The Birth of a Nation 85more potent by combining Indigenous spirituality and politics while
respecting the particular religions and languages of each nation.^11
The evolving Indigenous alliance posed a serious barrier to con
tinued Anglo-American squatting and land speculation and acquisi
tions in the trans-Appalachian region. With previous Indigenous
resistance movements, such as those led by Little Tu rtle and Blue
Jacket, during peace negotiations in the wake of ruinous US wars of
annihilation, leaders of factions had become "agency chiefs" who
agreed to land sales without the consent of those they purported
to represent. The colonized communities had fallen into economic
dependency on trade goods and federal annuities, incurring debts
that led to the forfeiture of what land remained in their hands. The
emerging younger generation was contemptuous of such chiefs,
whom they perceived as selling out their people. Anglo-American
settlers and speculators exerted increased pressure and issued new
threats of annihilation, provoking anger and calls for retaliation but
also a renewed spirit of resistance.
By l8ro, new Indigenous alliances challenged squatter settlers
in the Indiana and Illinois Territories at a time when war between
the United States and Great Britain was looming. Fearing that the
British would unite with the Indigenous alliances to prevent the US
imperialist goal to dominate the continent, these settlers drafted
a petition to President James Madison, demanding that the gov
ernment act preemptively: "The safety of the persons and property
of this frontier can never be effectually secured, but by the break
ing up of the combination formed by the Shawnee Prophet on the
Wabash." 12
In 180 9, Indiana's territorial governor, William Henry Harri
son, badgered and bribed a few destitute Delaware, Miami, and
Potawatomi individuals to sign the Treaty of Fort Wayne, accord
ing to which these nations would hand over their land in what is
now southern Indiana for an annual annuity. Tecumseh promptly
condemned the treaty and those who signed it without the approval
of the peoples they represented. Harrison met with Te cumseh at
Vincennes in 1810, along with other delegates of the allied Shawnee,
Kickapoo, Wyandot, Peoria, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Winnebago