807, says: "I arrived at Jeffersonville on Saturday morning last. * * * The public mind at this place appears to be much agitated on account of Colonel Burr's mysterious movements. Conjectures are various about his intentions; but nothing certain has transpired to throw any light on his views. There is stationed at this place about two hundred militia, who examine all boats that descend the river. No discoveries have yet been made by them, and only two boats have yet been detained, which were built by Burr's direction at Jeffersonville, or this place, I am not certain which. A large drove of horses, said to be pur

chased for the expedition, will be seized to-day by the civil authority of the State. It seems to me that the precaution now taken are perfectly useless, because Burr, I believe, a got all the force he could raise from this State, and is, probably before this time, at Natchez."* Burr was arrested in the year 1807, in the Mississippi territory, by authority of the procla mation of the President of the United States, but, previous to his arrest, he had abandoned his expedition and his followers had dispersed.

CHAPTER XI.

FRO

STATISTICS - LAND TITLES- INDIAN AFFAIRS.

ROM the sources of information at our command, we are enabled to give the following statistics of the condition

of the Indiana territory in 1810:

Total population.....

Number of grist mills.

Number of saw mills ..

Number of horse mills

Number of tanneries

24,520

33

14

3

18