The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-07-16
GRANDSON OF TECUr1SEH
SEEKS RETURN OF LANDS


After a silence so long and so, com
plete that men had forgotten almost
that he ever lived. h-paw-meap-t to,
grandson and only living descendant
of Tecumsen. the greatest Of Shawnee
chiefs, has come out of the west, where
he and the remnant of his once power
full nation live in poverty which is al
most abject, to ask the Great White
Father" for the return of a few acres
OF the vast domain that once was
theirs. 1t is not much that they ask;
Just enough reservation TO live on
and to hunt a little" the old chief
says. The tract of land they now have,
he declares, is not fit 10 cultivate; II IS
unhealthy, and the members of his
tribe. which today numbers less than
400 souls, are rapidly dying off.
But the chief of the line of the proud
Tecumseh does not come as suppl
cant with outsteretched hands. He
asks what he believes is his of right,
and wants it not unless il is his due.
When he called at the Office of the COM
missioner of Indian affairs the other
day he told his story in plain,
straightforward manner, not as one
asking aims, but as one who believed
his case was good, and who asked but
simple justic.
-paw-meap-to, though old and
broken in health, has a spirit that is un-
daunted. and is as proud and naughty
as his grandsire was. His face is no
BILE and a kindly one. but full of rugged
strength and scanned with many years.
| His eye is bright and flashes proudly.
and when he speaks it would be easy TO
imagine it were old Tecumseh saying
THE sun is my father, and the earth
| is my mother; on her bosom l viii re-
pose"
-pah-meap-tO, who in everyday
| life is known less POLITICALLY as Big
JIM, looks, too, as though he might be
as fierce a warrior and as honorable a
foeman as was his ancestor.
Tecumseh was the greatest military
geninus the red race has ever produced.
and though he fought against the Am
orleans and died in battle while OppoS-
ing them, his memory is held in honor
and he has a larger place in history
than almost any other Indian He was
noted, too, as much for his eloquence
as for his fighting powers, and next to
Logan is the most famed of Indian or
atorS.
Tecumseh was the son of Pucheshin-
wa, a noted Shawnee chief, who was
killed in battle when the son was a
child From his earliest youth Tecum-
sch believed that the Indians had been
wronged by the white men, and about
the year 1905, with his brother, Elisk-
watawa, he projected the formation of
union of all the western Indian
tribes against the whites, for the pur-
| pose of retaining the lands that had
| been taken from them. Together they
visited all the tribes between the great
/ lakes and gulf of Mexico, and great
/ federation was formed. Nearly five
years were consumed in effecting this
( but the brothers never Wavered from
their purpose. In August, 1910, Tecum-
/ sch was invited 20 a conference by
/ General William Henry Harrison, then
| governor of the Northwest territory. Al
/ this conference the Indian leader deliV-
cred speech that is famous TO this
day, being filled with such passages as
! the one quoted above
/ The conference, however, was barren
| of results, and the depredatiOns of the
/ Indians increased until the next sum-
mer, when, while Tecumseh was on g
mission TO secure the cooperation OF
the Creeks Choctaws and CherOkees in
his operations, the battle of Tippecanot
was fought. This disastrous defeat fol
| the allied tribes blasted the leader:
hopes for formidable opposition to the
whites, but he was not to be daunte