Tecumseh Delivers War Speech to Creek Indians

The Shawnee Chief at Tuckabatchee in October 1811

Background

Prior to the War of 1812, the British and the Spaniards had been forging alliances with Indians on the American frontier to try to slow American expansionism, and therefore power. One significant Chief, the Shawnee Tecumseh, used this time and support to try to build an Indian Confederacy along the western edge of the American frontier. Tecumseh's Shawnees were based predominantly in current day Indiana, Illinois and western Kentucky, but were historically linked to the Creek people (also known as Muscogees) of current day Alabama and Georgia. Tecumseh travelled to the Georgia border with the the Mississippi Territory (future state of Alabama) to rally the Creeks to war against the whites in the region.