USA > Indiana > Marshall County > Tippecanoe in Marshall County > The Tippecanoe battle-field monument; a history of the association formed to promote the enterprise, the action of Congress and the Indiana legislature, the work of the commission and the ceremonies at the dedication of the monument > Part 6
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THE SAXON.
It has been the history of the Saxon race to either exterminate or assimilate whatever race of people came in the line of Saxon progress. That same spirit which made Britain English, made America free, and made the hunting ground of the Indian the paradise of man. Onward, ever onward, conquering but never con- quered, has been the motto of the Saxon race since their rude ships sought the shore of Britain. Other nations and peoples have come and gone, but the Saxon nations still progress, as if their destiny was to either exterminate or assimilate all other peoples and nations. That same Saxon blood met the red man on the shores of the At- lantic and the history of the red man's long and weary attempt to arrest the Saxon advance is a strange and sad story. But the Saxon must and did advance, and the Indian would not be assimi- lated, hence he must be exterminated, and was exterminated. Today only a small number of Indians remain to submit to the last test as to whether they shall be assimilated or exterminated. Thus the conflict begun on the Atlantic, was hard and cruelly fought, back over the Alleghanies, down through the southland and up through the northland to the Mississippi, on the plains, up and down the Rockies to the Pacific, the Saxon still possessing and persisting, while the Indian exists only in memory. The years that intervened from the beginning to the end of that contest are replete with trials, cruelties and sorrows that cannot be described. That the Indian was mistreated at times, none will deny, but that he was barbarous, treacherous and cruel, all must admit. The poisoned ar- row, the cruel tomahawk, the merciless scalping knife, the midnight massacre, and the burning stake, a lonely cabin attack, a husband
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and father murdered, wife and children stolen, never to see home or dear ones again, these but meagerly tell us of the untellable cruelties and sorrows, trials and fears of the pioneer.
It has been said "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be the most terrible and in- human." The rude pioneer settler, who drove the savage from this land has made this cilvilization and this people his everlasting debtor.
THE PIONEER.
Necessity was the pioneer's master; he fought, labored and lived from necessity. In his day each home was a fort, each door- yard a palisade, and every man a warrior; each individual was his own arbiter of right and redresser of wrongs; the log cabin his mansion, the log-rolling his theater, the corn-shucking his social gathering, and the trip to mill his outing: Composed of all classes speaking various languages and representing all Christian reli- gions, creeds and beliefs.
As their settlements enlarged they extended their borders and the red man would again renew his outrages. They related their griefs to each other and each in return would receive the other's sympathy. By association they learned to love and cherish each other ; necessity taught them to assist each other, and mutual dan- gers, threatened by a mutual foe, pledged them to support a com- mon cause.
Theirs was a time of hardships and glorious efforts in the face of daily disappointment, embitterments and rebuffs. The motto of the pioneer of the Northwest was, "He planted a better than the fallen." This motto the pioneer fulfilled. He drove out the savage and established a civilization; transformed the wildernesses and made them blossom like the rose.
TECUMSEH AND THE PROPHET.
In 1768 and 1771, respectively, were born two Indian boys, on the Mad River, in Clark County, Ohio, who were to play an im- portant part in the history of Indiana and the nation. These two boys were born enemies of the white man; Tecumseh, the older, be- came a man of great power. He was a great orator, a great states- man, a great warrior, brave, daring, and artful, a Shawnee by birth, a relentless and powerful leader of men. The Prophet, Tecumseh's brother, was a medicine-man, lazy, licentious and superstitious, who
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burned even those of his own people at the stake who would not subscribe to his doctrine ; a white man hater and an Indian deceiver, a disturber of men by trade and a demagogue by profession, cruel, artful and treacherous.
These two brothers, in the year 1808, established themselves with the Kickapoos and the Potawatomies, with headquarters at Prophet's Town, which town was located near the junction of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers, about a mile east of the Battle Ground in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Not natives of the Ter- ritory, neither of these boys ever owned a foot of Indiana soil either by gift, devise, adverse possession or conquest. They were a unique combination, each the complement of the other. When one would fail in his art, the other would apply his, and thus accomplish the object in view. Thus these two landless, tribeless brothers soon built themselves a strong following among the tribes of the Wabash, the most of whom they won to their belief. The Prophet performed miracles and superstitions on their followers, and Tecumseh de- claimed upon all occasions, pleasing ideals long before set forth and attempted by Pontiac, Little Turtle and others of establishing one great confederacy of tribes, and thereby stop the further advances of the western pioneer.
