Tecumseh to General Harrison
TECUMSEH ....
Once this mighty continent was ours,
And the Great Spirit made it for our use.
He knew no boundaries, so had we peace
In the vast shelter of His handiwork,
And, happy here, we cared not whence we came.
We brought no evils thence–no treasured hate,
No greed of gold, no quarrels over God;
Add so our broils, to narrow issues joined,
Were soon composed, and touched the ground of peace.
Our very ailments, rising from the earth,
And not from any foul abuse in us,
Drew back, and let age ripen to death’s hand.
Thus flowed our lives until your people came,
Till from the East our matchless misery came!
Since then our tale is crowded with your crimes,
With broken faith, with plunder of reserves–
The sacred remnants of our wide domain–
With tamp’rings, and delirious feasts of fire,
The fruit of your thrice-cursèd stills of death
Which make our good men bad, our bad men worse,
Ay, blind them till they grope in open day
And stumble into miserable graves!
Oh, it is piteous, for none will hear!
There is no hand to help, no heart to feel,
No tongue to plead for us in all your land.
But every hand aims death, and every heart,
Ulcered with hate, resents our presence here;
And every tongue cries for our children’s land
To expiate their crime of being born.
Oh, we have ever yielded in the past,
But we shall yield no more! Those plains are ours!
Those forests are our birth-right and our home!
Let not the Long-Knife build one cabin there–
Or fire from it will spread to every roof,
To compass you, and light your souls to death!
–Scene IV, Act II.
