February 13, 2024 • 47 mins
Did the legendary Shawnee chief Tecumseh really lay a curse on US Presidents? In the first part of this special two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max dive deep into Tecumseh's origin, his mission to unite Native peoples against the ruthless expansion of the new United States -- all to learn why so many people believe every president elected in a year ending with zero dies in office.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man the myth,
the guy who has never actually given out a curse.
Super producer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Max claps with two hands. Williams, Welcome back to.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
The clap Max, I have a secondhand again, and Ben,
no curse is given out that you know of?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, right, right, Well, is a curse really a curse
if you don't know about it? That's a question. Aren't
you supposed to, like actively say to somebody, I have
cursed you. You're therefore you don't have to. But I
guess one thing about curses is, you know, there's the
placebo effect of it, all right, if somebody tells you
you've been cursed, then you get in your head about
(01:09):
it and manifest the curse yourself without maybe they're even
having to be any nefarious dark forces at work at all.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, that's the thing a curse does have. You know,
the best definition of magic I've ever seen is weaponized psychology.
And in that case, then a curse would work. If
we were to say I Ben Bullen, curse you Noel Brown.
Through that kind of lens of psychology, then the person
(01:38):
being cursed would have to know about it for it
to have some sort of effect. But if we take
the psychology out, if we say we just believe in curses,
then the person who is cursed or has the consequences
doesn't have to know what's going on at all. They
could be totally innocent. They just walked into the wrong tomb.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I recently started rewatching Rome, the HBO series. You know
about Julius Caesar and all of that, And there is
a part in the series where Julius Caesar scorns a
female admirer. Essentially, there's a political thing that's caused it
to be inconvenient having this relationship, so he basically sends
her a packing and then there's a really intense scene
(02:20):
where she curses him like in writing, like while saying
out loud, I curse your liver, your blood, your bones,
your body. And then you know, has her hand servant
take this cursed piece of paper and put it in
some kind of special depository. But Julius Caesar does not
need to know about it. And as far as this
(02:41):
character is concerned the curse? Sure has hell worked? Because
you know, really bad things happened to Julius Caesar. Was
it because of the curse? Unclear?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
This this reminds me of Gladiator, which has been on
my mind because I recently on the road, I have
too much time to watch a lot of TV. But
on the room I watched Napoleon, and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What do you think? I did not like it?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Okay, only because only because it was very clear to
me that this is Yo King Phoenix playing Napoleon. Sure,
so that's it. Didn't it didn't feel like I love
that guy's an actor. I just I don't know. The
battle scenes were good, but the the historical inaccuracies pile
(03:27):
up over time.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
But who are we to knock it?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
There are stories about Napoleon and curses too, and that
time he got totally punked.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
By a pack of rabbits.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But today I love that story. I mean too, I
was thinking I was talking about that with some French folks.
I got in an argument about Napoleon in Paris and
it ended well because of the rabbits. But anyway, so
we are talking about curses today. We're going to talk
about a curse that You may have heard, fellow ridiculous historians,
(03:56):
but you may not know much about it. Like many
of us us who attended public school, you may have
simply heard the name to Cumsa's curse and never really
understood where it came from, it was a real thing, etc.
And it all goes back to the fact that the
president of the United States throughout history and especially now
(04:21):
is one of the most important, one of the most
powerful people in the world. That means a lot of
folks love you, but that also means a lot of
people hate your guts.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Just on principle. Yeah. Max points out that due to
a very small sample size, relatively small speaking, forty six
people to have held the job, eight of those individuals
have died while in office, and one might argue that
those odds are pretty significant in favor of dying in office.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah. Yeah, podcasters have a slightly safer ratio. We could say,
only slightly, only slightly. It's hard in these streets, but yeah,
I always think about that too. You know, the tremendous
level of stress that the potus has.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It's it's sad, it's to a degree, it's.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Kind of heartbreaking when you can see how being president
for just four years absolutely wrecks your body.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You know, before and after pictures, saying it reminds me
of a lot of those history accounts. So you'll see
on Instagram and stuff where it'll be like, you know,
young men before they go off to war, and then
a photograph of them after, and you see these just
like you know, these severe, hardened kind of lines and
just gaunt kind of expressions, very similar to what happens
(05:37):
at the end of a four year term of being presidents.
It's it is, it is a battle. It is its
own kind of war. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I mean, it gives you that thousand league stare, which
is a scary thing to see in real life. And
you know, okay, so let's let's start with our guy
to comes up. He is a famous Shawnee chief. He
has the dream of the United Native Federation, and the
historical lore like the gather around the campfire type stories
(06:09):
assure us that he is responsible for a curse. But
to understand the story of that curse, we need to
learn a little bit more about our guy, mister T,
who I'll only call mister T once just because it's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I reserve the right to call him that once myself.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Okay, good, that's acceptible these terms, and then we'll have
a third mister T on Maxi's behalf if he wants to. Uh,
all right, there it is. Okay, No, you've got the
last one left.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Do you know mister T was apparently terrified of flying?
I think yeah, character on the show. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay,
so does that kind of smells mister T? No me
referring to mister the actual mister T from the A team.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
I think the spirit of we're not doing Strickland rules
then about that.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That's where if you say a certain name three times,
a certain individual appears. Yeah, I'm not playing that game.
Although I just saw the new art for the Beetlejuice
sequel that's happening.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, it exists. I've seen some people kind of nagging it.
You don't know. So many people will make like fan
art for movies that are in development, and some of
them are so good, you're like, is that the one?
This to me had the air of fan art about it,
and not even like particularly awesome fan art, right right.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, it's also it's been interesting to me because the
original Beetlejuice sequel was supposed to be set in Hawaii,
which is definitely choice. Anyway, there's nothing to do with it.
We'll do a history of Beetlejuice like later.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, what we do have with mister T, and that
is that Mister T that this is my use there
is that you've got multiple spellings of this guy's name,
which is pretty cool, and even that could result in
different pronunciations. You've got to come to sea also spelled
to come tha. If you got a lift, you know,
then you've got to come to come fay or to
(08:08):
come tha with thha. What we do know is he
was born in seventeen sixty eight, southeast of Old Chillicothe,
Old Chilicothe, That's what I'm going to say. That is
north of what is today Xenia, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And he had a very difficult life, to be quite honest.
Growing up was not easy for him. His father was
killed by a group of white folks in seventeen seventy four.
His mother, who was a Muskogee, left him when he
was seven years old to journey with part of her
community to Missouri and.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
So to come.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So was left to be raised by his older siblings.
And this often happens in times of instability. You know,
the oldest sister, the oldest brother has to function as
the guardian, the parent figure. So to come to is
it comes to grows up under the supervision of his
one of his older sisters to come pace, and she
(09:08):
trains him in the She teaches him what it means
to be Shawnee, the moraise, the values, the social codes.
And then alongside that, his brother, one of his brothers,
teaches him the art of woodcraft and hunting, how to
live rough, survive in the wild.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
That's right, that's a cheesy cow. So he learned some
pretty solid outdoorsman type skills in addition to having a
pretty solid backbone and a moral compass, so all the
makings of a of a great man. He was then
adopted by a Shawnee chief, Blackfish Uh, and he grew
(09:47):
to become a young man with several other foster brothers
who were in fact white whom Blackfish had actually captured
but appeared to have treated with some level of dignity.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know what, I just hit me, We're really close
to President's Day. I almost thought it was President's Day,
but that's like, what next week? It's the third. It's
one of those third day of the month kind of things.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Third Monday, I'm going on a quick little vacation up
at Charleston and see some friends up there and I'll
explain them. I'm like, yeah, I have Monday off for
President's Day. And what is President's Day? I'm like, so,
it's what.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington all have a
birthday in February, right or close to it. I think
one of the might actually be born at the end
of January or something like that. But it's like, hey,
these three guys were born around this time have a
day off, which is just like, as I say to people,
I'm not going to argue against my job giving me
a free day off.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Jefferson is in April. I think, yeah, Wow, Okay, maybe
Jefferson doesn't.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Matter at all in this He doesn't matter at all
to us history or to holidays. Well we'll get to
Jefferson in a second, but yeah, I just want to
shout that out. So as this comes out, the happy
President's Day to all who celebrate.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I guess I don't know, how do you celebrate president.
