During the War of 1812, a combined British and Native American force is defeated by General William Harrison’s American army at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario, Canada. The leader of the Native forces was Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief who organized intertribal resistance to the encroachment of white settlers on Native lands. He was killed in the fighting.
Tecumseh was born in an village in present-day Ohio and early on witnessed the devastation wrought on tribal lands by white settlers. He fought against U.S. forces in the American Revolution and later raided white settlements, often in conjunction with other tribes. He became a great orator and a leader of intertribal councils. He traveled widely, attempting to organize a united Native front against the United States. When the War of 1812 erupted, he joined the British, and with a large force he marched on U.S.-held Fort Detroit with British General Isaac Brock. In August 1812, the fort surrendered without a fight when it saw the British and Native show of force.
Tecumseh then traveled south to rally other tribes to his cause and in 1813 joined British General Henry Procter in his invasion of Ohio. The British-Native American force besieged Fort Meigs, and Tecumseh intercepted and destroyed a Kentucky brigade sent to relieve the fort. After the U.S. victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813, Procter and Tecumseh were forced to retreat to Canada. Pursued by an American force led by the future president William Harrison, the British-Native American force was defeated at the Battle of the Thames River on October 5.
The battle gave control of the western theater to the United States in the War of 1812. Tecumseh’s death marked the end of most Native resistance east of the Mississippi River, and soon after most of the depleted tribes were forced west.
