Tecumseh's Speech to the Osages (Winter 1811-12)

One of the great figures of early Native resistance to colonization was Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, who earned a reputation for his skills in fighting white settlers and militias in the Midwest. He and his brother worked toward the unification of Indians to struggle collectively against the encroachment on their lands by colonists, as they expanded westward. Here he speaks to the Osages about the struggle against the colonists, arguing that "nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising to the setting sun."

—Introduction from Zinn and Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States







