Latest / Ridiculous History / Tecumseh's Curse, Part One: Rise of The Prophet
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
- 0:27Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
- 0:30Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man the myth,
- 0:34Speaker 1: the guy who has never actually given out a curse.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Super producer mister Max Williams.
- 0:40Speaker 2: Max claps with two hands. Williams, Welcome back to.
- 0:43Speaker 3: The clap Max, I have a secondhand again, and Ben,
- 0:46Speaker 3: no curse is given out that you know of?
- 0:49Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, Well, is a curse really a curse
- 0:52Speaker 2: if you don't know about it? That's a question. Aren't
- 0:54Speaker 2: you supposed to, like actively say to somebody, I have
- 0:57Speaker 2: cursed you. You're therefore you don't have to. But I
- 1:00Speaker 2: guess one thing about curses is, you know, there's the
- 1:03Speaker 2: placebo effect of it, all right, if somebody tells you
- 1:06Speaker 2: you've been cursed, then you get in your head about
- 1:09Speaker 2: it and manifest the curse yourself without maybe they're even
- 1:12Speaker 2: having to be any nefarious dark forces at work at all.
- 1:16Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing a curse does have. You know,
- 1:19Speaker 1: the best definition of magic I've ever seen is weaponized psychology.
- 1:25Speaker 1: And in that case, then a curse would work. If
- 1:28Speaker 1: we were to say I Ben Bullen, curse you Noel Brown.
- 1:33Speaker 1: Through that kind of lens of psychology, then the person
- 1:38Speaker 1: being cursed would have to know about it for it
- 1:41Speaker 1: to have some sort of effect. But if we take
- 1:43Speaker 1: the psychology out, if we say we just believe in curses,
- 1:46Speaker 1: then the person who is cursed or has the consequences
- 1:52Speaker 1: doesn't have to know what's going on at all. They
- 1:54Speaker 1: could be totally innocent. They just walked into the wrong tomb.
- 1:57Speaker 2: I recently started rewatching Rome, the HBO series. You know
- 2:02Speaker 2: about Julius Caesar and all of that, And there is
- 2:04Speaker 2: a part in the series where Julius Caesar scorns a
- 2:09Speaker 2: female admirer. Essentially, there's a political thing that's caused it
- 2:14Speaker 2: to be inconvenient having this relationship, so he basically sends
- 2:17Speaker 2: her a packing and then there's a really intense scene
- 2:20Speaker 2: where she curses him like in writing, like while saying
- 2:25Speaker 2: out loud, I curse your liver, your blood, your bones,
- 2:29Speaker 2: your body. And then you know, has her hand servant
- 2:32Speaker 2: take this cursed piece of paper and put it in
- 2:35Speaker 2: some kind of special depository. But Julius Caesar does not
- 2:39Speaker 2: need to know about it. And as far as this
- 2:41Speaker 2: character is concerned the curse? Sure has hell worked? Because
- 2:45Speaker 2: you know, really bad things happened to Julius Caesar. Was
- 2:48Speaker 2: it because of the curse? Unclear?
- 2:50Speaker 1: This this reminds me of Gladiator, which has been on
- 2:53Speaker 1: my mind because I recently on the road, I have
- 2:57Speaker 1: too much time to watch a lot of TV. But
- 2:59Speaker 1: on the room I watched Napoleon, and.
- 3:03Speaker 2: What do you think? I did not like it?
- 3:05Speaker 1: Okay, only because only because it was very clear to
- 3:10Speaker 1: me that this is Yo King Phoenix playing Napoleon. Sure,
- 3:16Speaker 1: so that's it. Didn't it didn't feel like I love
- 3:19Speaker 1: that guy's an actor. I just I don't know. The
- 3:21Speaker 1: battle scenes were good, but the the historical inaccuracies pile
- 3:27Speaker 1: up over time.
- 3:28Speaker 2: But who are we to knock it?
- 3:30Speaker 1: There are stories about Napoleon and curses too, and that
- 3:33Speaker 1: time he got totally punked.
- 3:34Speaker 2: By a pack of rabbits.
- 3:36Speaker 1: But today I love that story. I mean too, I
- 3:38Speaker 1: was thinking I was talking about that with some French folks.
- 3:42Speaker 1: I got in an argument about Napoleon in Paris and
- 3:46Speaker 1: it ended well because of the rabbits. But anyway, so
- 3:50Speaker 1: we are talking about curses today. We're going to talk
- 3:52Speaker 1: about a curse that You may have heard, fellow ridiculous historians,
- 3:56Speaker 1: but you may not know much about it. Like many
- 3:59Speaker 1: of us us who attended public school, you may have
- 4:02Speaker 1: simply heard the name to Cumsa's curse and never really
- 4:07Speaker 1: understood where it came from, it was a real thing, etc.
- 4:14Speaker 1: And it all goes back to the fact that the
- 4:16Speaker 1: president of the United States throughout history and especially now
- 4:21Speaker 1: is one of the most important, one of the most
- 4:23Speaker 1: powerful people in the world. That means a lot of
- 4:26Speaker 1: folks love you, but that also means a lot of
- 4:28Speaker 1: people hate your guts.
- 4:31Speaker 2: Just on principle. Yeah. Max points out that due to
- 4:34Speaker 2: a very small sample size, relatively small speaking, forty six
- 4:38Speaker 2: people to have held the job, eight of those individuals
- 4:41Speaker 2: have died while in office, and one might argue that
- 4:46Speaker 2: those odds are pretty significant in favor of dying in office.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, podcasters have a slightly safer ratio. We could say,
- 4:55Speaker 1: only slightly, only slightly. It's hard in these streets, but yeah,
- 5:00Speaker 1: I always think about that too. You know, the tremendous
- 5:03Speaker 1: level of stress that the potus has.
- 5:06Speaker 2: It's it's sad, it's to a degree, it's.
- 5:09Speaker 1: Kind of heartbreaking when you can see how being president
- 5:12Speaker 1: for just four years absolutely wrecks your body.
- 5:16Speaker 2: You know, before and after pictures, saying it reminds me
- 5:19Speaker 2: of a lot of those history accounts. So you'll see
- 5:21Speaker 2: on Instagram and stuff where it'll be like, you know,
- 5:24Speaker 2: young men before they go off to war, and then
- 5:26Speaker 2: a photograph of them after, and you see these just
- 5:29Speaker 2: like you know, these severe, hardened kind of lines and
- 5:33Speaker 2: just gaunt kind of expressions, very similar to what happens
- 5:37Speaker 2: at the end of a four year term of being presidents.
- 5:41Speaker 2: It's it is, it is a battle. It is its
- 5:43Speaker 2: own kind of war. Absolutely.
