Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: Colin Fluxman
Unabridged: 1 hr 35 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 03/21/2022
Genre: History - Native American
As settlers continued to encroach further west, the Shawnee, who were attempting to put together a confederacy of Native Americans to resist, stood firm and ready to fight them. Before America fought Britain in the War of 1812, they were engaged in Tecumseh’s War around the Great Lakes. The fighting made him famous and made a military hero (and eventually a president) out of William Henry Harrison, whose victory at Tippecanoe is considered the end of that war.
Despite being one of their most tenacious opponents, Tecumseh almost immediately became a celebrated folk hero and respected leader in American history, all while continuing to be one of the most poignant symbols of resistance among Native Americans. He continues to be a household name across the United States today, nearly 200 years after his death.
What makes Tecumseh’s legacy ironic is that the Shawnee were nominally led by a different man altogether, and that man just so happened to be Tecumseh’s brother. Lalawethika’s early life mostly consisted of abject failures, and he became an alcoholic, but in one of his alcohol-soaked stupors, he began to have visions of the Master of Life that turned him into the Open Door, the prophet named Tenskwatawa. It was Tenskwatawa who brought a new vision to the Shawnee, transforming himself from an object of pity and contempt into a religious leader who had thousands of followers. When the Americans fought at Tippecanoe, the gathering of Native Americans who they were attempting to disperse had congregated at a place colloquially known as Prophetstown.
In 1890, the US government feared an imminent Indian uprising among the displaced Sioux people. General Nelson A. Miles reported from the field summarizing the issue at hand. The government was failing to fulfill the terms of the treaty they had coe...
James McLaughlin worked as an Indian agent for most of his life. His most infamous act, however, was ordering the arrest of Sitting Bull for fear that his participation in the Ghost Dance movement would inspire Indian rebellion. “The newspaper...
In 1877, the U.S. government ordered the Nez Perce Indians to leave their tribal lands in the Pacific Northwest for a reservation in Idaho. Though this mandate violated previous treaty agreements, the Army forced the Indians to flee. Led by Chief Jo...
Red Horse, a Lakota chief, recorded a detailed eyewitness account of the Battle of Little Bighorn. He recalls seeing a rising cloud of red dust just before US soldiers charged their camp. With the hot sun bearing down on them, the Sioux took no pris...
As archaeologists quickly learned, there are numerous temples dedicated to Quetzalcoatl all across Mesoamerica. From the Aztec to the Maya, Quetzalcoatl - the Feathered Serpent - rears his beautiful head from magnificent relief carvings in temples ...
Pauite leader Wovoka founded the Ghost Dance movement in the late 1880s as conditions for Native Americans became increasingly hopeless. Wovoka declared himself the messiah and spread the news that Indians were to prepare themselves for salvation th...
Preserving Native American culture is an effort that is pervading the anthropological and cultural work of today, and without the work of past observers like Z.A. Parker – certain pieces of history could have been missing from books permanentl...
In 1831, the Cherokee Nation brought a case against the state of Georgia to the Supreme Court. They argued that as a separate foreign nation, certain Georgia laws overstepped their jurisdiction and wrongfully stripped Cherokees of their rights. The ...
On December 29, 1890, the U.S. military entered the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with the intention of disarming the natives. When met with resistance, the cavalry opened fire on the Lakota in a massacre that killed several hundred men, wome...