year before the Prophet had "assembled a considerable number of
Shawnees, Wyandots, Ottawas and Senecas, at Wapakoneta, on the Auglaize
river, when he unfolded to them the new character with which he was
clothed, and made his first public effort in that career of religious
imposition, which in a few years was felt by the remote tribes of the
upper lakes, and on the broad plains which stretched beyond the
Mississippi." The appearance of the Prophet was not only highly dramatic
but extremely well-timed. The savage mind was filled with gloomy
forebodings. The ravages of "fire-water," the intermixture of the races,
the trespassing of the white settlers on the Indian domain, and the
rapid disappearance of many of the old hunting grounds, all betokened a
sad destiny for the red man. Naturally superstitious, he was prepared
for the advent of some divine agency to help him in his distress. No one
understood this better than the Prophet. He may have been the dupe of
his own imposture, but impostors are generally formidable. He was no
longer Laulewasikaw, but Tenskwatawa, "The Open Door." "He affected
great sanctity; did not engage in the secular duties of war or hunting;
was seldom in public; devoted most of his time to fasting, the
interpretation of dreams, and offering sacrifices to spiritual powers;
pretended to see into futurity and to foretell events, and announced
himself to be the mouth-piece of God."

The first assemblage at Wapakoneta, was later followed by a series of
pilgrimages to Greenville, which shortly spread alarm among the white
settlers. Hundreds of savages flocked around the new seer from the
rivers and lakes of the northwest and even from beyond the Mississippi.
In May of 1807 great numbers passed and re-passed through Fort Wayne. In
a letter of date August 20th, 1807, from William Wells, the United
States Indian agent at the last named place, to Governor Harrison at
Vincennes, Wells relates that the lake Indians from the vicinity of
Mackinac are flocking to Greenville; that the Prophet is instilling the
doctrine that in a few years the Great Spirit will destroy every white
man in America, and that the inhabitants of Detroit are fortifying
themselves against attack. To all these savage gatherings the Prophet
preached the new propaganda. He denounced drunkenness, and said that he
had gone up into the clouds and had seen the abode of the Devil; that
there he saw all the drunkards and that flames of fire contin