- 5:45Speaker 1: I mean, it gives you that thousand league stare, which
- 5:48Speaker 1: is a scary thing to see in real life. And
- 5:52Speaker 1: you know, okay, so let's let's start with our guy
- 5:55Speaker 1: to comes up. He is a famous Shawnee chief. He
- 5:59Speaker 1: has the dream of the United Native Federation, and the
- 6:05Speaker 1: historical lore like the gather around the campfire type stories
- 6:09Speaker 1: assure us that he is responsible for a curse. But
- 6:14Speaker 1: to understand the story of that curse, we need to
- 6:16Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about our guy, mister T,
- 6:19Speaker 1: who I'll only call mister T once just because it's funny.
- 6:23Speaker 2: I reserve the right to call him that once myself.
- 6:25Speaker 1: Okay, good, that's acceptible these terms, and then we'll have
- 6:31Speaker 1: a third mister T on Maxi's behalf if he wants to. Uh,
- 6:36Speaker 1: all right, there it is. Okay, No, you've got the
- 6:38Speaker 1: last one left.
- 6:39Speaker 2: Do you know mister T was apparently terrified of flying?
- 6:42Speaker 2: I think yeah, character on the show. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay,
- 6:45Speaker 2: so does that kind of smells mister T? No me
- 6:50Speaker 2: referring to mister the actual mister T from the A team.
- 6:53Speaker 3: I think the spirit of we're not doing Strickland rules
- 6:56Speaker 3: then about that.
- 6:57Speaker 2: I don't know what that is.
- 6:58Speaker 1: That's where if you say a certain name three times,
- 7:02Speaker 1: a certain individual appears. Yeah, I'm not playing that game.
- 7:07Speaker 1: Although I just saw the new art for the Beetlejuice
- 7:11Speaker 1: sequel that's happening.
- 7:14Speaker 2: Yeah, it exists. I've seen some people kind of nagging it.
- 7:17Speaker 2: You don't know. So many people will make like fan
- 7:19Speaker 2: art for movies that are in development, and some of
- 7:22Speaker 2: them are so good, you're like, is that the one?
- 7:24Speaker 2: This to me had the air of fan art about it,
- 7:27Speaker 2: and not even like particularly awesome fan art, right right.
- 7:31Speaker 1: Well, it's also it's been interesting to me because the
- 7:34Speaker 1: original Beetlejuice sequel was supposed to be set in Hawaii,
- 7:39Speaker 1: which is definitely choice. Anyway, there's nothing to do with it.
- 7:41Speaker 1: We'll do a history of Beetlejuice like later.
- 7:44Speaker 2: Well, what we do have with mister T, and that
- 7:47Speaker 2: is that Mister T that this is my use there
- 7:50Speaker 2: is that you've got multiple spellings of this guy's name,
- 7:53Speaker 2: which is pretty cool, and even that could result in
- 7:56Speaker 2: different pronunciations. You've got to come to sea also spelled
- 8:01Speaker 2: to come tha. If you got a lift, you know,
- 8:04Speaker 2: then you've got to come to come fay or to
- 8:08Speaker 2: come tha with thha. What we do know is he
- 8:12Speaker 2: was born in seventeen sixty eight, southeast of Old Chillicothe,
- 8:17Speaker 2: Old Chilicothe, That's what I'm going to say. That is
- 8:21Speaker 2: north of what is today Xenia, Ohio.
- 8:25Speaker 1: And he had a very difficult life, to be quite honest.
- 8:28Speaker 1: Growing up was not easy for him. His father was
- 8:31Speaker 1: killed by a group of white folks in seventeen seventy four.
- 8:36Speaker 1: His mother, who was a Muskogee, left him when he
- 8:39Speaker 1: was seven years old to journey with part of her
- 8:42Speaker 1: community to Missouri and.
- 8:45Speaker 2: So to come.
- 8:46Speaker 1: So was left to be raised by his older siblings.
- 8:49Speaker 1: And this often happens in times of instability. You know,
- 8:53Speaker 1: the oldest sister, the oldest brother has to function as
- 8:56Speaker 1: the guardian, the parent figure. So to come to is
- 9:01Speaker 1: it comes to grows up under the supervision of his
- 9:04Speaker 1: one of his older sisters to come pace, and she
- 9:08Speaker 1: trains him in the She teaches him what it means
- 9:13Speaker 1: to be Shawnee, the moraise, the values, the social codes.
- 9:17Speaker 1: And then alongside that, his brother, one of his brothers,
- 9:21Speaker 1: teaches him the art of woodcraft and hunting, how to
- 9:24Speaker 1: live rough, survive in the wild.
- 9:26Speaker 2: That's right, that's a cheesy cow. So he learned some
- 9:29Speaker 2: pretty solid outdoorsman type skills in addition to having a
- 9:34Speaker 2: pretty solid backbone and a moral compass, so all the
- 9:38Speaker 2: makings of a of a great man. He was then
- 9:41Speaker 2: adopted by a Shawnee chief, Blackfish Uh, and he grew
- 9:47Speaker 2: to become a young man with several other foster brothers
- 9:51Speaker 2: who were in fact white whom Blackfish had actually captured
- 9:55Speaker 2: but appeared to have treated with some level of dignity.
- 10:00Speaker 1: You know what, I just hit me, We're really close
- 10:02Speaker 1: to President's Day. I almost thought it was President's Day,
- 10:06Speaker 1: but that's like, what next week? It's the third. It's
- 10:10Speaker 1: one of those third day of the month kind of things.
- 10:14Speaker 3: Third Monday, I'm going on a quick little vacation up
- 10:17Speaker 3: at Charleston and see some friends up there and I'll
- 10:18Speaker 3: explain them. I'm like, yeah, I have Monday off for
- 10:20Speaker 3: President's Day. And what is President's Day? I'm like, so,
- 10:23Speaker 3: it's what.
- 10:25Speaker 2: I think it's.
- 10:26Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington all have a
- 10:30Speaker 3: birthday in February, right or close to it. I think
- 10:34Speaker 3: one of the might actually be born at the end
- 10:35Speaker 3: of January or something like that. But it's like, hey,
- 10:37Speaker 3: these three guys were born around this time have a
- 10:39Speaker 3: day off, which is just like, as I say to people,
- 10:41Speaker 3: I'm not going to argue against my job giving me
- 10:43Speaker 3: a free day off.
- 10:44Speaker 2: Jefferson is in April. I think, yeah, Wow, Okay, maybe
- 10:48Speaker 2: Jefferson doesn't.
- 10:49Speaker 1: Matter at all in this He doesn't matter at all
- 10:51Speaker 1: to us history or to holidays. Well we'll get to
- 10:54Speaker 1: Jefferson in a second, but yeah, I just want to
- 10:57Speaker 1: shout that out. So as this comes out, the happy
- 11:00Speaker 1: President's Day to all who celebrate.
- 11:03Speaker 2: I guess I don't know, how do you celebrate president.
