The Birth of a Nation 87British could support if they wished but not control. President Madi
son, speaking to Congress in seeking a declaration of war against
Great Britain, argued: "In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain
toward the United States our attention is necessarily drawn to the
warfare just renewed by the savages on one of our extensive fron
tiers-a warfare which is known to spare neither age nor sex and
to be distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity."14
During the summer of 1812, the Indigenous alliance struck US
installations and squatter settlements with little help from the Brit
ish. The US forts at present-day Detroit and Dearborn fell. Among
the inhabitants of Fort Dearborn, Kentucky ranger William Wells
was killed and his body mutilated as that of a despised turncoat. In
the fall, Indigenous forces attacked Anglo-American squatter settle
ments all over Illinois and Indiana Territories. The US rangers at
tempting to track and kill the Indigenous fighters found destroyed
and abandoned Anglo-American settlements, with thousands of set
tlers driven from their homes. In response, Harrison turned the mi
litias loose on Indigenous fields and villages with no restrictions on
their behavior. The head of the Kentucky militia mustered two thou
sand armed and mounted volunteers to destroy Indigenous towns
near today's Peoria, Illinois, but without success. A reversal came
in the fall of 1813, when Te cumseh was killed in the Battle of the
Thames and the Indigenous army was destroyed. Throughout the
eighteen-month war, militias and rangers attacked Indigenous civil
ians and agricultural resources, leaving behind starving refugees.15
ASSAULT ON THE CHEROKEE NATION
In the unconquered Indigenous region of the Old Southwest, parallel
resistance took place during the two decades following US inde
pendence, with similar tragic results, thanks to extirpative settler
warfare. Te nnessee (formerly claimed, but not settled, by the British
colony of North Carolina) was carved out of the larger Cherokee
Nation and became a state in 1796. Its eastern part, particularly the
area around today's Knoxville, was a war zone. The mostly Scots
Irish squatters, attempting to secure and expand their settlements,