How does one celebrate your favorite president? Maybe put on
a powdered wig of funny hat, give a speech you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, take over some takeover some other people's lands, Okay,
sure to soon brand. In fact, if it comes to
like you're saying, he is definitely anti American soldiers and settlers,
(11:35):
and there's very good reason for this. But he still
had that Shawnee code, so he didn't want to uh
commit what we would call war crimes. He thought it
was right and ethical to fight American soldiers on the battlefield,
but he wouldn't stand for them being tortured, for being
burned at the stake, drawn and quartered. And when he saw,
(11:59):
for instance, when he saw some compatriots preparing to burn
a guy alive, he went absolutely nuts to a ham
on them. And they, to be fair, they didn't stop
torturing prisoners, but they stopped torturing prisoners in front of
him because of his code. And for the years after
the Revolutionary War, he was like a one man get
(12:21):
a army.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
He dropped some serious shaming on those guys and they reacted.
It would seem I mean, and he had an air
of legitimacy and authority about him. People paid attention when
he said stuff you know when and that that code
he kind of transmitted to anyone who he encountered. So
(12:44):
after the Revolutionary War to come, so was a, like
you said, kind of a one man show, a bit
of a marauding one man Garia army, fighting in various
skirmishes against the Whites in the old Northwest and helping
out with the Cherokees in the South. He was the
(13:06):
youngest of this particular band of folks that he was
a part of. But again for a lot of the
reasons that we've already listed thus far, was chosen to
be the leader because of his just absolute charisma and
chops on the battlefield. So he continued to fight in
small actions as with the source that we're looking at
(13:28):
refers to them as in the South, and he became
friends with the Creek Indians, a relationship that would later
help him to form an alliance.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, yeah, and this alliance will be incredibly important. And
we see, you know, times of war and chaos make
for strange bedfellows. So there's very much a sense that
these guys are uniting against a larger, more dangerous power, right,
and they're going to put their differences aside for a time.
(13:59):
Unfortunate during these days, to Comes to loses two of
his brothers, including his brother Chiesikou, who taught him the
the arts of living in the wild. Chisikau dies in
seventeen ninety two fighting in the South with Cherokee compatriots,
and then to Comes his brother Sawasikaw was killed in
(14:23):
Ohio in seventeen ninety four. And these deaths are a
big reason that are a big part of the reason
that to Comes opposed the so called peace chiefs. They're
the community leaders who wanted to push for a peaceful
resolution with the nascent American forces.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, which is interesting because I mean, he he did
seem like he was someone who understood had a balance
between you know, war and peace, and that there was
a time for war and there was a time for peace.
He wasn't like an outright hawkish, you know type dude.
But he also wasn't like a dovish type. He isn't
(15:04):
somewhere in the middle. He was very pragmatic. So Blue Jacket,
who was a Shawnee chief of note with his time
in seventeen ninety four, was amassing forces warriors to meet
the US Army on their turf under Major General Anthony Wayne.
(15:24):
This Blue Jacket actually summoned to comesome. He called for
him to return to Ohio. However, it would seem that
the general wasn't looking for a fight, was actually hoping
to make a deal instead.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, we're again, we're getting some of this from our
good friends that Encyclopedia Britannic. Here's how they put it.
When the leading chiefs of the Old Northwest gathered at
Wayne's call in Greenville in Ohio to come to held
aloof and when the Treaty of Greenville was negotiated in
August seventeen ninety five, he refused to RECOGNI. He roundly
(16:00):
attacked the peace chiefs who sideway land that he contended
they did not own. So he's saying the land is
like the air and the water, it's the common possession
of all the Native people in the native communities here.
This is the institution of communal ownership of land policy.
(16:21):
That's one of his big platforms. And he is a
really great public speaker. Even his enemies, like the American soldiers,
acknowledged that, and they said you know, we don't agree
with him, but this guy's basically like the Native American
version of Henry Clay and he.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Which was much more of a compliment at this time.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Which was much more of a compliment at this time
because at this time Henry Clay is still on the
rise in Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
He's still got that new car. Smell well, Ben. It
reminds me a lot of an episode that we recently
did on Stuff they Don't Want You to Know. And
then the term is escaping me now, but what was
that term bent about the idea of land that is
unclaimed or terrannulius terrannulius, and is within that conversation, the
idea of ownership of land was like kind of front
(17:12):
and center in that episode of Stuff they Don't Want
You to Know. And this is a great example of
like two sides that have a fundamental disagreement or different
view on the concept of who owns land, not only
in terms of like, you know, who owns it like
in practice, but just conceptually who owns land? How do
(17:34):
how does one own land? How can land be you know,
the property of an individual or group? Right?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
And what we discover in that episode, which you. Absolutely.
Hopefully it will be out by the time you hear this, folks,
but absolutely check out that show, uh, because we gain
a new appreciation for the power and danger of flags.
As weird as that sounds, it's one for the vexillologists
in your life. Yeah, you're absolutely right. This idea of
(18:03):
land is a surprisingly complicated question because the need for
it is so universal, and human history really is an
agglomeration of rationalizations for taking land from someone else. And
he still has other brothers. This is where we take
a little bit of a turn to come to himself.
Seems like a pretty righteous, maybe kind of humble dude,
(18:25):
but his brother is a little bit of a little
bit of a different case. And this actually comes up
in a great science fiction fantasy series by Orson Scott
Card called Alvin Maker.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Oh, this kind of appears in that one.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
It's a great It's weird that it hasn't been made
into a film series yet, but it's really good.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Isn't or Scott Card a little problematic? Yeah, he's a
terrible person. Yeah, I thought, okay, but you know, sometimes
you gotta take the good with the bat when it
comes to fiction, especially when it comes to folks that
aren't around anywhere. You got to kind of take your
battles a little bit, you know, maybe just throw throw
them all out. Oh orses, scout cards alive. And he
is terrible, terrible Yeah on purpose, Okay, on purpose? Well
(19:11):
to your point, been about this title of the prophet, right,
Oh yeah, this this stems from a vision that he
claims to have had something of a you know, the
the golden tablets being passed down from on high type
vision from from an entity he refers to as the
Master of life. Ah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And so in Indiana, these two brothers to come to
in ten Squatawa, they get together, they build a town
and they name it profits Town. And the community that
they build could be portrayed by some as a cult
because they were they were very much into rejecting the
(19:56):
normalization of what they saw as white customs. Sure, they
wanted to get rid of that. They wanted to cut
the culture war off.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
At the pass. And he's operating under these orders or
instructions from an entity that you know, no one else
can directly communicate with. Now, that is also a pretty
pretty solid argument for a call. When you have a
guy who's saying I've got the goods, I've got the intel.
No one else is capable of having it, and I'm
(20:24):
the one that's going to interpret it and pass it
down to you, my followers, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And this is you know, this is classic cult umami.
That's just how it works. He he has this mysticism
that appeals to people in the Native communities. At this point,
you know, almost everybody in a Native community, regardless of
their tribe, has been adversely affected by the expansion of
(20:55):
again the Nissans American state. And they've lost loved ones,
They've been in wars, they've seen horrors visited upon their communities,
civilians of warriors alike. So this message is coming at
the right time. Unite against the Unite for the greater good,
against this common evil.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Common enemy.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
And so as this community continues to grow more and
more and more skyrocketing to comes to starts to dream bigger,
and he says, you know, one day, if these trends continue,
there will be a world wherein our community is large
enough and strong enough to stop the Americans from expanding.
(21:41):
He said, We're gonna band together, We're going to start
a Native confederation. And so he goes leveraging his superb
oratory oratory skills, he travels throughout the land. He goes
to speak with Ozark communities in New York, he goes
from Iowa to Florida, and he's gaining recruits.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The entire way.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And he's saying, if I can get everybody to agree
despite their differences in time, then I can stop what's
happening to our native land.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And he might have. If things had gone.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Differently, history would have taken a very different direction. But
something happened while he was on the road.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
That's right, while he was on one of his missions.
The governor at that time of the Indiana Territory, a
man by the name of General William Henry Harrison you
may have heard of. He led a militia of over
a thousand men who marched on profits town, which led
(22:48):
to what an event that would later be would later
be immortalized in a very popular slogan. It became a
rallying point politically, better or worse, the Battle of tippe Canoe,
Yes yes, which.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
You may recognize from some later political slogans. The Battle
of typic Canoe is fought between these US soldiers and
Native American warriors on the banks of a river called
the keth Tippi Canunk, which is right there in the
middle of central Pennsylvania. And this occurs in the context
of the Treaty of Fort Wayne, which is an agreement
(23:28):
signed in eighteen oh nine that said, hey, if you're
a Native American tribe or community in Indiana, you have
to sell three million acres of land to the US government.