- 11:06Speaker 2: How does one celebrate your favorite president? Maybe put on
- 11:10Speaker 2: a powdered wig of funny hat, give a speech you know,
- 11:14Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 11:15Speaker 1: Yeah, take over some takeover some other people's lands, Okay,
- 11:20Speaker 1: sure to soon brand. In fact, if it comes to
- 11:29Speaker 1: like you're saying, he is definitely anti American soldiers and settlers,
- 11:35Speaker 1: and there's very good reason for this. But he still
- 11:39Speaker 1: had that Shawnee code, so he didn't want to uh
- 11:43Speaker 1: commit what we would call war crimes. He thought it
- 11:46Speaker 1: was right and ethical to fight American soldiers on the battlefield,
- 11:52Speaker 1: but he wouldn't stand for them being tortured, for being
- 11:55Speaker 1: burned at the stake, drawn and quartered. And when he saw,
- 11:59Speaker 1: for instance, when he saw some compatriots preparing to burn
- 12:03Speaker 1: a guy alive, he went absolutely nuts to a ham
- 12:07Speaker 1: on them. And they, to be fair, they didn't stop
- 12:11Speaker 1: torturing prisoners, but they stopped torturing prisoners in front of
- 12:15Speaker 1: him because of his code. And for the years after
- 12:19Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War, he was like a one man get
- 12:21Speaker 1: a army.
- 12:22Speaker 2: He dropped some serious shaming on those guys and they reacted.
- 12:28Speaker 2: It would seem I mean, and he had an air
- 12:31Speaker 2: of legitimacy and authority about him. People paid attention when
- 12:37Speaker 2: he said stuff you know when and that that code
- 12:41Speaker 2: he kind of transmitted to anyone who he encountered. So
- 12:44Speaker 2: after the Revolutionary War to come, so was a, like
- 12:47Speaker 2: you said, kind of a one man show, a bit
- 12:49Speaker 2: of a marauding one man Garia army, fighting in various
- 12:56Speaker 2: skirmishes against the Whites in the old Northwest and helping
- 13:01Speaker 2: out with the Cherokees in the South. He was the
- 13:06Speaker 2: youngest of this particular band of folks that he was
- 13:10Speaker 2: a part of. But again for a lot of the
- 13:13Speaker 2: reasons that we've already listed thus far, was chosen to
- 13:16Speaker 2: be the leader because of his just absolute charisma and
- 13:21Speaker 2: chops on the battlefield. So he continued to fight in
- 13:25Speaker 2: small actions as with the source that we're looking at
- 13:28Speaker 2: refers to them as in the South, and he became
- 13:32Speaker 2: friends with the Creek Indians, a relationship that would later
- 13:35Speaker 2: help him to form an alliance.
- 13:37Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and this alliance will be incredibly important. And
- 13:43Speaker 1: we see, you know, times of war and chaos make
- 13:46Speaker 1: for strange bedfellows. So there's very much a sense that
- 13:50Speaker 1: these guys are uniting against a larger, more dangerous power, right,
- 13:56Speaker 1: and they're going to put their differences aside for a time.
- 13:59Speaker 1: Unfortunate during these days, to Comes to loses two of
- 14:03Speaker 1: his brothers, including his brother Chiesikou, who taught him the
- 14:10Speaker 1: the arts of living in the wild. Chisikau dies in
- 14:14Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two fighting in the South with Cherokee compatriots,
- 14:19Speaker 1: and then to Comes his brother Sawasikaw was killed in
- 14:23Speaker 1: Ohio in seventeen ninety four. And these deaths are a
- 14:28Speaker 1: big reason that are a big part of the reason
- 14:31Speaker 1: that to Comes opposed the so called peace chiefs. They're
- 14:36Speaker 1: the community leaders who wanted to push for a peaceful
- 14:40Speaker 1: resolution with the nascent American forces.
- 14:44Speaker 2: Yeah, which is interesting because I mean, he he did
- 14:48Speaker 2: seem like he was someone who understood had a balance
- 14:51Speaker 2: between you know, war and peace, and that there was
- 14:55Speaker 2: a time for war and there was a time for peace.
- 14:56Speaker 2: He wasn't like an outright hawkish, you know type dude.
- 15:00Speaker 2: But he also wasn't like a dovish type. He isn't
- 15:04Speaker 2: somewhere in the middle. He was very pragmatic. So Blue Jacket,
- 15:08Speaker 2: who was a Shawnee chief of note with his time
- 15:12Speaker 2: in seventeen ninety four, was amassing forces warriors to meet
- 15:18Speaker 2: the US Army on their turf under Major General Anthony Wayne.
- 15:24Speaker 2: This Blue Jacket actually summoned to comesome. He called for
- 15:30Speaker 2: him to return to Ohio. However, it would seem that
- 15:35Speaker 2: the general wasn't looking for a fight, was actually hoping
- 15:38Speaker 2: to make a deal instead.
- 15:40Speaker 1: Yeah, we're again, we're getting some of this from our
- 15:43Speaker 1: good friends that Encyclopedia Britannic. Here's how they put it.
- 15:47Speaker 1: When the leading chiefs of the Old Northwest gathered at
- 15:50Speaker 1: Wayne's call in Greenville in Ohio to come to held
- 15:53Speaker 1: aloof and when the Treaty of Greenville was negotiated in
- 15:56Speaker 1: August seventeen ninety five, he refused to RECOGNI. He roundly
- 16:00Speaker 1: attacked the peace chiefs who sideway land that he contended
- 16:05Speaker 1: they did not own. So he's saying the land is
- 16:09Speaker 1: like the air and the water, it's the common possession
- 16:12Speaker 1: of all the Native people in the native communities here.
- 16:15Speaker 1: This is the institution of communal ownership of land policy.
- 16:21Speaker 1: That's one of his big platforms. And he is a
- 16:25Speaker 1: really great public speaker. Even his enemies, like the American soldiers,
- 16:32Speaker 1: acknowledged that, and they said you know, we don't agree
- 16:35Speaker 1: with him, but this guy's basically like the Native American
- 16:40Speaker 1: version of Henry Clay and he.
- 16:43Speaker 2: Which was much more of a compliment at this time.
- 16:45Speaker 1: Which was much more of a compliment at this time
- 16:47Speaker 1: because at this time Henry Clay is still on the
- 16:51Speaker 1: rise in Kentucky.
- 16:52Speaker 2: He's still got that new car. Smell well, Ben. It
- 16:54Speaker 2: reminds me a lot of an episode that we recently
- 16:56Speaker 2: did on Stuff they Don't Want You to Know. And
- 16:58Speaker 2: then the term is escaping me now, but what was
- 16:59Speaker 2: that term bent about the idea of land that is
- 17:03Speaker 2: unclaimed or terrannulius terrannulius, and is within that conversation, the
- 17:09Speaker 2: idea of ownership of land was like kind of front
- 17:12Speaker 2: and center in that episode of Stuff they Don't Want
- 17:15Speaker 2: You to Know. And this is a great example of
- 17:17Speaker 2: like two sides that have a fundamental disagreement or different
- 17:22Speaker 2: view on the concept of who owns land, not only
- 17:26Speaker 2: in terms of like, you know, who owns it like
- 17:29Speaker 2: in practice, but just conceptually who owns land? How do
- 17:34Speaker 2: how does one own land? How can land be you know,
- 17:38Speaker 2: the property of an individual or group? Right?
