Shawnee a Counterpoint to the Essay

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" (Atkinson, 1)

This is an important divergence of approaches, not simply because it dispenses with the ordinary telling of this story but also because it recasts the way we might understand the death of the Shawnee tribes. Where the caricature of the heroic and generally lionized Tecumseh is concerned, there is a tendency to vest too much stock in the role played by a single charismatic leader in defining the suffering and ambition of the Shawnee people. Edmunds' work is an accomplishment particularly for undoing the myth that a single people can be defined thusly. By shifting his focus to Tecumseh's counterpoint, a religiously inclined brother who prioritized conflict over unity, and especially by framing the conclusion of this story according to the placement of the Shawnee on a reservation, Edmunds succeeds in demonstrating the scale of this atrocity in a way that histories centering on a single man cannot.

Instead of making the narrative suggestion that the death of a hero in battle caused the end of the Shawnee people, Edmunds makes it clear that this was in fact a systematic dismantling of a culture millennia in the making which was culminated by the displacement of those who might have otherwise carried on a Shawnee legacy. This helps to promote a more realistic understanding of the cultural imposition and practical impediments to native survival.

If the text may be said to have any weakness, it is perhaps the underwhelming focus on Tecumseh. Though the emphasis on his brother is a welcome point of divergence and is also justified by the purpose of the text, this same purpose might have been more effectively served by a comparative analysis of the two. Many readers will have entered into this text with a familiar grounding in Tecumseh's accomplishments.

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These readers would benefit from a comprehensive separating of myth and fact, particularly as these may be illuminating in the story of Tenskwatawa. With respect to the relative lack of probing consideration of Tecumseh, we lose the opportunity to understand Tenskwatawa as a counterpoint.

This is even further magnified when the reader in question does not possess a great deal of background in Shawnee studies. Though there is a value in diminishing the singularity of a focus on Tecumseh, for the novice reader there is also something lost in the degree to which he is overshadowed. In the assessment conducted here, we can see that there is a distinct value in using the two brothers as reference points for understanding one another. Indeed, the greatest service performed by this text is in the way that it trains our focus toward the balance between native acquiescence and native resistance. A more critical discussion on both brothers might serve this interest with more acuity.

Ultimately, this is less a criticism of the work in question than a suggestion that its impulses could be served through yet a more probing evaluation of the chosen subject matter. But as a historical text, Edmunds' work is a compelling one, told in a linear and highly readable style that brings its subject very much to life. Thus, as a point of entry on the Shawnee people, it is not highly recommended. Instead, as a strand in a body of research on the Shawnee people, Edmunds has contributed a volume rife with insights and points of interest.

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