And because of this, to comes at this time. It's
Chief of the Shopping or one of the chiefs.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
He takes his.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Confederation of Native American tribes united and he says, let's
come here. Let's combat this absolute deluge of pioneers and
settlers coming into land. And that leads the that leads
Governor Harrison to destroy the Shawnee Village Profits Town. And
(24:12):
when Harrison gets there, it's November sixth, eighteen eleven, he
sees one of Tenskawatawa's the one of the Profits followers,
waving a white flag pretty much the universal sign for parlay, surrender,
or negotiation. They requested a ceasefire, and they said, look,
(24:33):
before anything goes sideways, Harrison and to Comsa, you guys
should sit down and you should talk about what's going on.
But to Kumsa is not in town.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
He's not there. Unfortunately, he is away from Profitstown. He
is on another one of his missions to recruit warriors
from members of the what are referred to as the
Five Civilized Tribes, who were also seeing the same kind
of aggression being focused upon their lands, you know, folks
(25:12):
marching upon them, or at the very least the threat
of that kind of intervention. So everyone was looking to,
you know, folks like Takumesa for advice, you know, for guidance,
and this idea of banding together and forming alliances became very,
very attractive.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, and Harrison says, okay, Profit they call you, I'll
agree to your terms. And he turns his guys around.
They go to a hill about a mile away from
Profetstown on the Bank's Burnett Creek, and Harrison doesn't think
(25:53):
this is a real ceasefire, because what the prophet says is, look,
let's just hold here until my brother can get here,
and you guys can talk.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
This through, have your parlay.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
And Harrison is thinking with the cleverness of a snake,
and he's saying, oh, sure, trick him into a ceasefire
and then murder them in the night. That's absolutely what
I would do. And so he says, guys, don't chill
out at camp. We need to maintain a watch. We
(26:23):
need a defensive position.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But that's also something that to comes to, wouldn't wouldn't
sign on for he is vinely inspired. That's a really
good point. And yeah, it is very interesting the relationship
between Tecumsa and Tenskoatawa, Tenscatawa operating under on these divine instructions.
And you know, when we know that, when that can happen,
(26:48):
people can go off the rails pretty quickly and get
a little high on their own supply or you know,
drink their own kool aid to use another culty related aphorism.
Whereas to come to what is really driven by that code?
You know that he was taught, he was really driven
by the idea of not being a war don't do
war crimes. Yeah, yeah, but someone else who might see,
(27:12):
you know, if I do it, it isn't war crimes
because I am divinely guided exactly. That's problematic.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I'm doing what the Master of Life told me to do.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Master of life he knows best. Therefore, if I do
this on his command. This isn't this isn't a bad thing,
but it comes on the other hand, it's operating under
much more real world uh, sets of of you know,
mores and values.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
There's a deepness to it like that. The differences between
their philosophies and their relationships are with the world are
what make them such a good team. But ultimately it
also leads to their downfalls.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
It's true. And I was reading a little bit on
the side just about how to come to largely you know,
used his brother, and again Max point on off there
that they might not have even been brothers. They were
more just like brothers in arms.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And like how everybody Atlanta's exactly but to that like
to come to was adopted to.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
And that's right, and very unclear the actual you know, lineage,
the blood lineage, but Takamsa was it was pretty clear.
What was clear is that he was using this power
that his you know, that his brother had for political purposes,
not necessarily in a snakelike way, just in like a
(28:29):
you know, this is helpful, This is going to get
us some feet in the door, right, you know, and
and help us a mask some followers. And if it's
all for the greater good of the tribes and of
the people. You know, of our people, then so be it.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
And ten Skuatawa, however, is also not above capitalizing on
Tekumsa's absence. Because Tkmsa is gone from Prophetstown, Tinskatawa has
the reins of control. He's proxy ruler. And even though
to comes to said, look, we cannot face American forces
(29:07):
until we have our numbers beefed up. Even though tens
Katawa is very well aware of this because of his
divine inspiration, he stands out on this rock ledge that
overlooks Profits Town. It's called Profits Rock today, by the way,
and he starts singing war songs, chanting incantations, and he
(29:27):
promises the people there's a true fact. He promises his
followers that these spells, these prayers I am making, they
will protect you from the US bullets. And so when
Harrison wakes the next morning, we don't know how well
or how long he's slept, but at dawn he gets
(29:48):
up and his entire camp a mile away on that
hill is surrounded by ten Squatawa's warriors, and they are
ready to go. If you want to learned a lot
about the back and forth of how the battle actually occurred,
and it looked like it was anyone's game for quite
some time. Go to American Battle Trust, a great resource
(30:12):
that Max found that has you know, this is like
the kind of stuff you study at war college. It
might put a lot of people to sleep, but it's
like a blow by blow analysis of what happened.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
And we know that around this time, I think we're
starting to see Native tribes having some form of firearm,
but it's certainly not to the same degree that the
American forces would have. They weren't fighting, you know, rifles
one to one with like spears and bows and arrows,
(30:46):
but they certainly did not have the same level and
stockpile of weaponry that their opponents had.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
No, Yeah, you're absolutely right, And the entirety of the
fighting last for about two hours. It might surprise a
lot of people that for this kind of close up fighting,
or even when you get to hand to hand, those
battles don't actually last a very long time. It's tremendously
(31:15):
taxing on the physical body.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
You kind of wonder too, though, if Harrison was like,
maybe we shouldn't just make this a massacre, because I
still am hoping perhaps to parlay with the comesa down
the line, and if I you know, absolutely annihilate his folks,
even though it's because his broad did a bad thing
(31:37):
and you know, went down a weird path. I don't
know that would be a good thing big picture, I
don't know what you got. That's just a deestimation on.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
My Unfortunately, what I think without knowing the interior mind
of Harrison, we can say that he looked like he
was willing to play ball in the beginning, but his
march he already had a deficit of trust, right, and
(32:07):
he clearly he did not consider Native Americans people. He yeah,
let's yeah, let's not tread too lightly on this guy
being like some super woke historical figure.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
He was just like you know, his peers and that
and that was but he was shrewd. So he was
gonna capitalize on these things and perhaps play the game
acting as though he was gonna parlay with them. I
think he gave them one real good faith chance. I
think that's right, and this was this was it being
squandered on their part.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I think he would have given to come to the chance,
to come to the table, to tell to come, Tom,
I'll let you leave without killing your people.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I think that's as high as he.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Would have gone.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It would have been like, yeah, you don't have to
go home, but you can't stay here, and then say well,
this is our home, and he'd be like ah about
that though.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
And even this sense of quote unquote respect or admiration
for Takomsta and his like oratory abilities probably didn't extend
much further than like these folks looking at him as
like being like a slightly you know, better dressed member
of a sub human species, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, And let's also remember that his violence against Native
Americans is a big reason Harrison later becomes president.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
People love that. People were all about it.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
We're all about it. It was like it was like
his version being able to juggle. But you know, genocide.
It does sound like he's giving them a chance to
gtfo right, and he doesn't want to lose soldiers because
the US is still recovering after the bloody Revolutionary War.
(33:51):
He also would like to not du atrocities if he
could dodge it, but his opinion on that is pretty ambivalent.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
History will prove.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So they have this one chance. They have this deficit
of trust. Tenskaatawa acts out of line, he violates the
chain of command and as a result, and we're not
saying magic's not real, but his magic doesn't work right.
As a result, Harrison is hardened against Profitstown. He wanted
it to be peacefully abandoned, but now he's all gas,
(34:25):
no breaks, He just defends in the fight tense. Katawa's
forces are are set against him now because they believe
the guy. But those those spells did not protect them
from bullets.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
They got shot, they.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Died, they got made. They come back and they're like,
you are a snake oil salesman.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Can you picture the montage of this in the movie
where you as the audience are like, no, no, don't
do it, don't get off that ledge. What are you doing.
You're sentencing your people to death at the very least,
and absolute annihil at the most.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Unfortunately, this happens in This happens more recently too in history,
in different conflicts on the African continent, including like Zulu
Wars and in the Boxer Rebellion in China, there have
been these charismatic figures who claim that through magic, they
can make you immune to bullets and spoiler. At no
(35:24):
point in history has any one of those spells ever worked.
I'm trying to be really fair again, I'm saying they
haven't worked yet. I don't know whether magic's real, but
the track record for bulletproofing through incantation is just terrible
at this point. And so Native Americans are abandoning Profits Town.
(35:47):
The vast majority of them are gone very quickly because
they think tens Katawa is a con artist or a failure.