- 17:41Speaker 1: And what we discover in that episode, which you. Absolutely.
- 17:44Speaker 1: Hopefully it will be out by the time you hear this, folks,
- 17:46Speaker 1: but absolutely check out that show, uh, because we gain
- 17:52Speaker 1: a new appreciation for the power and danger of flags.
- 17:55Speaker 1: As weird as that sounds, it's one for the vexillologists
- 17:59Speaker 1: in your life. Yeah, you're absolutely right. This idea of
- 18:03Speaker 1: land is a surprisingly complicated question because the need for
- 18:07Speaker 1: it is so universal, and human history really is an
- 18:11Speaker 1: agglomeration of rationalizations for taking land from someone else. And
- 18:16Speaker 1: he still has other brothers. This is where we take
- 18:19Speaker 1: a little bit of a turn to come to himself.
- 18:21Speaker 1: Seems like a pretty righteous, maybe kind of humble dude,
- 18:25Speaker 1: but his brother is a little bit of a little
- 18:30Speaker 1: bit of a different case. And this actually comes up
- 18:32Speaker 1: in a great science fiction fantasy series by Orson Scott
- 18:37Speaker 1: Card called Alvin Maker.
- 18:40Speaker 2: Oh, this kind of appears in that one.
- 18:42Speaker 1: It's a great It's weird that it hasn't been made
- 18:44Speaker 1: into a film series yet, but it's really good.
- 18:46Speaker 2: Isn't or Scott Card a little problematic? Yeah, he's a
- 18:48Speaker 2: terrible person. Yeah, I thought, okay, but you know, sometimes
- 18:52Speaker 2: you gotta take the good with the bat when it
- 18:54Speaker 2: comes to fiction, especially when it comes to folks that
- 18:56Speaker 2: aren't around anywhere. You got to kind of take your
- 18:58Speaker 2: battles a little bit, you know, maybe just throw throw
- 19:01Speaker 2: them all out. Oh orses, scout cards alive. And he
- 19:04Speaker 2: is terrible, terrible Yeah on purpose, Okay, on purpose? Well
- 19:11Speaker 2: to your point, been about this title of the prophet, right,
- 19:14Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this this stems from a vision that he
- 19:18Speaker 2: claims to have had something of a you know, the
- 19:22Speaker 2: the golden tablets being passed down from on high type
- 19:25Speaker 2: vision from from an entity he refers to as the
- 19:29Speaker 2: Master of life. Ah, yes, yeah.
- 19:32Speaker 1: And so in Indiana, these two brothers to come to
- 19:36Speaker 1: in ten Squatawa, they get together, they build a town
- 19:40Speaker 1: and they name it profits Town. And the community that
- 19:43Speaker 1: they build could be portrayed by some as a cult
- 19:51Speaker 1: because they were they were very much into rejecting the
- 19:56Speaker 1: normalization of what they saw as white customs. Sure, they
- 20:00Speaker 1: wanted to get rid of that. They wanted to cut
- 20:02Speaker 1: the culture war off.
- 20:03Speaker 2: At the pass. And he's operating under these orders or
- 20:09Speaker 2: instructions from an entity that you know, no one else
- 20:13Speaker 2: can directly communicate with. Now, that is also a pretty
- 20:16Speaker 2: pretty solid argument for a call. When you have a
- 20:18Speaker 2: guy who's saying I've got the goods, I've got the intel.
- 20:22Speaker 2: No one else is capable of having it, and I'm
- 20:24Speaker 2: the one that's going to interpret it and pass it
- 20:26Speaker 2: down to you, my followers, right exactly.
- 20:31Speaker 1: And this is you know, this is classic cult umami.
- 20:36Speaker 1: That's just how it works. He he has this mysticism
- 20:42Speaker 1: that appeals to people in the Native communities. At this point,
- 20:47Speaker 1: you know, almost everybody in a Native community, regardless of
- 20:51Speaker 1: their tribe, has been adversely affected by the expansion of
- 20:55Speaker 1: again the Nissans American state. And they've lost loved ones,
- 21:00Speaker 1: They've been in wars, they've seen horrors visited upon their communities,
- 21:05Speaker 1: civilians of warriors alike. So this message is coming at
- 21:10Speaker 1: the right time. Unite against the Unite for the greater good,
- 21:15Speaker 1: against this common evil.
- 21:17Speaker 2: Common enemy.
- 21:18Speaker 1: And so as this community continues to grow more and
- 21:24Speaker 1: more and more skyrocketing to comes to starts to dream bigger,
- 21:28Speaker 1: and he says, you know, one day, if these trends continue,
- 21:32Speaker 1: there will be a world wherein our community is large
- 21:36Speaker 1: enough and strong enough to stop the Americans from expanding.
- 21:41Speaker 1: He said, We're gonna band together, We're going to start
- 21:43Speaker 1: a Native confederation. And so he goes leveraging his superb
- 21:49Speaker 1: oratory oratory skills, he travels throughout the land. He goes
- 21:55Speaker 1: to speak with Ozark communities in New York, he goes
- 21:58Speaker 1: from Iowa to Florida, and he's gaining recruits.
- 22:01Speaker 2: The entire way.
- 22:03Speaker 1: And he's saying, if I can get everybody to agree
- 22:08Speaker 1: despite their differences in time, then I can stop what's
- 22:14Speaker 1: happening to our native land.
- 22:17Speaker 2: And he might have. If things had gone.
- 22:21Speaker 1: Differently, history would have taken a very different direction. But
- 22:25Speaker 1: something happened while he was on the road.
- 22:27Speaker 2: That's right, while he was on one of his missions.
- 22:31Speaker 2: The governor at that time of the Indiana Territory, a
- 22:34Speaker 2: man by the name of General William Henry Harrison you
- 22:38Speaker 2: may have heard of. He led a militia of over
- 22:42Speaker 2: a thousand men who marched on profits town, which led
- 22:48Speaker 2: to what an event that would later be would later
- 22:53Speaker 2: be immortalized in a very popular slogan. It became a
- 22:57Speaker 2: rallying point politically, better or worse, the Battle of tippe Canoe,
- 23:04Speaker 2: Yes yes, which.
- 23:06Speaker 1: You may recognize from some later political slogans. The Battle
- 23:11Speaker 1: of typic Canoe is fought between these US soldiers and
- 23:14Speaker 1: Native American warriors on the banks of a river called
- 23:18Speaker 1: the keth Tippi Canunk, which is right there in the
- 23:21Speaker 1: middle of central Pennsylvania. And this occurs in the context
- 23:26Speaker 1: of the Treaty of Fort Wayne, which is an agreement
- 23:28Speaker 1: signed in eighteen oh nine that said, hey, if you're
- 23:31Speaker 1: a Native American tribe or community in Indiana, you have
- 23:35Speaker 1: to sell three million acres of land to the US government.
- 23:40Speaker 1: And because of this, to comes at this time. It's
- 23:43Speaker 1: Chief of the Shopping or one of the chiefs.
