Fallen Brave
On this day in 1813, Shawnee chief Tecumseh died at the Battle of the Thames. The Shawnee chief had organized a formidable Indian confederacy in the Old Northwest between 1805 and his death eight years later. He urged local tribes to resist white purchase of Indian land and to continue communal ownership of property—ideas that made him an Indian nationalist and leader of enduring fame. Even whites recognized his greatness, but his death, tragic as they made it out to be, signaled the inevitability of white advance.
Ferdinand Pettrich's marble, which creates for Tecumseh the role of a dying Roman general, passes judgment on all Indian "heroes" who died in battle against whites. Their courage and skill, Pettrich maintains, were devoted to the wrong cause. Their deaths argued not for Indian rights but for the triumph of expansionism.
Source: National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and Boston, New York, Toronto, and London: National Museum of American Art with Bulfinch Press, Little Brown and Company, 1995).
Pictured: Ferdinand Pettrich, 1798 Germany–1872 Italy, The Dying Tecumseh, modeled about 1837–46, carved 1856, marble with painted copper alloy tomahawk, 36 5/8 x 77 5/8 x 53 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Capitol.
On this day in 1813, Shawnee chief Tecumseh died at the Battle of the Thames. The Shawnee chief had organized a formidable Indian confederacy in the Old Northwest between 1805 and his death eight years later. He urged local tribes to resist white purchase of Indian land and to continue communal ownership of property—ideas that made him an Indian nationalist and leader of enduring fame. Even whites recognized his greatness, but his death, tragic as they made it out to be, signaled the inevitability of white advance.