**"An insightful, unflinching portrayal of the remarkable siblings who
came closer to altering the course of American history than any other
Indian leaders." --H.W. Brands, author of The Zealot and the
Emancipator **
The first biography of the great Shawnee leader to make clear that his
misunderstood younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was an equal partner in the
last great pan-Indian alliance against the United States.
Until the Americans killed Tecumseh in 1813, he and his brother
Tenskwatawa were the co-architects of the broadest pan-Indian
confederation in United States history. In previous accounts of
Tecumseh's life, Tenskwatawa has been dismissed as a talentless
charlatan and a drunk. But award-winning historian Peter Cozzens now
shows us that while Tecumseh was a brilliant diplomat and war
leader--admired by the same white Americans he opposed--it was
Tenskwatawa, called the "Shawnee Prophet," who created a vital doctrine
of religious and cultural revitalization that unified the disparate
tribes of the Old Northwest. Detailed research of Native American
society and customs provides a window into a world often erased from
history books and reveals how both men came to power in different but no
less important ways.
Cozzens brings us to the forefront of the chaos and violence that
characterized the young American Republic, when settlers spilled across
the Appalachians to bloody effect in their haste to exploit lands won
from the British in the War of Independence, disregarding their rightful
Indian owners. Tecumseh and the Prophet presents the untold story of
the Shawnee brothers who retaliated against this threat--the two most
significant siblings in Native American history, who, Cozzens helps us
understand, should be writ large in the annals of America.