- 23:45Speaker 2: He takes his.
- 23:47Speaker 1: Confederation of Native American tribes united and he says, let's
- 23:52Speaker 1: come here. Let's combat this absolute deluge of pioneers and
- 23:58Speaker 1: settlers coming into land. And that leads the that leads
- 24:04Speaker 1: Governor Harrison to destroy the Shawnee Village Profits Town. And
- 24:12Speaker 1: when Harrison gets there, it's November sixth, eighteen eleven, he
- 24:17Speaker 1: sees one of Tenskawatawa's the one of the Profits followers,
- 24:22Speaker 1: waving a white flag pretty much the universal sign for parlay, surrender,
- 24:27Speaker 1: or negotiation. They requested a ceasefire, and they said, look,
- 24:33Speaker 1: before anything goes sideways, Harrison and to Comsa, you guys
- 24:39Speaker 1: should sit down and you should talk about what's going on.
- 24:45Speaker 1: But to Kumsa is not in town.
- 24:47Speaker 2: He's not there. Unfortunately, he is away from Profitstown. He
- 24:52Speaker 2: is on another one of his missions to recruit warriors
- 24:56Speaker 2: from members of the what are referred to as the
- 24:59Speaker 2: Five Civilized Tribes, who were also seeing the same kind
- 25:06Speaker 2: of aggression being focused upon their lands, you know, folks
- 25:12Speaker 2: marching upon them, or at the very least the threat
- 25:15Speaker 2: of that kind of intervention. So everyone was looking to,
- 25:21Speaker 2: you know, folks like Takumesa for advice, you know, for guidance,
- 25:25Speaker 2: and this idea of banding together and forming alliances became very,
- 25:31Speaker 2: very attractive.
- 25:33Speaker 1: Yeah, and Harrison says, okay, Profit they call you, I'll
- 25:39Speaker 1: agree to your terms. And he turns his guys around.
- 25:43Speaker 1: They go to a hill about a mile away from
- 25:45Speaker 1: Profetstown on the Bank's Burnett Creek, and Harrison doesn't think
- 25:53Speaker 1: this is a real ceasefire, because what the prophet says is, look,
- 25:57Speaker 1: let's just hold here until my brother can get here,
- 26:00Speaker 1: and you guys can talk.
- 26:02Speaker 2: This through, have your parlay.
- 26:03Speaker 1: And Harrison is thinking with the cleverness of a snake,
- 26:09Speaker 1: and he's saying, oh, sure, trick him into a ceasefire
- 26:13Speaker 1: and then murder them in the night. That's absolutely what
- 26:16Speaker 1: I would do. And so he says, guys, don't chill
- 26:20Speaker 1: out at camp. We need to maintain a watch. We
- 26:23Speaker 1: need a defensive position.
- 26:27Speaker 2: But that's also something that to comes to, wouldn't wouldn't
- 26:29Speaker 2: sign on for he is vinely inspired. That's a really
- 26:36Speaker 2: good point. And yeah, it is very interesting the relationship
- 26:39Speaker 2: between Tecumsa and Tenskoatawa, Tenscatawa operating under on these divine instructions.
- 26:45Speaker 2: And you know, when we know that, when that can happen,
- 26:48Speaker 2: people can go off the rails pretty quickly and get
- 26:50Speaker 2: a little high on their own supply or you know,
- 26:53Speaker 2: drink their own kool aid to use another culty related aphorism.
- 26:58Speaker 2: Whereas to come to what is really driven by that code?
- 27:02Speaker 2: You know that he was taught, he was really driven
- 27:04Speaker 2: by the idea of not being a war don't do
- 27:07Speaker 2: war crimes. Yeah, yeah, but someone else who might see,
- 27:12Speaker 2: you know, if I do it, it isn't war crimes
- 27:15Speaker 2: because I am divinely guided exactly. That's problematic.
- 27:19Speaker 1: I'm doing what the Master of Life told me to do.
- 27:23Speaker 2: Master of life he knows best. Therefore, if I do
- 27:26Speaker 2: this on his command. This isn't this isn't a bad thing,
- 27:30Speaker 2: but it comes on the other hand, it's operating under
- 27:33Speaker 2: much more real world uh, sets of of you know,
- 27:38Speaker 2: mores and values.
- 27:39Speaker 1: There's a deepness to it like that. The differences between
- 27:43Speaker 1: their philosophies and their relationships are with the world are
- 27:47Speaker 1: what make them such a good team. But ultimately it
- 27:50Speaker 1: also leads to their downfalls.
- 27:52Speaker 2: It's true. And I was reading a little bit on
- 27:53Speaker 2: the side just about how to come to largely you know,
- 27:57Speaker 2: used his brother, and again Max point on off there
- 28:00Speaker 2: that they might not have even been brothers. They were
- 28:01Speaker 2: more just like brothers in arms.
- 28:03Speaker 1: And like how everybody Atlanta's exactly but to that like
- 28:07Speaker 1: to come to was adopted to.
- 28:09Speaker 2: And that's right, and very unclear the actual you know, lineage,
- 28:13Speaker 2: the blood lineage, but Takamsa was it was pretty clear.
- 28:17Speaker 2: What was clear is that he was using this power
- 28:21Speaker 2: that his you know, that his brother had for political purposes,
- 28:26Speaker 2: not necessarily in a snakelike way, just in like a
- 28:29Speaker 2: you know, this is helpful, This is going to get
- 28:32Speaker 2: us some feet in the door, right, you know, and
- 28:33Speaker 2: and help us a mask some followers. And if it's
- 28:36Speaker 2: all for the greater good of the tribes and of
- 28:40Speaker 2: the people. You know, of our people, then so be it.
- 28:43Speaker 1: And ten Skuatawa, however, is also not above capitalizing on
- 28:50Speaker 1: Tekumsa's absence. Because Tkmsa is gone from Prophetstown, Tinskatawa has
- 28:57Speaker 1: the reins of control. He's proxy ruler. And even though
- 29:02Speaker 1: to comes to said, look, we cannot face American forces
- 29:07Speaker 1: until we have our numbers beefed up. Even though tens
- 29:11Speaker 1: Katawa is very well aware of this because of his
- 29:14Speaker 1: divine inspiration, he stands out on this rock ledge that
- 29:18Speaker 1: overlooks Profits Town. It's called Profits Rock today, by the way,
- 29:22Speaker 1: and he starts singing war songs, chanting incantations, and he
- 29:27Speaker 1: promises the people there's a true fact. He promises his
- 29:30Speaker 1: followers that these spells, these prayers I am making, they
- 29:35Speaker 1: will protect you from the US bullets. And so when
- 29:41Speaker 1: Harrison wakes the next morning, we don't know how well
- 29:45Speaker 1: or how long he's slept, but at dawn he gets
- 29:48Speaker 1: up and his entire camp a mile away on that
- 29:51Speaker 1: hill is surrounded by ten Squatawa's warriors, and they are
- 29:58Speaker 1: ready to go. If you want to learned a lot
- 30:01Speaker 1: about the back and forth of how the battle actually occurred,
- 30:05Speaker 1: and it looked like it was anyone's game for quite
- 30:07Speaker 1: some time. Go to American Battle Trust, a great resource
- 30:12Speaker 1: that Max found that has you know, this is like
- 30:16Speaker 1: the kind of stuff you study at war college. It
- 30:20Speaker 1: might put a lot of people to sleep, but it's
- 30:22Speaker 1: like a blow by blow analysis of what happened.