On November eighth, eighteen eleven, Harrison comes into the mostly
abandoned Profits Town and he burns it to the ground
before marching back to one of the major Indiana towns
(36:09):
at the time. Vincent's, is that how I would say it?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
I think that's right. Yeah, maybe e Vincen's if we're
going to be Italian about it, but tell us yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
But it comes to finally gets to Profits Town three
months later, and he just sees ruins. They're not even
smoking at this point, the fires have died again.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Sorry to compare everything to movie production, but I can
picture that too. He's coming back, he's done his due diligence,
and they really crap the bed while he was gone.
And look at look at the records they've left behind
in their wake. Ineomorcone begins to play a million I'm sorry.
These pop cultural references are are valuable for a reason, because,
(36:52):
you know, the history if nothing at the end of
the day, is storytelling, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So it comes to is dreams of creating creating a
Native American confederation with Prophetstown as its capital. Those dreams
are dashed, and he says, you know what, this doesn't
matter though, I am still going to fight against this
poisonous American expansion. And so he again he's very smart, right,
(37:22):
he can smell what's in the wind, he can see
the signs forming, and he sees that he calls it.
He sees that there's going to be a war between
the Americans and the British. They still hate each other. Right,
it's not a smart guy.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
He's reading the room, right, He's like seeing the big picture.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And so he doesn't know that historians will call it
the War of eighteen twelve, but he knows it's on
the way, and so he gets with He gets his
surviving followers. They go to Fort Malden on the Canadian
side of the Detroit River, and they join up with
the British and these guys at this point all his followers.
They are battle hard and they've been traumatized. They're not
(38:02):
played around, so they are a huge factor in the
British victory.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
There.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
The British and the Native American forces captured Detroit and
they also capture two thousand, five hundred US soldiers.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's a coup, like they really is. Yeah. After this victory,
to come takes off on another one of his long
journeys to you know, gather forces, you know, from the
various tribes, which did result in the uprising of the
Alabama Creek tribe, and that was in response to his
(38:39):
stirring you know rhetoric. The Chicka Saws, Choctaws and Cherokees, however,
were not feeling to come to as vibes nearly as much.
And at this point I just think this is very interesting.
You know, he is he is a big picture kind
of dude. He is able to kind of see what
is needed to get the job done, and sometimes that
(39:01):
means joining forces with folks who may look like your enemy.
He actually joins up with the British General Henry A.
Proctor in invading Ohio and you know again, common enemy,
and together they take over Fort Miggs and they hold it.
And William Henry Harrison at this point is on the
(39:23):
Maumie River just above Toledo, where, based on a kind
of a strategic gambit by Tecumsa, he intercepts and destroys
a brigade of Kentucky soldiers under Colonel William Dudley.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, and this is this is quite a clever move
on to comsa's part because it cuts off support that
would have enabled Harrison to continue the conflict. However, this
is a mixed bag victory because they don't capture the
actual fort. They have to retreat. There is a guy
gives Harrison time to make a counter attack despite the
(40:02):
damage that's been done. On October fifth, eighteen thirteen, British
and Native forces are routed, They're kicked out, they're runoff.
Harrison wins control of the area. Tacumsa is killed in action.
His body is carried away from the conflict area. He's
buried in a secret grave, and just like the grave
(40:25):
of Djengis Khan, this burial place has never been discovered
and we still don't know much about his death. We
don't know who killed him. We don't know how he
died necessarily. All we can say for sure is that
this real sleeves bag named Richard M. Johnson later becomes
(40:45):
Vice President of the United States because of his tall tail.
He claims that he had killed Tecumsa, and no one
can disprove it. People don't really believe him, I think,
but no one could disc prove it. But it's a
very convenient way to build a legend around yourself. Now
at this point you're probably wondering, ridiculous historians, what happened
(41:07):
to Tenskawatawa the Prophet. Well, he had already lost his
prestige because it turned out the spells he cast did
not work. He had fled to Canada and he had
a creative split with Tecumsa and to come didn't really
account for him in his plants because he was no
(41:28):
longer an effective propagandist, which is really how he functioned
the whole way through. He lived until eighteen thirty four,
and he died in Kansas, in a town called Argentine, Kansas.
We didn't mention this, by the way, but one of
the reasons he is known as the prophet is because
he appeared to accurately predict a solar eclipse in eighteen
(41:52):
oh six, So he did make the call there. But
also I would point out that Native American communities for
thousands of years across North and South America, they had
a pretty good grasp of the patterns of the heavens.
(42:12):
So it's kind of sure. It's kind of like saying, hey,
it's going to be five pm after four point thirty,
and people are like, this guy's a genius.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And also like a broken clock is right twice a day.
That kind of thing, you know, when you have people
that are looking to you to confirm whether or not
you've got some sort of powers of sight, and then
you get one thing right and that's the one you
kind of play up. You know. Yea reminds me of
like Nostra damas and things like that, where you know,
he definitely had some things that you know, played pretty
(42:39):
close to the truth, but also when you interpret it
in different ways, it was kind of just some fancy talk.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, kind of like how Alice Jones was right about
Bohemian Grove. That's right, Like, you know, we're aware of that,
but that doesn't mean everything they say is true.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
That's exactly right. But oftentimes, you know, if you have
zealous followers, they will point to that thing as proof
positive that you are you know, what you say you are,
and that you are some sort of messiah.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
And if you read more about the profit, what you'll
see is that he was a propagandist. He was very
much quote unquote about that life. He wanted to reject
to these the normalization, like I said, of various quote
unquote white cultural things, said, you know, guys, stop drinking,
(43:29):
which is great because alcoholism was and is a huge
danger to Native communities. He said, look, we just wear
clothing from animal skins and furs like we always did.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
No individual can own land.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
And then he also had some more problematic stuff like
don't inter marry with any Europeans. Also, we should burn witches. Ooh, okay,
that last one.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
That one didn't well, did it?
Speaker 1 (44:00):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I wonder where he put when he was like listing
off his things. Did he just start trying? Did he
put witches at the end?
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Did he put the witches before, like animal first? So
he says, like booz booze is bad. You know, we
can't own the land.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
We should burn the witches and you know what, I think.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I think it was a mid game slip in as well.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, should we also slam in the back of our dragula? Yes, yes,
we speaking ditches and burning witches while we're at it.
You know, I'm just sorry. I never Rob Zombies in
my Power Man is. Oh yeah, no, Rob. They were
very prop They're very in the same wheel. Actually, I
think the power Man five thousand dude is Rob Zombie's
like cousin or brother. It's like his younger brother. I
(44:42):
think that's right. Yeah, well, let's let's verify this because
they're on nineteen ninety nine nostalgia for you guys at
the tail end of an episode. We've promised curses, y'all.
We've promised curses. But as Max pointed out off air,
you got to talk about the man before you can
get to the curse, because he also has to die
in order for this curse to kind of start to percolate.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
And that is Spider One, the frontman of Powerman five thousand,
younger brother of Rob Zombie. I feel like they're in
it to coomsa Tenska Watawa situation. Yes, a little more wholesome,
you got there, But they're probably just a great hang
on Thanksgiving, you know what I mean. I bet they
sure they see my chill dudes, So you're right, nol.
(45:26):
We had to give you the first part the true
real world events, and we hope you join us this Thursday,
because later this week we're going to get to the
real juicy stuff. In the next episode of Ridiculous History,
Part two of Takamsa's Curse, we're going to dive into
the idea of the curse here in specific, curses in general,
(45:49):
and the examples of the curse that the examples of
the curse that apparently, according to true believers, continue to
haunt us. Presidents this day. Spoiler William Henry Harrison is
the first guy who gets the curse.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah to comment, that's for sure. Yeah, definitely the heel
of our story here. But speaking of our story, huge
thanks to super producer and research associated straordinary Max Williams
for all of your incredible work on this research brief.
We're looking forward to getting into part two. Max's brother
actual brother by blood in fact, Alex Williams, who composed
(46:28):
our theme.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah, Hey, Max, Between you and Alex, who's the Tenskawatawa,
who's the takumso I'm Takumsa.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
He's definitely the prophet, even though I am the younger brother.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
I feel like though that's the kind of question when
I asked siblings, everybody will want to be tacumso clearly right.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
I don't know, Alex is weird. He might want to
be the prophet.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Okay loves underdog And thanks also to Jonathan Strickland ak
the Quister. That's just two times who've said the name.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Thanks to A. J.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Jacobs, the Puzzler will be returning or may eaves Jeffcoat
Christopher hassiotis did good. Folks over at Encyclopedia Britannica. We've
got a history of them coming up along the way,
and thanks to you know, I'm excited for part two.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Same here. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man the myth,
the guy who has never actually given out a curse.
