Prior to the Surrender of Fort Detroit under Brigadier General Hull, Tecumseh, Shawnee chief leader of a First Nations confederacy organized an ambush against a detachment of 120 Ohio volunteers under US Major James Denny. Tecumseh routed them and inflicted the first casualties of the War of 1212. Following this, in August Tecumseh and his warriors attacked American forces at Brownstown in two different instances killing 18 and 20 men. These attacks by Tecumseh shocked the Americans and spread fear and dread among the Americans. At Fort Detroit, Tecumseh met up with British Major Isaac Brock to capitalize on this fear and deceive the Americans into surrendering the fort.
In 1812, Madison decried the British for turning the "merciless savages" against them. Madison pointed to this fear as "a distinguishing feature in the operations which preceded and followed" the surrender of Detroit. Madison's own words give evidence of the fear and anger over the alliance between Tecumseh and the British.
"Whilst the benevolent policy of the United States invariably recommended peace and promoted civilization among that wretched portion of the human race, and was making exertions to dissuade them from taking either side in the war, the enemy has not scrupled to call to his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horrors of those instruments of carnage and torture which are known to spare neither age nor sex."But how did Madison come to describe Tecumseh's tribes as "merciless savages". Just 5 years earlier, after Tecumseh gave his famous speech at Greenville stating his peaceful purposes at Prophetstown, Jefferson told Congress that the tribes were "sincerely disposed to adhere to their friendship with us and to their peace with all others". But, then in 1809 the Treaty of Fort Wayne took 3 million acres of land from the Indians and gave it to the settlers. This infuriated Tecumseh. Tecumseh met with Governor William Henry Harrison to demand the treaty be nullified, or he would seek an alliance with Great Britain. Harrison refused, and in October of 1811 set forth with a force of 1000 men towards Prophetstown to seek a peaceful council with the chiefs. But Tecumseh and the Prophet led a surprise attack on Harrison's camp. Fighting was intense, but after enduring the loss of 62 men, Harrison gained the upper hand and the Indians retreated.
Thus, tensions were very high with the the Shawnee as America entered into the war with Great Britain. The Jefferson and Madison administration clearly played a role in antagonizing the Native American tribes in the Northwest, yet in his 1812 annual address, Madison blames the actions of Tecumseh and the Shawnee solely on Great Britain. Madison went even further, and called it an "outrage against the laws of honorable war". Madison did not even blame the savages; he claimed it was out of their control ... "since the savages are employed with a knowledge, and even with menaces, that their fury could not be controlled". Madison said it was a "spectacle" that a nation that prides itself in religion and morality would sink to such a low level.
"In this outrage against the laws of honorable war and against the feelings sacred to humanity the British commanders can not resort to a plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our example. They can not mitigate it by calling it a self-defense against men in arms, for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable for the atrocities perpetrated, since the savages are employed with a knowledge, and even with menaces, that their fury could not be controlled. Such is the spectacle which the deputed authorities of a nation boasting its religion and morality have not been restrained from presenting to an enlightened age."http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29454
http://www.eighteentwelve.ca/?q=eng/Topic/6
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