es, as the land belonged to all--no
portion of it to any single tribe." This doctrine of communistic
ownership was advocated by Tecumseh in the face of all the conquests of
the Iroquois, in the face of the claim of the Wyandots to much of the
domain of the present state of Ohio, and in the face of all of Little
Turtle's claims to the Maumee and the Wabash valleys, founded on long
and undisputed occupancy and possession. It never had any authority,
either in fact or in history, and moreover, lacked the great and saving
grace of originality. For if any Indian was the author of the doctrine
that no single tribe of Indians had the power to alienate their soil,
without the consent of all the other tribes, the first Indian to clearly
state that proposition was Joseph Brant of the Mohawk nation, and Brant
was clearly inspired by the British, at the hands of whom he was a
pensioner.

The savage warriors of the northwest were not formidable in numbers, but
they were terrible in their ferocity, their knowledge of woodcraft, and
their cunning strategy. General Harrison says that for a decade prior to
the treaty of Greenville, the allied tribes could not at any time have
brought into the field over three thousand warriors. This statement is
corroborated by Colonel James Smith, who had an intimate knowledge of
the Wyandots and other tribes, and who says: "I am of the opinion that
from Braddock's war, until the present time (1799), there never was more
than three thousand Indians at any time, in arms against us, west of
Fort Pitt, and frequently not half that number."

Constant warfare with the colonies and the Kentucky and Virginia hunting
shirt men had greatly reduced their numbers, but above all the terrible
ravages of smallpox, the insidious effects flowing from the use of
intoxicants, and the spread of venereal disorders among them, which
latter diseases they had no means of combating, had carried away
thousands and reduced the ranks of their valiant armies.

Woe to the general, however, who lightly estimated their fighting
qualities, or thought that these "rude and undisciplined" savages, as
they were sometimes called, could be met and overpowered by the tactics
of the armies of Europe or America! They were, says Harrison, "a body of
the finest light troops in the world," and this opinion is corroborated
by Theodore Roosevelt, who had some first hand knowledge of Indian
fighters. The Wyandots and Miamis, especially, as well a