- 30:26Speaker 2: And we know that around this time, I think we're
- 30:29Speaker 2: starting to see Native tribes having some form of firearm,
- 30:36Speaker 2: but it's certainly not to the same degree that the
- 30:38Speaker 2: American forces would have. They weren't fighting, you know, rifles
- 30:44Speaker 2: one to one with like spears and bows and arrows,
- 30:46Speaker 2: but they certainly did not have the same level and
- 30:50Speaker 2: stockpile of weaponry that their opponents had.
- 30:54Speaker 1: No, Yeah, you're absolutely right, And the entirety of the
- 30:58Speaker 1: fighting last for about two hours. It might surprise a
- 31:03Speaker 1: lot of people that for this kind of close up fighting,
- 31:08Speaker 1: or even when you get to hand to hand, those
- 31:10Speaker 1: battles don't actually last a very long time. It's tremendously
- 31:15Speaker 1: taxing on the physical body.
- 31:17Speaker 2: You kind of wonder too, though, if Harrison was like,
- 31:20Speaker 2: maybe we shouldn't just make this a massacre, because I
- 31:24Speaker 2: still am hoping perhaps to parlay with the comesa down
- 31:28Speaker 2: the line, and if I you know, absolutely annihilate his folks,
- 31:33Speaker 2: even though it's because his broad did a bad thing
- 31:37Speaker 2: and you know, went down a weird path. I don't
- 31:41Speaker 2: know that would be a good thing big picture, I
- 31:43Speaker 2: don't know what you got. That's just a deestimation on.
- 31:46Speaker 1: My Unfortunately, what I think without knowing the interior mind
- 31:54Speaker 1: of Harrison, we can say that he looked like he
- 31:57Speaker 1: was willing to play ball in the beginning, but his
- 32:03Speaker 1: march he already had a deficit of trust, right, and
- 32:07Speaker 1: he clearly he did not consider Native Americans people. He yeah,
- 32:12Speaker 1: let's yeah, let's not tread too lightly on this guy
- 32:16Speaker 1: being like some super woke historical figure.
- 32:18Speaker 2: He was just like you know, his peers and that
- 32:21Speaker 2: and that was but he was shrewd. So he was
- 32:24Speaker 2: gonna capitalize on these things and perhaps play the game
- 32:28Speaker 2: acting as though he was gonna parlay with them. I
- 32:31Speaker 2: think he gave them one real good faith chance. I
- 32:34Speaker 2: think that's right, and this was this was it being
- 32:36Speaker 2: squandered on their part.
- 32:37Speaker 3: I think he would have given to come to the chance,
- 32:40Speaker 3: to come to the table, to tell to come, Tom,
- 32:42Speaker 3: I'll let you leave without killing your people.
- 32:45Speaker 2: That's right.
- 32:46Speaker 3: I think that's as high as he.
- 32:48Speaker 2: Would have gone.
- 32:48Speaker 1: It would have been like, yeah, you don't have to
- 32:50Speaker 1: go home, but you can't stay here, and then say well,
- 32:53Speaker 1: this is our home, and he'd be like ah about
- 32:55Speaker 1: that though.
- 32:56Speaker 2: And even this sense of quote unquote respect or admiration
- 33:00Speaker 2: for Takomsta and his like oratory abilities probably didn't extend
- 33:05Speaker 2: much further than like these folks looking at him as
- 33:08Speaker 2: like being like a slightly you know, better dressed member
- 33:13Speaker 2: of a sub human species, you know what I mean.
- 33:16Speaker 1: Yeah, And let's also remember that his violence against Native
- 33:21Speaker 1: Americans is a big reason Harrison later becomes president.
- 33:25Speaker 2: People love that. People were all about it.
- 33:27Speaker 1: We're all about it. It was like it was like
- 33:29Speaker 1: his version being able to juggle. But you know, genocide.
- 33:39Speaker 1: It does sound like he's giving them a chance to
- 33:43Speaker 1: gtfo right, and he doesn't want to lose soldiers because
- 33:46Speaker 1: the US is still recovering after the bloody Revolutionary War.
- 33:51Speaker 1: He also would like to not du atrocities if he
- 33:56Speaker 1: could dodge it, but his opinion on that is pretty ambivalent.
- 34:00Speaker 2: History will prove.
- 34:01Speaker 1: So they have this one chance. They have this deficit
- 34:04Speaker 1: of trust. Tenskaatawa acts out of line, he violates the
- 34:09Speaker 1: chain of command and as a result, and we're not
- 34:13Speaker 1: saying magic's not real, but his magic doesn't work right.
- 34:16Speaker 1: As a result, Harrison is hardened against Profitstown. He wanted
- 34:21Speaker 1: it to be peacefully abandoned, but now he's all gas,
- 34:25Speaker 1: no breaks, He just defends in the fight tense. Katawa's
- 34:31Speaker 1: forces are are set against him now because they believe
- 34:35Speaker 1: the guy. But those those spells did not protect them
- 34:38Speaker 1: from bullets.
- 34:39Speaker 2: They got shot, they.
- 34:40Speaker 1: Died, they got made. They come back and they're like,
- 34:42Speaker 1: you are a snake oil salesman.
- 34:44Speaker 2: Can you picture the montage of this in the movie
- 34:48Speaker 2: where you as the audience are like, no, no, don't
- 34:51Speaker 2: do it, don't get off that ledge. What are you doing.
- 34:54Speaker 2: You're sentencing your people to death at the very least,
- 34:58Speaker 2: and absolute annihil at the most.
- 35:01Speaker 1: Unfortunately, this happens in This happens more recently too in history,
- 35:08Speaker 1: in different conflicts on the African continent, including like Zulu
- 35:12Speaker 1: Wars and in the Boxer Rebellion in China, there have
- 35:16Speaker 1: been these charismatic figures who claim that through magic, they
- 35:20Speaker 1: can make you immune to bullets and spoiler. At no
- 35:24Speaker 1: point in history has any one of those spells ever worked.
- 35:28Speaker 1: I'm trying to be really fair again, I'm saying they
- 35:32Speaker 1: haven't worked yet. I don't know whether magic's real, but
- 35:36Speaker 1: the track record for bulletproofing through incantation is just terrible
- 35:40Speaker 1: at this point. And so Native Americans are abandoning Profits Town.
- 35:47Speaker 1: The vast majority of them are gone very quickly because
- 35:50Speaker 1: they think tens Katawa is a con artist or a failure.