Notwithstanding the great historic fact, the occupants of the Indiana territory had long since acknowledged allegiance to France and England and had taken part in their wars and surrenders, and thereby surrendered their title by conquest, yet nevertheless this shrewd, brilliant, ambitious, revengeful Tecumseh taught the doc- trine that all treaties made were not binding. That one tribe could not sell without the consent of all. He argued that with the con- federacy established they could defeat all further advance of the white man. His arguments were accepted by many and the effect of his influence was soon felt by the pioneer ; soon depredations oc- curred along the frontier ; people were murdered, houses robbed and burned, horses stolen, and the advance line of civilization was. disturbed both by fear and deed. Tecumseh was not without aiders and abettors in his sworn vengeance on the pioneer ; these pioneers were American citizens. England still held her forts on the lake and at Detroit, and smarting from defeat in the Revolution, and anxious to do anything to vex and harrass the Americans, was a most willing counsel and adviser with Tecumseh. How many of Tecumseh's arguments and theories originated in English brains will never be known, but that they assisted him, the British muskets and muni- tions of war discovered at Prophets Town when the same was de-
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stroyed after the battle, and the subsequent acts of Tecumseh and the Indians at Detroit and at the battle of the Thames, verify. The plot grows more intense and interesting, for while English sailors oppressed American citizens on the seas, England counseled, in- cited and encouraged her allies, the red man, to oppress and mur- der American citizens on land.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.
Indian depredations continued, and on the 31st day of July, 1811, a public meeting was held at Vincennes, and the government was petitioned for military protection. There was at that time the Governor of Indiana Territory and commander-in-chief of its mili- tary forces, a Virginian by birth, an honest man, a brave man, a general. To this man was given the responsibility to protect and defend the citizens of Indiana Territory against the red man's out- rages and cruelties. Harrison performed his duty with great diplo- macy and humanity. He sent letters to Tecumseh telling him of the blessings of peace and the results of war. Councils were had between Harrison and Tecumseh; arguments were used until rea- son and persuasion had spent their force, but all in vain. Tecum- seh, ever artful and treacherous, was still dreaming of his confed- eracy, from whose gigantic form he might mete his sworn vengeance upon the white man, the American pioneer. His treaties ever prom- ised, were never made. Yet his confederacy schemes were fast being consummated. He ordered one vast council and goes south to in- sure its success. The time for some definite accomplishment had arrived, and the little pioneer army, nine hundred strong, marched out beyond civilization, into the rough and rugged wilds of the Wabash, over high grass prairies, to Prophets Town, near the junc- tion of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers, where there was none to lend assistance, cheer or comfort, where victory meant suffering and privation, and where defeat meant a cruel and torturous death.
BATTLE.
It is November 6, 1811, a little army is encamped, the campfires are burning, the evening meal prepared, the orders to sleep on arms are given, the fires are extinguished, the soldiers, tired and weary from the long and fatiguing march, sleep. It is midnight-the last council is assembled in the old Prophets Town, a small distance to the east-the Prophet tells his warriors that he has invoked the aid of the Great Spirit. He promises harmless bullets and a sure vic-
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tory ; a massacre is planned and the warriors disperse to assume their respective places in the barbarous tragedy. The little pioneer army is surrounded, but the soldiers sleep their death-like sleep; unconscious of the dangers that are about them. It is four o'clock, November 7, 1811, a sentinel is attacked and fires a signal gun- the soldiers fall in, and the battle lines are formed, and a fight to death is begun between the savage and the civilized. Danger and death are on all sides, but the little pioneer army stands bravely its ground ; though the savage yells fill the air, and the poisoned bullets pierce the hearts of comrades, yet they stand and bravely hold the lines, and then the dawn of November 7, 1811, breaks upon those heroes, living and dead, and reveals a victory, and the first battle of the second war with England is won. The warriors of Tecumseh are vanquished-Prophets Town is deserted forever-the great Indian confederacy has vanished in the smoke of that battle. Indian depredations in the Northwest are ended-Indiana is free, and the war of 1812 is begun. Then that little pioneer army, bleed- ing and torn, marched back, but not the nine hundred, for many were dying and thirty-seven brave men had fought their last fight- they were camping forever on the old camp-ground. Thirty-five dead, buried on this then lonely battle-field, far beyond the pale of civilization, where dear ones could not visit, nor sweet flowers pay respect. Buried alone, unshrouded, whose bones were to be dug up, and scattered to bleach upon the battle-field where they died; to bleach for years, until the advanced settler discovered those sacred bones and placed them in the tomb. They fought; they died, that civilization might advance, that we might enjoy this land in hap -. piness and peace. Those heroes are gone; we can not recall them, but they have left us the place and the history of their deeds. They are long since dead, yet they still live in the hearts of this grateful people, and we are here today to bestow our annual tokens of love for what those brave men were, and respect for what they did for us.
