Prophets of the Great Spirit Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern North America Alfred A
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PROPHETS of the Great Spirit Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern North America Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 Prophets of the Great Spirit 6 7 8 9 10 [First Page] 11 [-1], (1) 12 13 Lines: 0 to 9 14 ——— 15 * 431.74501pt PgVar 16 ——— 17 Normal Page 18 * PgEnds: PageBreak 19 20 [-1], (1) 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page i / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 [-2], (2) 12 13 Lines: 9 to 10 14 ——— 15 0.0pt PgVar 16 ——— 17 Normal Page 18 PgEnds: TEX 19 20 [-2], (2) 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page ii / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave Alfred A. Cave University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London 1 © 2006 by the 2 Board of Regents 3 of the University of Nebraska 4 All rights reserved 5 Manufactured in the 6 United States of America 7 ⅜ϱ Library of Congress 8 Cataloging- 9 in-Publication Data 10 Cave, Alfred A. 11 Prophets of the great [-4], (4) spirit: Native American 12 revitalization movements 13 in eastern North Lines: 15 to 82 14 America / Alfred A. Cave. p. cm. ——— 15 Includes bibliographical * references and index. 63.78201pt PgVar 16 isbn-13: 978-0-8032-1555-9 ——— 17 (cloth: alk. paper) Normal Page isbn-10: 0-8032-1555-x * PgEnds: PageBreak 18 (cloth: alk. paper) 19 1. Indians of North America—East [-4], (4) 20 (U.S.)—Religion. 21 2. Prophets—United States. 3. Indians of North 22 America—East (U.S.)—Rites 23 and ceremonies. I. Title. e98.r3c38 2006 24 299.7'161'0974-dc22 25 2005024227 26 Designed by R. W. Boeche. 27 Set in Quadraat Sans 28 by Bob Reitz. 29 Printed by 30 Thomson-Shore, Inc. 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page iv / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 To the memory of my grandparents, 6 John A. Watts 7 Ruth D. Watts 8 9 10 11 [-5], (5) 12 13 Lines: 82 to 92 14 ——— 15 * 405.0pt PgVar 16 ——— 17 Normal Page 18 * PgEnds: PageBreak 19 20 [-5], (5) 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page v / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 [-6], (6) 12 13 Lines: 92 to 93 14 ——— 15 0.0pt PgVar 16 ——— 17 Normal Page 18 PgEnds: TEX 19 20 [-6], (6) 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page vi / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 Contents 6 7 Preface ix 8 Acknowledgments xv 9 10 Introduction 1 [-7], (7) 11 1. The Delaware Prophets 11 12 2. The Shawnee Prophet 45 13 Lines: 93 to 154 14 3. Tenskwatawa, Tecumseh, and the ——— 15 Pan-Indian Movement 91 * 124.31401pt PgVar 16 ——— 17 4. The Red Sticks 140 Normal Page 18 5. The Seneca Prophet 183 * PgEnds: PageBreak 19 6. The Kickapoo Prophet 225 20 [-7], (7) 21 Conclusion 244 22 Notes 249 23 24 Bibliography 293 25 Index 315 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page vii / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 [-8], (8) 12 13 Lines: 154 to 155 14 ——— 15 0.0pt PgVar 16 ——— 17 Normal Page 18 PgEnds: TEX 19 20 [-8], (8) 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page viii / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave 1 2 3 4 5 Preface 6 7 The British victory in the so-called French and Indian War led 8 directly to a series of conflicts—some full-scale wars, others 9 guerrilla actions—fought for control of the interior regions of 10 North America. In the years between Pontiac’s rebellion in 1763 [First Page] 11 and Tecumseh’s defeat in 1813, the trans-Appalachian West was [-9], (1) 12 transformed from a vast, forested region inhabited by Indian 13 nations and a handful of European traders and missionaries into a Lines: 0 to 13 14 land dominated by Euro-American farmers and planters. In 1828, ——— 15 when the celebrated and controversial Indian fighter Andrew 0.0pt PgVar 16 Jackson was elected to the presidency of the United States, the Old ——— 17 Northwest and most of the new “Cotton Kingdom” of the South- Normal Page 18 east had long ceased to be Indian country. The white population PgEnds: TEX 19 west of the mountains had increased many thousand fold after 20 1763, reaching four million by 1830. New states—Ohio, Kentucky, [-9], (1) 21 Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan— 22 replaced formerly independent and sovereign Indian nations. 