American Indian Culture and Research Journal

In a moving speech delivered a few years before his death in 1813, the great Shawnee warrior Tecumseh recalled the tragic events that had claimed the lives of so many Indian people. "Where today are the Pequot?" he lamented. "Where [are] the Narraganset, the Mohican, the Pokanoket and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before a summer sun." By his bitter words Tecumseh hoped to inspire a grand Indian resistance movement that would halt the deadly process. But the ultimate failure of Tecumseh's plan meant that the decimation of Indian tribes would continue. In a few short years the Mingo, Miami, and Wea were added to the list of nearly-shattered tribes. Tecumseh's own people, the Shawnee, were scattered beyond the Mississippi, thoroughly dispossessed and demoralized. But one significant Eastern tribe emerged from this turbulent period with its identity and dignity intact. "Where today" are the Stockbridge? Despite severe hardships, the Stockbridge Indians of Tecumseh's time could answer readily. This small but influential tribe managed to hold together-from those years into the present-in the face of tremendous social and political change.