Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #330354 in Books
• Published on: 1993-02-01
• Released on: 1993-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 1088 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Though there are many biographies of the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh (1768-1813), this effort by historical novelist Eckert ( The Frontiersman ) may spark new interest--and controversy--with its "hidden dialogue" technique. After more than 25 years of research, the author felt free to recreate Tecumseh's conversations and thoughts in what proves to be an entertaining blend of fact and fiction. The orator and organizer's life was shaped by his tribe's tragic confrontation with westward-moving whites, who encroached on Native American lands along the Ohio River valley. His long struggle against this dispossession led Tecumseh to create a historic confederacy of tribes, but this crowning achievement was destroyed by his own brother at Tippecanoe in 1811. Eckert's dialogue is clunky, yet his colorful evocation of this seminal American figure will be more broadly accessible than are drier, more factual accounts.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A spirited but misdirected stab at a definitive biography of the great Shawnee warrior, from prolific historian and novelist Eckert, whose six-volume nonfiction The Winning of America series (Twilight of Empire, Gateway to Empire, etc.) paved the way for this epic. Employing what he terms ``narrative biography'' as a touchstone (and as an apparent euphemism for poetic license), Eckert embarks on a quest for the real Tecumseh, seeking a life buried beneath countless legends and tales. The result is a mammoth account of a remarkable American from the spectacular moment of his birth--concurrent with the appearance of a brilliant shooting star- -to his sudden death in the Battle of Thames in 1813, an event described in more than 40 different ways by ``eyewitnesses.'' Along with the portrait of a man of keen insight and ability--a natural leader who eschewed the role of chief but who sought tirelessly to unite all tribes in a pan-Indian movement--emerges a rich tapestry of Native American society in the Ohio region during Tecumseh's time. The Indian leader and his family, especially his brother, the prophet Tenskwatawa, figured dramatically in the growing violence along the frontier as white settlers swarmed across the Appalachians onto Indian lands. By emphasizing the greatness of Tecumseh, however, Eckert minimizes the significance of tribal unification as a wider phenomenon and the role of spiritual leaders in firing that movement, to the extent that, for instance, Tenskwatawa is depicted as a sniveling conniver achieving renown largely through his brother's generosity. A biography that succeeds better as fiction. Astoundingly detailed but ambitious to a fault, in its interpretative zeal it strays from, or at least embellishes, the historical record to the point of being suspect. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Fair Warning
Straight up front I'll admit I'm a quitter. With grim determination I made it to page 55 and there, gentle readers, I had had it. I couldn't go any farther. I just couldn't. But then, one doesn't need to drink the whole glass to know if the milk is sour.

Maybe the tipping point lay in having reason several Francis Parkman's works ("The Frances Parkman Reader", the volumns on Pontiac, "Montcalm and Wolfe") before starting this thing. It was this book breaker.

Usually in re: to a one or two star book I'll say, "If you can get it at a yard sale, or real cheap, or someone give it to you, go ahead and read it." But not this one, brother. Your's truly got it real cheap and...well, and I'm writting this review.

What wrong with this book? For one thing, the preface is something like 34 pages long! Good grief. And when several other reviewers said this book as written like a novel, take it from me -- they weren't kidding. But, heck, I knew that going in and made allowances for it. But nothing could prepare me for early-era Political Correctness/New Age tone of this thing.

The yellow flags went up when I read the opening quote (supposedly by Tecumseh's elder brother) chosen by the author which read, in part,

'...The white man seeks to conquer nature, to bend it to his will and to use it wastefully until it is goneand then he simply moves one, leaving the waste behind him...The whole white race is a monster...'

I thought: Uh-Oh. According to this "story" the red Indianas -- particularly the Shawnee -- were the beau sauvages, the enfants de nature, of the sixities: the 1960s and the 1760s. The white man, particular the British, were the snake in this Garden of Eden. The Great Spirit, surprise surprise, is refered to as a woman. ("The Great Spirit watched over her Indian children...") The men tall and handsome, the women loving and lovely, the elders calm and wise, the children serious yet happy. The whites, esp. the British, insensitive brutes. Shades of being oh-so politically correct!

This sort of view might have been the bee's knees in the late 1980s- early 1990s but today it is 18th c. romantism at best, teeth-gritting at worst. The red Indians in this book are painted in a very different manner than can be found in Parkman, and a good many others.

Well Done
Detailed, extensively referenced and put into a cogent form that makes Tecumseh's life understandable, and interesting reading. It's hard to find much fault in this book, except for Eckert's persistent marketing of his other books in his amplification notes, which can be ignored easily enough, if it bothers you. A true and great Indian leader and decent human being, Tecumseh deserves much more praise than he receives.

Why we were not taught?
This book has opened my eyes more than just about any other book I have ever read. It made a deep impact on me because a lot of these events took place in my own back yard and even involved some of my ancestors and I was not aware because we were not taught. Why is there so little attention given to this great historical figure yet in the place where the machinations of fraud were committed by the theft of Indian land there is a huge monument to a George Rogers Clark who was not so significant in our history. Is it a warning to any who have sympathies for the original inhabitants of this land that the U.S. government is the supreme ruler of the land. Why have not historical Indian trails that later became roads and highways so designated and the thousand of Indian names that mark our geography not given the recognition and respect they deserve. Why as a country are we so afraid of our Indian brothers that we try to isolate them and pretend they did not even exist. I do not know if the Indians could have ever held onto their land because the hunger and greed of so many seemed instoppable. But that does not justify the reality that their land was stolen and their culture dismissed because it was not based on technology but based instead on a living cooperation and respect for the Great Spirit and the beautiful Earth which we were granted guardianship of.. Maybe because the Native Americans knew that this way of living would be destructive and could not last because through their ancestors it had all been tried before. Will we ever know?