John Powers, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has been doing an outstanding series of articles about the events leading up to the Battle of Tippecanoe. Today, he has another excellent one about the battle itself.
The battle was a much closer affair than I had been lead to believe. But, the stories about the Prophet telling his men that the enemy’s bullets would bounce off of them is apparently more or less true.
In an effort to give his warriors a psychological edge, [The Prophet] promised to use his magic to protect them. The Prophet assured his warriors that if they killed Harrison, the Master of Life would grant them victory. The Prophet promised that the Americans’ gunpowder would turn to dust and their bullets would turn into mud.
. . .
As the battle continued to rage, messengers brought word to the Prophet that the American’s bullets were quite effective. He told them to continue to fight and that soon everything would be as it should.
This should be a lesson to prophets and religious people everywhere that statements about what your higher power can or will do should never be falsifiable. You should always be able to plausibly say that your higher power behaved exactly as promised or that he/she/it did not do so because of the believers’ lack of faith.
In any event, my understanding is that, following this battle, Tecumseh’s resistance was effectively over and that American settlement was opened to the Mississippi.
Me, my wife and son are shawnee heritage and travel the state doing reenactments. Everyone loves our time period outfits and love getting to know our stories. The same at the 200 th tippecanoe. Everyone at the battlefield loved seeing and talking to us. We went to prophetstown to show and explain to my son about the area. We went to the sacred long house building to show him where the warriors met and had there meetings . The front of the building was blocked by a silversmith and his booth which had nothing to do with the indians. We walked around so we could see the building. We was told by the man with the both that he had leased the building and that it was his living area and was told to get the hell out! in front of kids and onlookers. My son told me that even after 200 years the indians are still told to get out. Luckily the DNR is taking back prophets town from the historical crap battle ground people and making it the way it should be . Those folks should be ashammed of themselves. They are and low low low Greg collins
Tenskwatawa might have considered expanding on what he told his (absent) brother’s warriors. Perhaps something more along the line that the Americans’ bullets would not harm those of them who had faith. Can’t say that it would have worked then but it is a line that works today in other contexts.
Harrison, in good patriotic fashion, turned getting caught completely off guard into his ticket to the White House.