INDIANA.
When the Battle of Tippecanoe was fought the population of Indiana did not exceed six thousand, scattered here and there along the Ohio and Wabash rivers-pioneers, whose extreme advance on any line was marked by grim necessity .
When the news of the victory of Tippecanoe was heard, then began the advance of the settler. The covered wagons soon ap- ยท peared in all parts. Scarcely had the smoke of that battle cleared
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away, when there was heard through this land the whack of the woodman's axe, and the plowman's voice. Soon that vast, vacant wilderness was changed. Villages, towns and cities sprang up as if by magic, and the grand distinction of this day is the recognition of the rights of man and the diffusion of the means of improvement and happiness. Instead of fortifications, institutions are erected in which to teach the youth the love of justice and the blessings of peace. Almshouses to alleviate the suffering of the poverty-striken, hospitals in Christian mercy to the unfortunate, and for the na- tion's defense, beautiful and comfortable homes are erected for the heroes of the nation.
Today Indiana has more than two millions of free people, whose ideas, joys and sorrows are in close contact, and made common by the touch of the electric wire or the telephone, whose lands are fer- tile, whose hills and plains are replete with riches, whose valleys laugh with gladness, and whose rills and streams flow with a peace- ful ripple.
Such a people in such a land ought never to forget the debt of gratitude they owe to the heroes of the Battle of Tippecanoe.
May the time soon come when this great State shall take a little of her abundance and erect on this battle-field a monument upon which may be chiseled the names of the heroes who participated in that memorable struggle: A monument both to the living and to the dead, that in the days to come shall be an inspiration for the living and a due remembrance for the dead.
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HON. HENRY WATTERSON.
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ADDRESS BY THE HON. HENRY WATTERSON. (Tippecanoe Battle-field Memorial, June 15, 1902.)
Traveling from out the twilight of the past into the radiance of the present, and tracing as we go the history of the country along the glorious but rugged route of battle-fields, by the glare of fagot flame and rifle flash, it seems ages since Harrison and his hunting-shirts met and vanquished the hordes of the two Tecum- sehs; yet, are there men living, and here today, who, if they were not contemporary with the event and its valiants, can distinctly recall the spirit of those times, the aspects, the very familiar fea- tures, of those valiants; the atmosphere, the form and body of an epoch when from Faneuil Hall in Boston, from Raleigh Tavern in Virginia, to Fort Wayne and Old Vincennes upon the confines of this borderland, the redskin and the redcoat alike, stirred to its depths the heart of the young republic. There were giants in those days; and there was need that there should be. No vestibuled trains nor palace coaches awaited to fetch them thither; no noisy procession, with banners waving and brass bands playing, marched forth to honor their arrival. They journeyed for the most part afoot. They picked their way through trackless canebrake and wooded waste, across swift-running, bridgeless streams, their flint- locks their commissariat.