Super producer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Max claps with two hands. Williams, Welcome back to.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
The clap Max, I have a secondhand again, and Ben,
no curse is given out that you know of?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, right, right, Well, is a curse really a curse
if you don't know about it? That's a question. Aren't
you supposed to, like actively say to somebody, I have
cursed you. You're therefore you don't have to. But I
guess one thing about curses is, you know, there's the
placebo effect of it, all right, if somebody tells you
you've been cursed, then you get in your head about
(01:09):
it and manifest the curse yourself without maybe they're even
having to be any nefarious dark forces at work at all.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, that's the thing a curse does have. You know,
the best definition of magic I've ever seen is weaponized psychology.
And in that case, then a curse would work. If
we were to say I Ben Bullen, curse you Noel Brown.
Through that kind of lens of psychology, then the person
(01:38):
being cursed would have to know about it for it
to have some sort of effect. But if we take
the psychology out, if we say we just believe in curses,
then the person who is cursed or has the consequences
doesn't have to know what's going on at all. They
could be totally innocent. They just walked into the wrong tomb.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I recently started rewatching Rome, the HBO series. You know
about Julius Caesar and all of that, And there is
a part in the series where Julius Caesar scorns a
female admirer. Essentially, there's a political thing that's caused it
to be inconvenient having this relationship, so he basically sends
her a packing and then there's a really intense scene
(02:20):
where she curses him like in writing, like while saying
out loud, I curse your liver, your blood, your bones,
your body. And then you know, has her hand servant
take this cursed piece of paper and put it in
some kind of special depository. But Julius Caesar does not
need to know about it. And as far as this
(02:41):
character is concerned the curse? Sure has hell worked? Because
you know, really bad things happened to Julius Caesar. Was
it because of the curse? Unclear?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
This this reminds me of Gladiator, which has been on
my mind because I recently on the road, I have
too much time to watch a lot of TV. But
on the room I watched Napoleon, and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What do you think? I did not like it?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Okay, only because only because it was very clear to
me that this is Yo King Phoenix playing Napoleon. Sure,
so that's it. Didn't it didn't feel like I love
that guy's an actor. I just I don't know. The
battle scenes were good, but the the historical inaccuracies pile
(03:27):
up over time.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
But who are we to knock it?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
There are stories about Napoleon and curses too, and that
time he got totally punked.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
By a pack of rabbits.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But today I love that story. I mean too, I
was thinking I was talking about that with some French folks.
I got in an argument about Napoleon in Paris and
it ended well because of the rabbits. But anyway, so
we are talking about curses today. We're going to talk
about a curse that You may have heard, fellow ridiculous historians,
(03:56):
but you may not know much about it. Like many
of us us who attended public school, you may have
simply heard the name to Cumsa's curse and never really
understood where it came from, it was a real thing, etc.
And it all goes back to the fact that the
president of the United States throughout history and especially now
(04:21):
is one of the most important, one of the most
powerful people in the world. That means a lot of
folks love you, but that also means a lot of
people hate your guts.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Just on principle. Yeah. Max points out that due to
a very small sample size, relatively small speaking, forty six
people to have held the job, eight of those individuals
have died while in office, and one might argue that
those odds are pretty significant in favor of dying in office.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah. Yeah, podcasters have a slightly safer ratio. We could say,
only slightly, only slightly. It's hard in these streets, but yeah,
I always think about that too. You know, the tremendous
level of stress that the potus has.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It's it's sad, it's to a degree, it's.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Kind of heartbreaking when you can see how being president
for just four years absolutely wrecks your body.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You know, before and after pictures, saying it reminds me
of a lot of those history accounts. So you'll see
on Instagram and stuff where it'll be like, you know,
young men before they go off to war, and then
a photograph of them after, and you see these just
like you know, these severe, hardened kind of lines and
just gaunt kind of expressions, very similar to what happens
(05:37):
at the end of a four year term of being presidents.
It's it is, it is a battle. It is its
own kind of war. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I mean, it gives you that thousand league stare, which
is a scary thing to see in real life. And
you know, okay, so let's let's start with our guy
to comes up. He is a famous Shawnee chief. He
has the dream of the United Native Federation, and the
historical lore like the gather around the campfire type stories
(06:09):
assure us that he is responsible for a curse. But
to understand the story of that curse, we need to
learn a little bit more about our guy, mister T,
who I'll only call mister T once just because it's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I reserve the right to call him that once myself.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Okay, good, that's acceptible these terms, and then we'll have
a third mister T on Maxi's behalf if he wants to. Uh,
all right, there it is. Okay, No, you've got the
last one left.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Do you know mister T was apparently terrified of flying?
I think yeah, character on the show. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay,
so does that kind of smells mister T? No me
referring to mister the actual mister T from the A team.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
I think the spirit of we're not doing Strickland rules
then about that.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That's where if you say a certain name three times,
a certain individual appears. Yeah, I'm not playing that game.
Although I just saw the new art for the Beetlejuice
sequel that's happening.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, it exists. I've seen some people kind of nagging it.
You don't know. So many people will make like fan
art for movies that are in development, and some of
them are so good, you're like, is that the one?
This to me had the air of fan art about it,
and not even like particularly awesome fan art, right right.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, it's also it's been interesting to me because the
original Beetlejuice sequel was supposed to be set in Hawaii,
which is definitely choice. Anyway, there's nothing to do with it.
We'll do a history of Beetlejuice like later.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, what we do have with mister T, and that
is that Mister T that this is my use there
is that you've got multiple spellings of this guy's name,
which is pretty cool, and even that could result in
different pronunciations. You've got to come to sea also spelled
to come tha. If you got a lift, you know,
then you've got to come to come fay or to
(08:08):
come tha with thha. What we do know is he
was born in seventeen sixty eight, southeast of Old Chillicothe,
Old Chilicothe, That's what I'm going to say. That is
north of what is today Xenia, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And he had a very difficult life, to be quite honest.
Growing up was not easy for him. His father was
killed by a group of white folks in seventeen seventy four.
His mother, who was a Muskogee, left him when he
was seven years old to journey with part of her
community to Missouri and.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
So to come.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So was left to be raised by his older siblings.
And this often happens in times of instability. You know,
the oldest sister, the oldest brother has to function as
the guardian, the parent figure. So to come to is
it comes to grows up under the supervision of his
one of his older sisters to come pace, and she
(09:08):
trains him in the She teaches him what it means
to be Shawnee, the moraise, the values, the social codes.
And then alongside that, his brother, one of his brothers,
teaches him the art of woodcraft and hunting, how to
live rough, survive in the wild.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
That's right, that's a cheesy cow. So he learned some
pretty solid outdoorsman type skills in addition to having a
pretty solid backbone and a moral compass, so all the
makings of a of a great man. He was then
adopted by a Shawnee chief, Blackfish Uh, and he grew
(09:47):
to become a young man with several other foster brothers
who were in fact white whom Blackfish had actually captured
but appeared to have treated with some level of dignity.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know what, I just hit me, We're really close
to President's Day. I almost thought it was President's Day,
but that's like, what next week? It's the third. It's
one of those third day of the month kind of things.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Third Monday, I'm going on a quick little vacation up
at Charleston and see some friends up there and I'll
explain them. I'm like, yeah, I have Monday off for
President's Day. And what is President's Day? I'm like, so,
it's what.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington all have a
birthday in February, right or close to it. I think
one of the might actually be born at the end
of January or something like that. But it's like, hey,
these three guys were born around this time have a
day off, which is just like, as I say to people,
I'm not going to argue against my job giving me
a free day off.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Jefferson is in April. I think, yeah, Wow, Okay, maybe
Jefferson doesn't.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Matter at all in this He doesn't matter at all
to us history or to holidays. Well we'll get to
Jefferson in a second, but yeah, I just want to
shout that out. So as this comes out, the happy
President's Day to all who celebrate.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I guess I don't know, how do you celebrate president.
