Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/549

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Accordingly, as chairman of a committee in 1783, he reported that “the general superintendence of Indian affairs under Congress be annexed to the Department of War,” that “offensive hostilities” be suspended, and that four districts — by the points of the compass — be established in the United States, with an agent for each, to transact Indian affairs. The plan was not adopted, because the Governors of Territories had the power under the War Department.

Tecumseh, with the help of his famous brother, the “Prophet,” essayed to repeat the experiment made, before he was born, by the great chief Pontiac. But he laid even a broader basis for his enterprise. This was to unite the Western, Southern, and Northern tribes, with the open sympathy and the covert aid of the British in Canada, to drive the whites back from the frontiers, and to make the Ohio a permanent boundary between them and the Indians. We know what significance Tecumseh and our President Harrison gave to the word “Tippecanoe.” Tecumseh's enterprise was already flagging from its first earnestness and hopefulness, when the opening of our war with Britain, in 1812, gave it a formidable aspect. It is curious to note how the savages had learned from our colonies the value and strength of union in a confederacy. Tecumseh's able