The Prophet and the Confederacy: Tenskwatawa, Tippecanoe, and the War for Native Power
By Daniel R. Whitfield
Length4h 16m
About this audiobook
The men nearest him dragged him out of the fire by his ankles. Lalawethika, the Noisemaker, a one-eyed Shawnee with a mocking tongue and a thirst for trade rum, had stood up to speak in a smoky lodge that winter of 1805 and pitched face first into the flames. For hours he lay so still that the camp began to plan his burial. Then he sat up and told them what he had seen: two roads, a great fire, and a Master of Life who was angry with his people for drinking, dressing like Americans and selling their land.
He took a new name, Tenskwatawa, the Open Door, and within three years he and his older brother Tecumseh had drawn followers from across the Great Lakes country to Prophetstown on the Wabash. There a religious revival became a political confederacy, sworn to stop the treaty lines that kept moving west, and set against William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory, who bought nearly three million acres at Fort Wayne in 1809 from a handful of chiefs, over the brothers' objections.
In November 1811, with Tecumseh away in the South seeking allies, Harrison marched on Prophetstown, and the fight at Tippecanoe broke the prophet's authority. The war with Britain followed, and in October 1813 Tecumseh was killed at the Thames. Tenskwatawa lived on through exile in Canada, a return across the border and removal west with the Shawnee.
He had once preached that the land was not anyone's to sell. He died in 1836 on a reservation in Kansas that Washington had set aside for the Shawnee.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 16 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Trance
2Chapter 2: Greenville and the Lines on the Land
3Chapter 3: Prophetstown
4Chapter 4: The Treaty of Fort Wayne
5Chapter 5: A Council of Nations
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6Chapter 6: Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811
7Chapter 7: After the Ashes
8Chapter 8: Detroit and the Straits
9Chapter 9: The Raid on the Mississinewa
10Chapter 10: The Thames, October 5, 1813
11Chapter 11: The Peace and the Expulsion
12Chapter 12: Kansas and the Long Memory
13About the Author
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