How does one celebrate your favorite president? Maybe put on
a powdered wig of funny hat, give a speech you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, take over some takeover some other people's lands, Okay,
sure to soon brand. In fact, if it comes to
like you're saying, he is definitely anti American soldiers and settlers,
(11:35):
and there's very good reason for this. But he still
had that Shawnee code, so he didn't want to uh
commit what we would call war crimes. He thought it
was right and ethical to fight American soldiers on the battlefield,
but he wouldn't stand for them being tortured, for being
burned at the stake, drawn and quartered. And when he saw,
(11:59):
for instance, when he saw some compatriots preparing to burn
a guy alive, he went absolutely nuts to a ham
on them. And they, to be fair, they didn't stop
torturing prisoners, but they stopped torturing prisoners in front of
him because of his code. And for the years after
the Revolutionary War, he was like a one man get
(12:21):
a army.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
He dropped some serious shaming on those guys and they reacted.
It would seem I mean, and he had an air
of legitimacy and authority about him. People paid attention when
he said stuff you know when and that that code
he kind of transmitted to anyone who he encountered. So
(12:44):
after the Revolutionary War to come, so was a, like
you said, kind of a one man show, a bit
of a marauding one man Garia army, fighting in various
skirmishes against the Whites in the old Northwest and helping
out with the Cherokees in the South. He was the
(13:06):
youngest of this particular band of folks that he was
a part of. But again for a lot of the
reasons that we've already listed thus far, was chosen to
be the leader because of his just absolute charisma and
chops on the battlefield. So he continued to fight in
small actions as with the source that we're looking at
(13:28):
refers to them as in the South, and he became
friends with the Creek Indians, a relationship that would later
help him to form an alliance.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, yeah, and this alliance will be incredibly important. And
we see, you know, times of war and chaos make
for strange bedfellows. So there's very much a sense that
these guys are uniting against a larger, more dangerous power, right,
and they're going to put their differences aside for a time.
(13:59):
Unfortunate during these days, to Comes to loses two of
his brothers, including his brother Chiesikou, who taught him the
the arts of living in the wild. Chisikau dies in
seventeen ninety two fighting in the South with Cherokee compatriots,
and then to Comes his brother Sawasikaw was killed in
(14:23):
Ohio in seventeen ninety four. And these deaths are a
big reason that are a big part of the reason
that to Comes opposed the so called peace chiefs. They're
the community leaders who wanted to push for a peaceful
resolution with the nascent American forces.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, which is interesting because I mean, he he did
seem like he was someone who understood had a balance
between you know, war and peace, and that there was
a time for war and there was a time for peace.
He wasn't like an outright hawkish, you know type dude.
But he also wasn't like a dovish type. He isn't
(15:04):
somewhere in the middle. He was very pragmatic. So Blue Jacket,
who was a Shawnee chief of note with his time
in seventeen ninety four, was amassing forces warriors to meet
the US Army on their turf under Major General Anthony Wayne.
(15:24):
This Blue Jacket actually summoned to comesome. He called for
him to return to Ohio. However, it would seem that
the general wasn't looking for a fight, was actually hoping
to make a deal instead.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, we're again, we're getting some of this from our
good friends that Encyclopedia Britannic. Here's how they put it.
When the leading chiefs of the Old Northwest gathered at
Wayne's call in Greenville in Ohio to come to held
aloof and when the Treaty of Greenville was negotiated in
August seventeen ninety five, he refused to RECOGNI. He roundly
(16:00):
attacked the peace chiefs who sideway land that he contended
they did not own. So he's saying the land is
like the air and the water, it's the common possession
of all the Native people in the native communities here.
This is the institution of communal ownership of land policy.
(16:21):
That's one of his big platforms. And he is a
really great public speaker. Even his enemies, like the American soldiers,
acknowledged that, and they said you know, we don't agree
with him, but this guy's basically like the Native American
version of Henry Clay and he.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Which was much more of a compliment at this time.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Which was much more of a compliment at this time
because at this time Henry Clay is still on the
rise in Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
He's still got that new car. Smell well, Ben. It
reminds me a lot of an episode that we recently
did on Stuff they Don't Want You to Know. And
then the term is escaping me now, but what was
that term bent about the idea of land that is
unclaimed or terrannulius terrannulius, and is within that conversation, the
idea of ownership of land was like kind of front
(17:12):
and center in that episode of Stuff they Don't Want
You to Know. And this is a great example of
like two sides that have a fundamental disagreement or different
view on the concept of who owns land, not only
in terms of like, you know, who owns it like
in practice, but just conceptually who owns land? How do
(17:34):
how does one own land? How can land be you know,
the property of an individual or group? Right?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
And what we discover in that episode, which you. Absolutely.
Hopefully it will be out by the time you hear this, folks,
but absolutely check out that show, uh, because we gain
a new appreciation for the power and danger of flags.
As weird as that sounds, it's one for the vexillologists
in your life. Yeah, you're absolutely right. This idea of
(18:03):
land is a surprisingly complicated question because the need for
it is so universal, and human history really is an
agglomeration of rationalizations for taking land from someone else. And
he still has other brothers. This is where we take
a little bit of a turn to come to himself.
Seems like a pretty righteous, maybe kind of humble dude,
(18:25):
but his brother is a little bit of a little
bit of a different case. And this actually comes up
in a great science fiction fantasy series by Orson Scott
Card called Alvin Maker.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Oh, this kind of appears in that one.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
It's a great It's weird that it hasn't been made
into a film series yet, but it's really good.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Isn't or Scott Card a little problematic? Yeah, he's a
terrible person. Yeah, I thought, okay, but you know, sometimes
you gotta take the good with the bat when it
comes to fiction, especially when it comes to folks that
aren't around anywhere. You got to kind of take your
battles a little bit, you know, maybe just throw throw
them all out. Oh orses, scout cards alive. And he
is terrible, terrible Yeah on purpose, Okay, on purpose? Well
(19:11):
to your point, been about this title of the prophet, right,
Oh yeah, this this stems from a vision that he
claims to have had something of a you know, the
the golden tablets being passed down from on high type
vision from from an entity he refers to as the
Master of life. Ah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And so in Indiana, these two brothers to come to
in ten Squatawa, they get together, they build a town
and they name it profits Town. And the community that
they build could be portrayed by some as a cult
because they were they were very much into rejecting the
(19:56):
normalization of what they saw as white customs. Sure, they
wanted to get rid of that. They wanted to cut
the culture war off.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
At the pass. And he's operating under these orders or
instructions from an entity that you know, no one else
can directly communicate with. Now, that is also a pretty
pretty solid argument for a call. When you have a
guy who's saying I've got the goods, I've got the intel.
No one else is capable of having it, and I'm
(20:24):
the one that's going to interpret it and pass it
down to you, my followers, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And this is you know, this is classic cult umami.
That's just how it works. He he has this mysticism
that appeals to people in the Native communities. At this point,
you know, almost everybody in a Native community, regardless of
their tribe, has been adversely affected by the expansion of
(20:55):
again the Nissans American state. And they've lost loved ones,
They've been in wars, they've seen horrors visited upon their communities,
civilians of warriors alike. So this message is coming at
the right time. Unite against the Unite for the greater good,
against this common evil.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Common enemy.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
And so as this community continues to grow more and
more and more skyrocketing to comes to starts to dream bigger,
and he says, you know, one day, if these trends continue,
there will be a world wherein our community is large
enough and strong enough to stop the Americans from expanding.
(21:41):
He said, We're gonna band together, We're going to start
a Native confederation. And so he goes leveraging his superb
oratory oratory skills, he travels throughout the land. He goes
to speak with Ozark communities in New York, he goes
from Iowa to Florida, and he's gaining recruits.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The entire way.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And he's saying, if I can get everybody to agree
despite their differences in time, then I can stop what's
happening to our native land.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And he might have. If things had gone.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Differently, history would have taken a very different direction. But
something happened while he was on the road.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
That's right, while he was on one of his missions.
The governor at that time of the Indiana Territory, a
man by the name of General William Henry Harrison you
may have heard of. He led a militia of over
a thousand men who marched on profits town, which led
(22:48):
to what an event that would later be would later
be immortalized in a very popular slogan. It became a
rallying point politically, better or worse, the Battle of tippe Canoe,
Yes yes, which.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
You may recognize from some later political slogans. The Battle
of typic Canoe is fought between these US soldiers and
Native American warriors on the banks of a river called
the keth Tippi Canunk, which is right there in the
middle of central Pennsylvania. And this occurs in the context
of the Treaty of Fort Wayne, which is an agreement
(23:28):
signed in eighteen oh nine that said, hey, if you're
a Native American tribe or community in Indiana, you have
to sell three million acres of land to the US government.