- 35:54Speaker 1: On November eighth, eighteen eleven, Harrison comes into the mostly
- 35:59Speaker 1: abandoned Profits Town and he burns it to the ground
- 36:03Speaker 1: before marching back to one of the major Indiana towns
- 36:09Speaker 1: at the time. Vincent's, is that how I would say it?
- 36:13Speaker 2: I think that's right. Yeah, maybe e Vincen's if we're
- 36:17Speaker 2: going to be Italian about it, but tell us yeah.
- 36:22Speaker 1: But it comes to finally gets to Profits Town three
- 36:25Speaker 1: months later, and he just sees ruins. They're not even
- 36:28Speaker 1: smoking at this point, the fires have died again.
- 36:31Speaker 2: Sorry to compare everything to movie production, but I can
- 36:34Speaker 2: picture that too. He's coming back, he's done his due diligence,
- 36:37Speaker 2: and they really crap the bed while he was gone.
- 36:40Speaker 2: And look at look at the records they've left behind
- 36:42Speaker 2: in their wake. Ineomorcone begins to play a million I'm sorry.
- 36:47Speaker 2: These pop cultural references are are valuable for a reason, because,
- 36:52Speaker 2: you know, the history if nothing at the end of
- 36:55Speaker 2: the day, is storytelling, you know.
- 36:58Speaker 1: So it comes to is dreams of creating creating a
- 37:03Speaker 1: Native American confederation with Prophetstown as its capital. Those dreams
- 37:09Speaker 1: are dashed, and he says, you know what, this doesn't
- 37:12Speaker 1: matter though, I am still going to fight against this
- 37:16Speaker 1: poisonous American expansion. And so he again he's very smart, right,
- 37:22Speaker 1: he can smell what's in the wind, he can see
- 37:25Speaker 1: the signs forming, and he sees that he calls it.
- 37:29Speaker 1: He sees that there's going to be a war between
- 37:32Speaker 1: the Americans and the British. They still hate each other. Right,
- 37:35Speaker 1: it's not a smart guy.
- 37:36Speaker 2: He's reading the room, right, He's like seeing the big picture.
- 37:39Speaker 1: And so he doesn't know that historians will call it
- 37:43Speaker 1: the War of eighteen twelve, but he knows it's on
- 37:45Speaker 1: the way, and so he gets with He gets his
- 37:48Speaker 1: surviving followers. They go to Fort Malden on the Canadian
- 37:52Speaker 1: side of the Detroit River, and they join up with
- 37:54Speaker 1: the British and these guys at this point all his followers.
- 37:58Speaker 1: They are battle hard and they've been traumatized. They're not
- 38:02Speaker 1: played around, so they are a huge factor in the
- 38:07Speaker 1: British victory.
- 38:08Speaker 2: There.
- 38:09Speaker 1: The British and the Native American forces captured Detroit and
- 38:13Speaker 1: they also capture two thousand, five hundred US soldiers.
- 38:18Speaker 2: It's a coup, like they really is. Yeah. After this victory,
- 38:23Speaker 2: to come takes off on another one of his long
- 38:26Speaker 2: journeys to you know, gather forces, you know, from the
- 38:31Speaker 2: various tribes, which did result in the uprising of the
- 38:35Speaker 2: Alabama Creek tribe, and that was in response to his
- 38:39Speaker 2: stirring you know rhetoric. The Chicka Saws, Choctaws and Cherokees, however,
- 38:46Speaker 2: were not feeling to come to as vibes nearly as much.
- 38:50Speaker 2: And at this point I just think this is very interesting.
- 38:52Speaker 2: You know, he is he is a big picture kind
- 38:56Speaker 2: of dude. He is able to kind of see what
- 38:58Speaker 2: is needed to get the job done, and sometimes that
- 39:01Speaker 2: means joining forces with folks who may look like your enemy.
- 39:05Speaker 2: He actually joins up with the British General Henry A.
- 39:09Speaker 2: Proctor in invading Ohio and you know again, common enemy,
- 39:14Speaker 2: and together they take over Fort Miggs and they hold it.
- 39:19Speaker 2: And William Henry Harrison at this point is on the
- 39:23Speaker 2: Maumie River just above Toledo, where, based on a kind
- 39:29Speaker 2: of a strategic gambit by Tecumsa, he intercepts and destroys
- 39:35Speaker 2: a brigade of Kentucky soldiers under Colonel William Dudley.
- 39:40Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is quite a clever move
- 39:43Speaker 1: on to comsa's part because it cuts off support that
- 39:47Speaker 1: would have enabled Harrison to continue the conflict. However, this
- 39:52Speaker 1: is a mixed bag victory because they don't capture the
- 39:55Speaker 1: actual fort. They have to retreat. There is a guy
- 39:59Speaker 1: gives Harrison time to make a counter attack despite the
- 40:02Speaker 1: damage that's been done. On October fifth, eighteen thirteen, British
- 40:06Speaker 1: and Native forces are routed, They're kicked out, they're runoff.
- 40:11Speaker 1: Harrison wins control of the area. Tacumsa is killed in action.
- 40:17Speaker 1: His body is carried away from the conflict area. He's
- 40:21Speaker 1: buried in a secret grave, and just like the grave
- 40:25Speaker 1: of Djengis Khan, this burial place has never been discovered
- 40:29Speaker 1: and we still don't know much about his death. We
- 40:32Speaker 1: don't know who killed him. We don't know how he
- 40:36Speaker 1: died necessarily. All we can say for sure is that
- 40:40Speaker 1: this real sleeves bag named Richard M. Johnson later becomes
- 40:45Speaker 1: Vice President of the United States because of his tall tail.
- 40:52Speaker 1: He claims that he had killed Tecumsa, and no one
- 40:55Speaker 1: can disprove it. People don't really believe him, I think,
- 40:58Speaker 1: but no one could disc prove it. But it's a
- 41:01Speaker 1: very convenient way to build a legend around yourself. Now
- 41:04Speaker 1: at this point you're probably wondering, ridiculous historians, what happened
- 41:07Speaker 1: to Tenskawatawa the Prophet. Well, he had already lost his
- 41:13Speaker 1: prestige because it turned out the spells he cast did
- 41:16Speaker 1: not work. He had fled to Canada and he had
- 41:20Speaker 1: a creative split with Tecumsa and to come didn't really
- 41:25Speaker 1: account for him in his plants because he was no
- 41:28Speaker 1: longer an effective propagandist, which is really how he functioned
- 41:32Speaker 1: the whole way through. He lived until eighteen thirty four,
- 41:36Speaker 1: and he died in Kansas, in a town called Argentine, Kansas.
- 41:41Speaker 1: We didn't mention this, by the way, but one of
- 41:43Speaker 1: the reasons he is known as the prophet is because
- 41:47Speaker 1: he appeared to accurately predict a solar eclipse in eighteen
- 41:52Speaker 1: oh six, So he did make the call there. But
- 41:57Speaker 1: also I would point out that Native American communities for
- 42:02Speaker 1: thousands of years across North and South America, they had
- 42:07Speaker 1: a pretty good grasp of the patterns of the heavens.