They had quitted what they regarded as the overcrowded cen- ters of the populous East to seek the lonely, but roomier wilds of the far West, keenly alive to the idea of bettering their condition, hav- ing a fine sense of pure air and arable land ; it may be for town site ; but their hearts beat true to the principles of civil and religious liberty, and they brought with them two accoutrements of priceless value-the new-made Constitution of their country and the well- worn family Bible; for they were God-fearing, Christian soldiers ; heroes in homespun, as chivalric and undoubting as mailed Knights of the Cross; hating with holy hate the Indians and the British : revering the memory of the patriots and sages who had made the Declaration of Independence, warm with the blood of the Revolu- tion ; the echoes of Lexington and Bunker Hill, of King's Mountain and Yorktown still ringing in their ears. I dare say their descend- ants are equally capable of sacrifices. But it is not of ourselves we are here to speak. It is to commemorate the slain who lie here and
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hereabouts ; to keep their deeds and their worth for long ave, green ; to confess the debt we owe them; to garland their graves. If, in paying this homage from the living to the dead, we rekindle within us the spirit of the dead, we shall, with each annual recur- rence of the day, the surer approve our coming and grow better as we come.
Our lot has been cast in easier times, has been laid on broader, larger lines. We live in an age of miracles. We gather the fruit of the tree which these, our forefathers, planted. From the ashes of their camp-fires rise the schoolhouse and the courthouse. The church marks the spot where the blockhouse stood. The war-whoop of the savage is succeeded by the neigh of the iron horse ; the gleam of the tomahawk by the flare of the electric light. Danger of the kind that was their daily, hourly companion is to us unknown. Privation such as they sustained assails not honest toil, however humble. Wealth and luxury wait attendant upon thrift and skill. Primogeniture no longer cheats merit of its due. Entail no longer usurps the present and puts its mortgage on the future. Oppor- tunity and peace, order and law are the portion of the poorest. Struck by the wizard hand of progress the sleeping beauty, solitude, has awakened a metropolis; touched by the finger of modern in- vention, the prairie and the forest, as by enchantment, have re- vealed their secrets and poured their riches into the lap of labor. Upon the loose cobblestones of what was but a huddle of small provinces, each claiming for itself a squalid sovereignty and held together by a rope of sand, rises proudly, grandly, securely a nation of an indissoluble compact of states, cemented together by the blood of a patriotic, brave, homogeneous people.
The bucolic republic of Washington and Franklin, the sylvan idyl of Jefferson-the government which equally at home and abroad had from the first to fight for its existence-is a world power ; and, to the present generation of Americans, these things have come without any effort of their own; as a rich inheritance, and which, for good or evil, they are but beginning to administer and enjoy. I pray them well to weigh its responsibilities ; deeply to ponder the changes wrought by a century of acquisition and de- velopment ; prayerfully to consider the exceptional conditions and the peculiar perils of the present that vigilance is the price, not alone of liberty, but of all the better ends of life. Ours is a govern- ment resting on public opinion. Each man is his own master. He can blame nobody but himself if he go astray. Has not the tele- graph annihilated time and space? Does not the daily newspaper
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bring him each day the completed history of yesterday ? Is he not able to read, to mark, and, inwardly to digest the signs of the times ? With these helps, why should he not be able to reach intelligent and just conclusions ?
It is largely true that all men do not think alike. The same fact will receive different interpretations from different minds. There are conflicts of statement. Even the press is not infallible. We group ourselves in parties, and, as with our watches, each be- lieves his own. Thus the ship of state is blown hither and yonder, by the trade winds of public opinion, yet, somehow, it has sailed triumphant ; the struggle for freedom; the struggle for union ; the foreign war; the domestic war; the disputed secession, these it has survived; until at last it has to face the most serious peril of all in that excess of grandeur and power which crowns a century of marvelous achievement.
We have become a nation of merchant princes. Money is so abundant that men are giving it away in sums of startling magni- tude. It seems so easy to get, that men are on system putting it in the way of a kind of redistribution back to the sources whence it originally came. Shall we see the day when it will no longer cor- rupt? If familiarity breeds contempt, we surely shall. The earth's surface appears to be but an incrustation over one vast mine of gold and silver and precious stones.