And because of this, to comes at this time. It's
Chief of the Shopping or one of the chiefs.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
He takes his.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Confederation of Native American tribes united and he says, let's
come here. Let's combat this absolute deluge of pioneers and
settlers coming into land. And that leads the that leads
Governor Harrison to destroy the Shawnee Village Profits Town. And
(24:12):
when Harrison gets there, it's November sixth, eighteen eleven, he
sees one of Tenskawatawa's the one of the Profits followers,
waving a white flag pretty much the universal sign for parlay, surrender,
or negotiation. They requested a ceasefire, and they said, look,
(24:33):
before anything goes sideways, Harrison and to Comsa, you guys
should sit down and you should talk about what's going on.
But to Kumsa is not in town.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
He's not there. Unfortunately, he is away from Profitstown. He
is on another one of his missions to recruit warriors
from members of the what are referred to as the
Five Civilized Tribes, who were also seeing the same kind
of aggression being focused upon their lands, you know, folks
(25:12):
marching upon them, or at the very least the threat
of that kind of intervention. So everyone was looking to,
you know, folks like Takumesa for advice, you know, for guidance,
and this idea of banding together and forming alliances became very,
very attractive.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, and Harrison says, okay, Profit they call you, I'll
agree to your terms. And he turns his guys around.
They go to a hill about a mile away from
Profetstown on the Bank's Burnett Creek, and Harrison doesn't think
(25:53):
this is a real ceasefire, because what the prophet says is, look,
let's just hold here until my brother can get here,
and you guys can talk.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
This through, have your parlay.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
And Harrison is thinking with the cleverness of a snake,
and he's saying, oh, sure, trick him into a ceasefire
and then murder them in the night. That's absolutely what
I would do. And so he says, guys, don't chill
out at camp. We need to maintain a watch. We
(26:23):
need a defensive position.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But that's also something that to comes to, wouldn't wouldn't
sign on for he is vinely inspired. That's a really
good point. And yeah, it is very interesting the relationship
between Tecumsa and Tenskoatawa, Tenscatawa operating under on these divine instructions.
And you know, when we know that, when that can happen,
(26:48):
people can go off the rails pretty quickly and get
a little high on their own supply or you know,
drink their own kool aid to use another culty related aphorism.
Whereas to come to what is really driven by that code?
You know that he was taught, he was really driven
by the idea of not being a war don't do
war crimes. Yeah, yeah, but someone else who might see,
(27:12):
you know, if I do it, it isn't war crimes
because I am divinely guided exactly. That's problematic.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I'm doing what the Master of Life told me to do.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Master of life he knows best. Therefore, if I do
this on his command. This isn't this isn't a bad thing,
but it comes on the other hand, it's operating under
much more real world uh, sets of of you know,
mores and values.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
There's a deepness to it like that. The differences between
their philosophies and their relationships are with the world are
what make them such a good team. But ultimately it
also leads to their downfalls.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
It's true. And I was reading a little bit on
the side just about how to come to largely you know,
used his brother, and again Max point on off there
that they might not have even been brothers. They were
more just like brothers in arms.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And like how everybody Atlanta's exactly but to that like
to come to was adopted to.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
And that's right, and very unclear the actual you know, lineage,
the blood lineage, but Takamsa was it was pretty clear.
What was clear is that he was using this power
that his you know, that his brother had for political purposes,
not necessarily in a snakelike way, just in like a
(28:29):
you know, this is helpful, This is going to get
us some feet in the door, right, you know, and
and help us a mask some followers. And if it's
all for the greater good of the tribes and of
the people. You know, of our people, then so be it.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
And ten Skuatawa, however, is also not above capitalizing on
Tekumsa's absence. Because Tkmsa is gone from Prophetstown, Tinskatawa has
the reins of control. He's proxy ruler. And even though
to comes to said, look, we cannot face American forces
(29:07):
until we have our numbers beefed up. Even though tens
Katawa is very well aware of this because of his
divine inspiration, he stands out on this rock ledge that
overlooks Profits Town. It's called Profits Rock today, by the way,
and he starts singing war songs, chanting incantations, and he
(29:27):
promises the people there's a true fact. He promises his
followers that these spells, these prayers I am making, they
will protect you from the US bullets. And so when
Harrison wakes the next morning, we don't know how well
or how long he's slept, but at dawn he gets
(29:48):
up and his entire camp a mile away on that
hill is surrounded by ten Squatawa's warriors, and they are
ready to go. If you want to learned a lot
about the back and forth of how the battle actually occurred,
and it looked like it was anyone's game for quite
some time. Go to American Battle Trust, a great resource
(30:12):
that Max found that has you know, this is like
the kind of stuff you study at war college. It
might put a lot of people to sleep, but it's
like a blow by blow analysis of what happened.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
And we know that around this time, I think we're
starting to see Native tribes having some form of firearm,
but it's certainly not to the same degree that the
American forces would have. They weren't fighting, you know, rifles
one to one with like spears and bows and arrows,
(30:46):
but they certainly did not have the same level and
stockpile of weaponry that their opponents had.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
No, Yeah, you're absolutely right, And the entirety of the
fighting last for about two hours. It might surprise a
lot of people that for this kind of close up fighting,
or even when you get to hand to hand, those
battles don't actually last a very long time. It's tremendously
(31:15):
taxing on the physical body.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
You kind of wonder too, though, if Harrison was like,
maybe we shouldn't just make this a massacre, because I
still am hoping perhaps to parlay with the comesa down
the line, and if I you know, absolutely annihilate his folks,
even though it's because his broad did a bad thing
(31:37):
and you know, went down a weird path. I don't
know that would be a good thing big picture, I
don't know what you got. That's just a deestimation on.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
My Unfortunately, what I think without knowing the interior mind
of Harrison, we can say that he looked like he
was willing to play ball in the beginning, but his
march he already had a deficit of trust, right, and
(32:07):
he clearly he did not consider Native Americans people. He yeah,
let's yeah, let's not tread too lightly on this guy
being like some super woke historical figure.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
He was just like you know, his peers and that
and that was but he was shrewd. So he was
gonna capitalize on these things and perhaps play the game
acting as though he was gonna parlay with them. I
think he gave them one real good faith chance. I
think that's right, and this was this was it being
squandered on their part.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I think he would have given to come to the chance,
to come to the table, to tell to come, Tom,
I'll let you leave without killing your people.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I think that's as high as he.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Would have gone.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It would have been like, yeah, you don't have to
go home, but you can't stay here, and then say well,
this is our home, and he'd be like ah about
that though.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
And even this sense of quote unquote respect or admiration
for Takomsta and his like oratory abilities probably didn't extend
much further than like these folks looking at him as
like being like a slightly you know, better dressed member
of a sub human species, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, And let's also remember that his violence against Native
Americans is a big reason Harrison later becomes president.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
People love that. People were all about it.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
We're all about it. It was like it was like
his version being able to juggle. But you know, genocide.
It does sound like he's giving them a chance to
gtfo right, and he doesn't want to lose soldiers because
the US is still recovering after the bloody Revolutionary War.
(33:51):
He also would like to not du atrocities if he
could dodge it, but his opinion on that is pretty ambivalent.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
History will prove.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So they have this one chance. They have this deficit
of trust. Tenskaatawa acts out of line, he violates the
chain of command and as a result, and we're not
saying magic's not real, but his magic doesn't work right.
As a result, Harrison is hardened against Profitstown. He wanted
it to be peacefully abandoned, but now he's all gas,
(34:25):
no breaks, He just defends in the fight tense. Katawa's
forces are are set against him now because they believe
the guy. But those those spells did not protect them
from bullets.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
They got shot, they.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Died, they got made. They come back and they're like,
you are a snake oil salesman.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Can you picture the montage of this in the movie
where you as the audience are like, no, no, don't
do it, don't get off that ledge. What are you doing.
You're sentencing your people to death at the very least,
and absolute annihil at the most.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Unfortunately, this happens in This happens more recently too in history,
in different conflicts on the African continent, including like Zulu
Wars and in the Boxer Rebellion in China, there have
been these charismatic figures who claim that through magic, they
can make you immune to bullets and spoiler. At no
(35:24):
point in history has any one of those spells ever worked.
I'm trying to be really fair again, I'm saying they
haven't worked yet. I don't know whether magic's real, but
the track record for bulletproofing through incantation is just terrible
at this point. And so Native Americans are abandoning Profits Town.
(35:47):
The vast majority of them are gone very quickly because
they think tens Katawa is a con artist or a failure.
