lities the women and
children on both sides were to be protected and respected. Certain it
is that General Harrison would have made no such agreement had he not
believed that his adversary would keep it.

[Illustration: Tecumseh defends the Whites at Fort Meigs.]

To understand the life and work of Tecumseh it is necessary to look
into the history of his times. His career was embraced between the
period of the Revolution and our second war with Great Britain. The
destiny of the Great West was not then assured. Ohio and Kentucky were
frontier States, vastly farther from the seat of government than is
the most remote of our Western outposts to-day. They could be reached
only by a toilsome journey over the Alleghanies and a trip down the
Ohio. A journey to-day to the Yellowstone, or to the regions beyond
the Black Hills, does not mean, in the way of time, danger, or
adventure, one-tenth what a journey to Fort Washington (Cincinnati)
meant in 1800. Indiana was a Territory, and the Territorial Governor,
first of the Northwest, and then of Indiana, was William Henry
Harrison, a born fighter, a palaverer, and who, in the difficult
position which he occupied in dealing with unruly settlers on the one
hand and turbulent Indians on the other hand, displayed singular tact
and ability. He was eminently the right man in the right place. But in
spite of the claims the United States made of the West, the country
was but little known, nor was its real importance even suspected. That
the Mississippi Valley would one day be peopled by millions, and be
the greatest, wealthiest, and most productive part of the country, was
not thought of even by the most sanguine of Americans. The Eastern
States in those days had affairs enough of their own on hand, and the
Western frontier was not regarded as essentially important. The
national idea--the Nation with a big N, as recent humorous newspaper
writers have put it--had not been evolved. It was difficult for even a
man of the persuasive powers of General Harrison, to induce the
General Government to furnish half enough troops to adequately guard
the outposts. If there was serious work to do the settlers had to
do it themselves. There was little grumbling over this state of
affairs, however, as the Kentuckians and Westerners generally had been
brought up to do their own fighting and not to wait for the Government
at Washington to do it for them. In those days British agents were
actively at work