Life is a lottery with more prizes than blanks. But, in a land where there are no titles, or patents of nobility, money is bound to serve as the standard of measurement ; as precisely as constitu- tional government, political and religious freedom, were uppermost in the minds and hearts of the pioneers who sleep here, is the acquisi- tion of wealth uppermost in the minds and hearts of their sons and grandsons. In other words, as I have elsewhere put it, the idosyncrasy of the nineteenth century was liberty ; the idosyncrasy of the twentieth century is markets. The problem before us, there- fore, involves the adjustment of these two; the reconciliation of capital and labor, morality and dollars, the concurrent expansion of the principles of the constitution and the requirements of com- merce. It is of good augury that both our two great parties claim the same objective point, and, as I do not doubt that we are on the ascending, not the descending, scale of national development, with centuries of greatness and glory before us, I shall continue, as is my duty, to discuss my own particular horn of dilemma, sure that in the end, truth will be vindicated and the flag of our country exalted.
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To these ends, whatever our political belongings and affiliations, let each of us here today resolve faithfully to address himself. Party spirit, held within the bonds of reason, restrained by good sense and good feeling, is an excellent thing. It is of the essence of our republican being. I can truly say that I never loved any man less because he did not agree with me; and, though I chide him for perversity, I respect his right. The bedrock of civil and religious liberty is the law ; the bell-tower of freedom is tolerance. The mute inhabitants of these swelling mounds, could they speak, would tell us that it were little worth the toil and travail endured by them when, amid these greenwood shades they sought and found emancipation from ages of feudal wrong, if, overflowing with prosperity, bursting with pride, we should forget the lesson and dissipate the heritage; repeating under the pretentious nomencla- ture of democracy, the dismal story of Greece and Rome. It can never be. We live in the twentieth, not in the first of the centuries.
Though human nature be never the same, the tale is told by human environment, by mortal conditions, and we shall the rather go forward than backwards; the constitution in one hand, the Bible in the other hand, the flag over head, carrying to all the lands and all the peoples the message alike of civilization and religion, the ark and the covenant of American freedom along with the word of God. The hunters of Kentucky, the pioneers of Indiana, united as brothers in the bonds of liberty, fought the battle of Tippecanoe. It was not a great battle as battles go; but it proved mighty in its consequences ; the winning and the peopling of the West; the ultimate rescue of the union from dissolution ; the blazing of the way to the Pacific. They were simple, hardy men. They set us good examples. They loved their country and were loyal to its institutions. They were comrades in hearts and comrades in arms. Be it ours to bless and preserve their memory and to perpetuate their brotherhood.
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ADDRESS BY GEN. JOHN C. BLACK. (Tippecanoe Battle-field, June 21, 1903.)
I was the more easily influenced to accept the invitation ex- tended to me to address you on this occasion, not only from the fact that the writer of it was a friend of my boyhood and a comrade in the days that tried men's souls, but also further from the fact that long before the great war had come, as a boy and youth, it had " been my pleasure to see and hear much of this old battle-ground arena. Here I have seen the congregated thousands of Indiana, not met to discuss the heroic events of the past, but to discuss the living issues of their time. Here I have listened to some of the most elo- quent voices that ever gave form to the purpose of the Northwest and shaped its career. And long before that it had been mine, as a resident of the valley of the Wabash, this land, than which there is none fairer or richer under the sun, this valley with its sloping hills and cun-crowned heights, of stretching plains that go to meet the forest, and forests that decorate nature's fairest form; this valley where before man was set in it, the almighty architect and lover had stored away all the resources for the comfort and happi- ness of men and women-his children; I say that after becoming a resident of this valley it had been mine around the cabin fire of those who came immediately after the pioneers, to hear told over and over from the lips of participants, in some cases, the story of the battle of Tippecanoe.
And so, when the invitation came from Barney Shaw, I was glad to accept it, and I stand before you today, not with word of apology, but with word of regret that I am not better prepared for the high task for which this majestic audience is assembled. What are you here for, my fellow-countrymen? Look all about you and see the signs of the profoundest and most prosperous peace, the edifices of humanity and the structures of Christian love. But these are not the magnet that has drawn you. What are you here for? Let all this, for a little time, disappear from your eyes. Go back ninety-two years, and then let us see if in their environment we can appreciate why this audience is gathered about the graves of the silent sleepers in this cemetery. We must do this to under- stand why this assemblage. Unless we understand why men fight and why they die, war is butchery, and every battle-field an unholy
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