On November eighth, eighteen eleven, Harrison comes into the mostly
abandoned Profits Town and he burns it to the ground
before marching back to one of the major Indiana towns
(36:09):
at the time. Vincent's, is that how I would say it?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
I think that's right. Yeah, maybe e Vincen's if we're
going to be Italian about it, but tell us yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
But it comes to finally gets to Profits Town three
months later, and he just sees ruins. They're not even
smoking at this point, the fires have died again.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Sorry to compare everything to movie production, but I can
picture that too. He's coming back, he's done his due diligence,
and they really crap the bed while he was gone.
And look at look at the records they've left behind
in their wake. Ineomorcone begins to play a million I'm sorry.
These pop cultural references are are valuable for a reason, because,
(36:52):
you know, the history if nothing at the end of
the day, is storytelling, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So it comes to is dreams of creating creating a
Native American confederation with Prophetstown as its capital. Those dreams
are dashed, and he says, you know what, this doesn't
matter though, I am still going to fight against this
poisonous American expansion. And so he again he's very smart, right,
(37:22):
he can smell what's in the wind, he can see
the signs forming, and he sees that he calls it.
He sees that there's going to be a war between
the Americans and the British. They still hate each other. Right,
it's not a smart guy.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
He's reading the room, right, He's like seeing the big picture.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
And so he doesn't know that historians will call it
the War of eighteen twelve, but he knows it's on
the way, and so he gets with He gets his
surviving followers. They go to Fort Malden on the Canadian
side of the Detroit River, and they join up with
the British and these guys at this point all his followers.
They are battle hard and they've been traumatized. They're not
(38:02):
played around, so they are a huge factor in the
British victory.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
There.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
The British and the Native American forces captured Detroit and
they also capture two thousand, five hundred US soldiers.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's a coup, like they really is. Yeah. After this victory,
to come takes off on another one of his long
journeys to you know, gather forces, you know, from the
various tribes, which did result in the uprising of the
Alabama Creek tribe, and that was in response to his
(38:39):
stirring you know rhetoric. The Chicka Saws, Choctaws and Cherokees, however,
were not feeling to come to as vibes nearly as much.
And at this point I just think this is very interesting.
You know, he is he is a big picture kind
of dude. He is able to kind of see what
is needed to get the job done, and sometimes that
(39:01):
means joining forces with folks who may look like your enemy.
He actually joins up with the British General Henry A.
Proctor in invading Ohio and you know again, common enemy,
and together they take over Fort Miggs and they hold it.
And William Henry Harrison at this point is on the
(39:23):
Maumie River just above Toledo, where, based on a kind
of a strategic gambit by Tecumsa, he intercepts and destroys
a brigade of Kentucky soldiers under Colonel William Dudley.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, and this is this is quite a clever move
on to comsa's part because it cuts off support that
would have enabled Harrison to continue the conflict. However, this
is a mixed bag victory because they don't capture the
actual fort. They have to retreat. There is a guy
gives Harrison time to make a counter attack despite the
(40:02):
damage that's been done. On October fifth, eighteen thirteen, British
and Native forces are routed, They're kicked out, they're runoff.
Harrison wins control of the area. Tacumsa is killed in action.
His body is carried away from the conflict area. He's
buried in a secret grave, and just like the grave
(40:25):
of Djengis Khan, this burial place has never been discovered
and we still don't know much about his death. We
don't know who killed him. We don't know how he
died necessarily. All we can say for sure is that
this real sleeves bag named Richard M. Johnson later becomes
(40:45):
Vice President of the United States because of his tall tail.
He claims that he had killed Tecumsa, and no one
can disprove it. People don't really believe him, I think,
but no one could disc prove it. But it's a
very convenient way to build a legend around yourself. Now
at this point you're probably wondering, ridiculous historians, what happened
(41:07):
to Tenskawatawa the Prophet. Well, he had already lost his
prestige because it turned out the spells he cast did
not work. He had fled to Canada and he had
a creative split with Tecumsa and to come didn't really
account for him in his plants because he was no
(41:28):
longer an effective propagandist, which is really how he functioned
the whole way through. He lived until eighteen thirty four,
and he died in Kansas, in a town called Argentine, Kansas.
We didn't mention this, by the way, but one of
the reasons he is known as the prophet is because
he appeared to accurately predict a solar eclipse in eighteen
(41:52):
oh six, So he did make the call there. But
also I would point out that Native American communities for
thousands of years across North and South America, they had
a pretty good grasp of the patterns of the heavens.
(42:12):
So it's kind of sure. It's kind of like saying, hey,
it's going to be five pm after four point thirty,
and people are like, this guy's a genius.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And also like a broken clock is right twice a day.
That kind of thing, you know, when you have people
that are looking to you to confirm whether or not
you've got some sort of powers of sight, and then
you get one thing right and that's the one you
kind of play up. You know. Yea reminds me of
like Nostra damas and things like that, where you know,
he definitely had some things that you know, played pretty
(42:39):
close to the truth, but also when you interpret it
in different ways, it was kind of just some fancy talk.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, kind of like how Alice Jones was right about
Bohemian Grove. That's right, Like, you know, we're aware of that,
but that doesn't mean everything they say is true.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
That's exactly right. But oftentimes, you know, if you have
zealous followers, they will point to that thing as proof
positive that you are you know, what you say you are,
and that you are some sort of messiah.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
And if you read more about the profit, what you'll
see is that he was a propagandist. He was very
much quote unquote about that life. He wanted to reject
to these the normalization, like I said, of various quote
unquote white cultural things, said, you know, guys, stop drinking,
(43:29):
which is great because alcoholism was and is a huge
danger to Native communities. He said, look, we just wear
clothing from animal skins and furs like we always did.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
No individual can own land.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
And then he also had some more problematic stuff like
don't inter marry with any Europeans. Also, we should burn witches. Ooh, okay,
that last one.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
That one didn't well, did it?
Speaker 1 (44:00):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I wonder where he put when he was like listing
off his things. Did he just start trying? Did he
put witches at the end?
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Did he put the witches before, like animal first? So
he says, like booz booze is bad. You know, we
can't own the land.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
We should burn the witches and you know what, I think.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I think it was a mid game slip in as well.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, should we also slam in the back of our dragula? Yes, yes,
we speaking ditches and burning witches while we're at it.
You know, I'm just sorry. I never Rob Zombies in
my Power Man is. Oh yeah, no, Rob. They were
very prop They're very in the same wheel. Actually, I
think the power Man five thousand dude is Rob Zombie's
like cousin or brother. It's like his younger brother. I
(44:42):
think that's right. Yeah, well, let's let's verify this because
they're on nineteen ninety nine nostalgia for you guys at
the tail end of an episode. We've promised curses, y'all.
We've promised curses. But as Max pointed out off air,
you got to talk about the man before you can
get to the curse, because he also has to die
in order for this curse to kind of start to percolate.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
And that is Spider One, the frontman of Powerman five thousand,
younger brother of Rob Zombie. I feel like they're in
it to coomsa Tenska Watawa situation. Yes, a little more wholesome,
you got there, But they're probably just a great hang
on Thanksgiving, you know what I mean. I bet they
sure they see my chill dudes, So you're right, nol.
(45:26):
We had to give you the first part the true
real world events, and we hope you join us this Thursday,
because later this week we're going to get to the
real juicy stuff. In the next episode of Ridiculous History,
Part two of Takamsa's Curse, we're going to dive into
the idea of the curse here in specific, curses in general,
(45:49):
and the examples of the curse that the examples of
the curse that apparently, according to true believers, continue to
haunt us. Presidents this day. Spoiler William Henry Harrison is
the first guy who gets the curse.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah to comment, that's for sure. Yeah, definitely the heel
of our story here. But speaking of our story, huge
thanks to super producer and research associated straordinary Max Williams
for all of your incredible work on this research brief.
We're looking forward to getting into part two. Max's brother
actual brother by blood in fact, Alex Williams, who composed
(46:28):
our theme.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah, Hey, Max, Between you and Alex, who's the Tenskawatawa,
who's the takumso I'm Takumsa.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
He's definitely the prophet, even though I am the younger brother.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
I feel like though that's the kind of question when
I asked siblings, everybody will want to be tacumso clearly right.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
I don't know, Alex is weird. He might want to
be the prophet.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Okay loves underdog And thanks also to Jonathan Strickland ak
the Quister. That's just two times who've said the name.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Thanks to A. J.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Jacobs, the Puzzler will be returning or may eaves Jeffcoat
Christopher hassiotis did good. Folks over at Encyclopedia Britannica. We've
got a history of them coming up along the way,
and thanks to you know, I'm excited for part two.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Same here. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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