During
the week of mourning and tributes to U.S. Senator John McCain it was difficult
not to make comparisons with the life of another American hero. Correction:
North American hero.
That
other was Tecumseh, the leader, warrior, diplomat and rebel who became a hero in
both the United States and Canada. He was a man who did not recognize borders
and believed that a peoples’ strength lies not in diversity, but in unity.
Connections
to Tecumseh were present, but unnoticed, when McCain’s body lie in state in Washington’s
Capitol building rotunda, and later at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis,
Maryland where the senator was buried.
Just
below the Capitol building’s dome windows is a belt of recessed space with19
painted scenes from U.S. history. One of the scenes is ‘The Death of Tecumseh,’
depicting the Shawnee chief being shot during the War of 1812 Battle of the
Thames in southern Ontario.
At
the U.S. Naval Academy there is a bronze statue named Tecumseh. Midshipmen at
the Academy often offer prayers and pennies to the statue in hope that it will
bring them good luck in exams and sporting events.
Tecumseh
lived at time (late 1700s) when Europeans were feverishly colonizing North
America, grabbing lands Indigenous peoples had occupied for hundreds of years. These
people lived in tribes, separated by distance and language, and had no central
organization or leader to oppose colonization.
The
horse, brought to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors, and Tecumseh, born
in a village along the Scioto River just south of modern-day Columbus, Ohio,
changed that.
Tecumseh,
a name generally believed to mean Shooting Star, travelled thousands of miles
on horseback speaking passionately against colonization and attempting to build
the pan-Indian movement begun by Joseph Brant, the Mohawk leader who supervised
building of the Grand River Iroquois settlement now called Brantford, Ontario.
Tecumseh
became a powerful orator who travelled relentlessly, urging tribes to join
together to save their land and their culture.
He
was a diplomat who turned fulltime warrior when he was betrayed by William
Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana Territory later elected president of
the U.S. Harrison gave 12,000 square kilometres of Indigenous lands to settlers
of Indiana and Illinois, an act which Tecumseh said was illegitimate and caused
him to begin what now is known as Tecumseh’s War.
Immediately
after Harrison’s land grab, Tecumseh allied himself with British Canada, which
was about to enter the 1812 war against the U.S. Harrison’s troops chased
Tecumseh and his warriors into Upper Canada, killing him and ending his
confederacy near present day Chatham on Oct. 5, 1813.
Many
years later, in 1840, Harrison was elected U.S. president. He caught pneumonia
and died 31 days after his inauguration. Some attributed his death to ‘Tecumseh’s
Curse’ placed on him by Tenskwatawa the Prophet,
Tecumseh’s brother, for destroying the Indigenous way of life.
Tenskwatawa had said Harrison would die in office
and when he did everyone would remember Tecumseh.
“. . . I tell you Harrison will die,” Tenskwatawa
is reported to have said. “And after him, every chief (president) chosen every
twenty years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember
the death of our people."
Since Harrison’s death six presidents elected in
20-year intervals have died in office: Lincoln (elected 1860}, Garfield (1880),
McKinley (1900), Harding (1920), Roosevelt (1940), Kennedy (1960).
Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, was shot but
survived. George Bush, elected 2000, was the first bypassed by the supposed
curse.
None of this has any connection to the McCain
funeral. There was, however, a strong connection between Tecumseh and McCain:
both believed that tribal rivalries must be set aside to get things done for
the common good. Strength is found in working together.
“A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is
strong,” is a quote widely
attributed to Tecumseh.
McCain was a
strong, if sometimes conflicted, advocate of American indigenous affairs. He
was the longest-serving member of the Senate committee on Indian affairs and
twice its chair.
Something
Tecumseh also said, although it is sometimes attributed to other Indigenous sources,
would have been appreciated by Senator McCain:
“Sing
your death song and die like a hero going home.”
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