Tecumseh : a Drama Part 8

Fill up your streets and overflow your fields, And crowd upon the earth for standing room; Still would our wrongs outweigh our witnesses, And scant recital for the lack of tongues.

I know your reason, and its bitter heart, Its form of justice, clad with promises-- The cloaks of death! That reason was the snare Which tripped our ancestors in days of yore-- Who knew not falsehood and so feared it not: Men who mistook your fathers' vows for truth, And took them, cold and hungry, to their hearts.

Filled them with food, and shared with them their homes, With such return as might make baseness blush.

What tree e'er bore such treacherous fruit as this?

But let it pa.s.s! let wrongs die with the wronged!

The red man's memory is full of graves.

But wrongs live with the living, who are here-- Inheritors of all our fathers' sighs, And tears, and garments wringing wet with blood.

The injuries which you have done to us Cry out for remedy, or wide revenge.

Restore the forests you have robbed us of-- Our stolen homes and vales of plenteous com!

Give back the boundaries, which are our lives, Ere the axe rise! aught else is reasonless.

HARRISON. Tec.u.mseh's pa.s.sion is a dangerous flood Which sweeps away his judgment. Let him lift His threatened axe to hit defenceless heads!

It cannot mar the body of our right, Nor graze the even justice of our claim: These still would live, uncancelled by our death.

Let reason rule us, in whose sober light We read those treaties which offend him thus: What nation was the first established here, Settled for centuries, with t.i.tle sound?

You know that people, the Miamies, well.

Long ere the white man tripped his anchors cold, To cast them by the glowing western isles, They lived upon these lands in peace, and none Dared cavil at their claim. We bought from them, For such equivalent to largess joined, That every man was hampered with our goods, And stumbled on profusion. But give ear!

Jealous lest aught might fail of honesty-- Lest one lean interest or poor shade of right Should point at us--we made the Kickapoo And Delaware the sharer of our gifts, And stretched the arms of bounty over heads Which held but by Miami sufferance.

But, you! whence came you? and what rights have you?

The Shawanoes are interlopers here-- Witness their name! mere wanderers from the South!

Spurned thence by angry Creek and Yamasee-- Now here to stir up strife, and tempt the tribes To break the seals of faith. I am surprised That they should be so led, and more than grieved Tec.u.mseh has such ingrates at his back.

TEc.u.mSEH. Call you those ingrates who but claim their own, And owe you nothing but revenge? Those men Are here to answer and confront your lies.

[_Turning to his followers_.]

Miami, Delaware and Kickapoo!

Ye are alleged as signers of those deeds-- Those dark and treble treacheries of Fort Wayne.-- Ye chiefs whose cheeks are tanned with battle-smoke, Stand forward then, and answer if you did it!

KICKAPOO CHIEF. (_Rising_.) Not I! I disavow them!

They were made By village chiefs whose vanity o'ercame Their judgment, and their duty to our race.

DELAWARE CHIEF. (_Rising_.) And I reject the treaties in the name Of all our noted braves and warriors.

They have no weight save with the palsied heads Which dote on friendly compacts in the past.

MIAMI CHIEF. (_Rising_.) And I renounce them also.

They were signed By sottish braves--the Long-Knife's tavern-chiefs-- Who sell their honor like a pack of fur, Make favour with the pale-face for his fee, And caper with the hatchet for his sport.

I am a chief by right of blood, and fling Your false and flimsy treaties in your face.

I am my nation's head, and own but one As greater than myself, and he is here!

[_Pointing to_ TEc.u.mSEH.]

TEc.u.mSEH. You have your answer, and from those whose rights Stand in your own admission. But from me-- The Shawanoe--the interloper here-- Take the full draught of meaning, and wash down Their dry and bitter truths. Yes! from the South My people came--fall'n from their wide estate Where Altamaha's uncongealing springs Kept a perpetual summer in their sight-- Sweet with magnolia blooms, and dropping balm, And scented breath of orange and of pine.

And from the East the hunted Delawares came, Flushed from their coverts and their native streams; Your old allies, men ever true to you, Who, resting after long and weary flight, Are by your bands shot sitting on the ground.

HARRISON. Those men got ample payment for their lands, Full recompense, and just equivalent.

TEc.u.mSEH. They flew from death to light upon it here!