- 42:12Speaker 1: So it's kind of sure. It's kind of like saying, hey,
- 42:14Speaker 1: it's going to be five pm after four point thirty,
- 42:17Speaker 1: and people are like, this guy's a genius.
- 42:19Speaker 2: And also like a broken clock is right twice a day.
- 42:22Speaker 2: That kind of thing, you know, when you have people
- 42:24Speaker 2: that are looking to you to confirm whether or not
- 42:28Speaker 2: you've got some sort of powers of sight, and then
- 42:30Speaker 2: you get one thing right and that's the one you
- 42:32Speaker 2: kind of play up. You know. Yea reminds me of
- 42:35Speaker 2: like Nostra damas and things like that, where you know,
- 42:37Speaker 2: he definitely had some things that you know, played pretty
- 42:39Speaker 2: close to the truth, but also when you interpret it
- 42:42Speaker 2: in different ways, it was kind of just some fancy talk.
- 42:45Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like how Alice Jones was right about
- 42:48Speaker 1: Bohemian Grove. That's right, Like, you know, we're aware of that,
- 42:53Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean everything they say is true.
- 42:56Speaker 2: That's exactly right. But oftentimes, you know, if you have
- 42:59Speaker 2: zealous followers, they will point to that thing as proof
- 43:03Speaker 2: positive that you are you know, what you say you are,
- 43:05Speaker 2: and that you are some sort of messiah.
- 43:08Speaker 1: And if you read more about the profit, what you'll
- 43:13Speaker 1: see is that he was a propagandist. He was very
- 43:16Speaker 1: much quote unquote about that life. He wanted to reject
- 43:21Speaker 1: to these the normalization, like I said, of various quote
- 43:24Speaker 1: unquote white cultural things, said, you know, guys, stop drinking,
- 43:29Speaker 1: which is great because alcoholism was and is a huge
- 43:33Speaker 1: danger to Native communities. He said, look, we just wear
- 43:38Speaker 1: clothing from animal skins and furs like we always did.
- 43:42Speaker 2: No individual can own land.
- 43:45Speaker 1: And then he also had some more problematic stuff like
- 43:49Speaker 1: don't inter marry with any Europeans. Also, we should burn witches. Ooh, okay,
- 43:57Speaker 1: that last one.
- 43:58Speaker 2: That one didn't well, did it?
- 44:00Speaker 1: No?
- 44:01Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 44:01Speaker 1: I wonder where he put when he was like listing
- 44:04Speaker 1: off his things. Did he just start trying? Did he
- 44:07Speaker 1: put witches at the end?
- 44:08Speaker 2: Did he put the witches before, like animal first? So
- 44:11Speaker 2: he says, like booz booze is bad. You know, we
- 44:15Speaker 2: can't own the land.
- 44:15Speaker 3: We should burn the witches and you know what, I think.
- 44:18Speaker 1: I think it was a mid game slip in as well.
- 44:21Speaker 2: Yeah, should we also slam in the back of our dragula? Yes, yes,
- 44:25Speaker 2: we speaking ditches and burning witches while we're at it.
- 44:28Speaker 2: You know, I'm just sorry. I never Rob Zombies in
- 44:31Speaker 2: my Power Man is. Oh yeah, no, Rob. They were
- 44:34Speaker 2: very prop They're very in the same wheel. Actually, I
- 44:37Speaker 2: think the power Man five thousand dude is Rob Zombie's
- 44:39Speaker 2: like cousin or brother. It's like his younger brother. I
- 44:42Speaker 2: think that's right. Yeah, well, let's let's verify this because
- 44:45Speaker 2: they're on nineteen ninety nine nostalgia for you guys at
- 44:48Speaker 2: the tail end of an episode. We've promised curses, y'all.
- 44:52Speaker 2: We've promised curses. But as Max pointed out off air,
- 44:55Speaker 2: you got to talk about the man before you can
- 44:57Speaker 2: get to the curse, because he also has to die
- 45:00Speaker 2: in order for this curse to kind of start to percolate.
- 45:04Speaker 1: And that is Spider One, the frontman of Powerman five thousand,
- 45:09Speaker 1: younger brother of Rob Zombie. I feel like they're in
- 45:13Speaker 1: it to coomsa Tenska Watawa situation. Yes, a little more wholesome,
- 45:17Speaker 1: you got there, But they're probably just a great hang
- 45:20Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving, you know what I mean. I bet they
- 45:23Speaker 1: sure they see my chill dudes, So you're right, nol.
- 45:26Speaker 1: We had to give you the first part the true
- 45:31Speaker 1: real world events, and we hope you join us this Thursday,
- 45:35Speaker 1: because later this week we're going to get to the
- 45:37Speaker 1: real juicy stuff. In the next episode of Ridiculous History,
- 45:41Speaker 1: Part two of Takamsa's Curse, we're going to dive into
- 45:45Speaker 1: the idea of the curse here in specific, curses in general,
- 45:49Speaker 1: and the examples of the curse that the examples of
- 45:53Speaker 1: the curse that apparently, according to true believers, continue to
- 45:58Speaker 1: haunt us. Presidents this day. Spoiler William Henry Harrison is
- 46:03Speaker 1: the first guy who gets the curse.
- 46:05Speaker 2: Yeah to comment, that's for sure. Yeah, definitely the heel
- 46:09Speaker 2: of our story here. But speaking of our story, huge
- 46:13Speaker 2: thanks to super producer and research associated straordinary Max Williams
- 46:17Speaker 2: for all of your incredible work on this research brief.
- 46:20Speaker 2: We're looking forward to getting into part two. Max's brother
- 46:24Speaker 2: actual brother by blood in fact, Alex Williams, who composed
- 46:28Speaker 2: our theme.
- 46:29Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, Max, Between you and Alex, who's the Tenskawatawa,
- 46:32Speaker 1: who's the takumso I'm Takumsa.
- 46:35Speaker 3: He's definitely the prophet, even though I am the younger brother.
- 46:37Speaker 1: I feel like though that's the kind of question when
- 46:40Speaker 1: I asked siblings, everybody will want to be tacumso clearly right.
- 46:45Speaker 2: I don't know, Alex is weird. He might want to
- 46:47Speaker 2: be the prophet.
- 46:47Speaker 1: Okay loves underdog And thanks also to Jonathan Strickland ak
- 46:53Speaker 1: the Quister. That's just two times who've said the name.
- 46:56Speaker 2: Thanks to A. J.
- 46:57Speaker 1: Jacobs, the Puzzler will be returning or may eaves Jeffcoat
- 47:02Speaker 1: Christopher hassiotis did good. Folks over at Encyclopedia Britannica. We've
- 47:08Speaker 1: got a history of them coming up along the way,
- 47:12Speaker 1: and thanks to you know, I'm excited for part two.
- 47:16Speaker 2: Same here. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
- 47:25Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
- 47:28Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.