23 Through the Indian removal program, Jackson and his successor 24 would eliminate most of the remaining Native American ethnic 25 enclaves east of the Mississippi. The Native American population 26 in eastern North America in 1830 probably numbered around one 27 hundred thousand. It is estimated that by 1840, less than ten 28 thousand remained.1 29 Reflecting on western expansion, nineteenth-century Euro- 30 American commentators—politicians, preachers, scholars—gen- 31 erally celebrated this massive dispossession of indigenous peo- 32 ples as the triumph of the will of God and of scientific progress 33 over savagery and superstition. Indians as a people, they claimed, 34 were a backward and unprogressive lot who had failed to properly BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page ix / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave x preface 1 exploit the land’s great bounty. They congratulated themselves 2 that those Indians who were capable of improving themselves 3 would profit from their contact with white Christians. They placed 4 great stock in programs to civilize “savages” but were comforted 5 by the thought that the less tractable of the Indians could remove 6 themselves from harm’s way by selling their land and moving 7 westward. Thomas Jefferson pronounced his generation’s final 8 judgment on the Indian question. Native Americans, he declared, 9 must ultimately either give up their tribal lands and habits and live 10 as other American citizens, subject to the laws of the states and the [-10], (2) 11 customs of their neighbors, or be driven into “the stoney moun- 12 tains.” Jackson’s contribution was to carry out that mandate with 13 greater thoroughness and ruthlessness than his predecessors. Lines: 13 to 16 14 While his Whig and evangelical critics deplored the brutality of ——— 15 Indian removal, they shared with Jackson a common objective: the 15.0pt PgVar 16 elimination of Native American cultures through the “civilizing” ——— 17 Normal Page of “savages.”2 18 * PgEnds: Eject Euro-Americans during the eighteenth and early nineteenth 19 centuries were generally insensitive to Native American reactions 20 [-10], (2) to the “civilization” program, dismissing those who failed to re- 21 spond positively to the demand that they relinquish most of their 22 land and all of their culture as hopelessly backward and simple 23 24 people. Few gave any thought to the possibility that Indians might 25 summon up the spiritual and intellectual resources needed to 26 frame ideological arguments to counter Euro-American insistence 27 that mankind’s betterment and their own best interests required 28 their physical dispossession and cultural extinction. But while 29 some Indians—for a variety of reasons ranging from conviction 30 to necessity to an eye for the main chance—embraced white 31 material culture and even converted to Christianity, many others 32 remained committed, with varying degrees of passion, to the 33 preservation of their old identities and old values. Some, para- 34 doxically, sought to counter Euro-American cultural imperialism BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page x / / Prophets of the Great Spirit / Alfred A. Cave preface xi 1 by borrowing Euro-American religious ideas and employing them 2 as weapons in ideological struggles against the invaders. 3 This book tells the story of nativist prophets in eastern North 4 America who sought to explain the catastrophic events that had 5 befallen Native American peoples. They strove to arm the be- 6 leaguered with renewed spirit power, power that would come 7 from the Creator. The European presence on the continent had 8 had a devastating effect on Indian societies. Affliction had began 9 with first contact, for Europeans brought to the continent deadly 10 pathogens from which the Native peoples had no natural immu- 11 nity. Within the first century of colonization, epidemics reduced [-11], (3) 12 Indian populations by about 90 percent. The malign effects of 13 alcohol, of intensified warfare, and of the disappearance of game Lines: 16 to 23 14 associated with the fur trade, as well as the progressive loss of land ——— 15 to the European invader, soon exacerbated the impact of epidemic 0.0pt PgVar 16 disease. Growing economic and military dependency upon Euro- ——— 17 pean trade goods threatened the integrity of indigenous societies. Normal Page 18 The expansion of white settlements imperiled their continued PgEnds: TEX 19 existence as independent communities. The ongoing crises had 20 profound spiritual dimensions, for the failure of shamans to [-11], (3) 21 cure the sick, restore lost natural bounty, or arm warriors with 22 invincible power offered alarming evidence that the forces and 23 entities that once had sustained their way of life were no longer 24 with them.