And many a tribe comes pouring from the East, Smitten with fire--their outraged women, maimed, Screaming in horror o'er their murdered babes, Whose sinless souls, slashed out by white men's swords, Whimper in Heaven for revenge. Oh, G.o.d!-- 'Tis thus the pale-face prays, then cries 'Amen':-- He clamours, and his Maker answers him, Whilst our Great Spirit sleeps! O, no, no, no,-- He does not sleep! He will avenge our wrongs!

That Christ the white men murdered, and thought dead-- Who, if He died for mankind, died for us-- He is alive, and looks from heaven on this!

Oh, we have seen your baseness and your guile; Our eyes are opened and we know your ways!

No longer shall you hoax us with your pleas, Or with the serpent's cunning wake distrust, Range tribe 'gainst tribe--then shoot the remnant down, And in the red man's empty cabin grin, And shake with laughter o'er his desolate hearth.

No, we are one! the red men all are one In colour as in love, in lands and fate!

HARRISON. Still, with the voice of wrath Tec.u.mseh speaks, And not with reason's tongue.

TEc.u.mSEH. O keep your reason! It is a thief which steals away our lands.

Your reason is our deadly foe, and writes The jeering epitaphs for our poor graves.

It is the lying maker of your books, Wherein our people's vengeance is set down, But not a word of crimes which led to it.

These are hushed up and hid, whilst all our deeds, Even in self-defence, are marked as wrongs Heaped on your blameless heads.

But to the point! Just as our brother's Seventeen Council Fires Unite for self-protection so do we.

How can you blame us, since your own example Is but our model and fair precedent?

The Long-Knife's craft has kept our tribes apart, Nourished dissensions, raised distinctions up, Forced us to injuries which, soon as done, Are made your vile pretexts for b.l.o.o.d.y war.

But this is past our nations now are one-- Ready to rise in their imbanded strength.

You promised to restore our ravaged lands On proof that they are ours--that proof is here, And by the tongues of truth has answered you.

Redeem your sacred pledges, and no more Our "leaden birds" will sing amongst your corn: But love will s.h.i.+ne on you, and startled peace Will come again, and build by every hearth.

Refuse--and we shall strike you to the ground!

Pour flame and slaughter on your confines wide, Till the charred earth, up to the cope of Heaven, Reeks with the smoke of smouldering villages, And steam of awful fires half-quenched with blood.

[_Citizens converse in undertones_.]

Tw.a.n.g. Did you ever hear the like! Ef I hed my shootin'- iron darn me ef I wouldn't draw a bead on thet barkin'

savage. The hungry devil gits under-holts on our Guvner every time.

SLAUGH. You bet! I reckon he'd better put a lump o'

bacon in his mouth to keep his bilin' sap o' pa.s.sion down.

BLOAT. Thet's mor'n I'd do. This is jest what we git for allowin' the skulkin' devils to live. I'd vittle 'em on lead pills ef I was Guvner.

Tw.a.n.g. Thet's so! Our civilizashun is jest this--we know what's what. Ef I hed _my_ way--

HARRISON. Silence, you fools! If you provoke him here your blood be on your heads.

GERKIN. Right you air, Guvner! We'll close our dampers.

TEc.u.mSEH. My brother's ears have heard. Where is his tongue?

HARRISON. My honest ears ache in default of reason.

Tec.u.mseh is reputed wise, yet now His fuming pa.s.sions from his judgment fly, Like roving steeds which gallop from the catch, And kick the air, wasting in wantonness More strength than in submission. His threats fall On fearless ears. Knows he not of our force, Which in the East swarms like mosquitoes here?

Our great Kentucky and Virginia fires?

Our mounted men and soldier-citizens?

These all have stings--let him beware of them!

TEc.u.mSEH. Who does not know your vaunting citizens!

Well drilled in fraud and disciplined in crime; But in aught else--as honor, justice, truth-- A rabble, and a base disordered herd.

We know them; and our nations, knit in one, Will challenge them, should this, our last appeal, Fall on unheeding ears. My brother, hearken!

East of Ohio you possess our lands, Thrice greater than your needs, but west of it We claim them all; then, let us make its flood A common frontier, and a sacred stream Of which our nations both may drink in peace.

HARRISON. Absurd! The treaties of Fort Wayne must stand.

Your village chiefs are heads of civil rule, Whose powers you seek to centre in yourself, Or vest in warriors whose trade is blood.