August 5- Tecumseh�s War

On August 5 , 1812, during the British-American War a US Army company under the command of Thomas van Horne is ambushed by a Native American force led by Tecumseh.

Tecumseh was the leader of one the largest and most widespread Native American resistance movements that fought against the takeover of their lands and the destruction of their cultures by the European immigrants into North-America.
He was born in 1768 as a member of the Shawnee tribe that lived in the Ohio Territory, to the South of Lake Erie.
In 1805, Tecumseh�s younger brother Tenskwatawa experienced a spiritual revelation and began to preach amongst his own and the neighbouring tribes, lamenting the moral decline of his people and demanding a return to their traditional ways of life.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the tribes of the American Mid-West, driven from their homelands by crooked treaties or military force, eked out a meager existence on the fringes of the European settlers� society; depending on charity or handouts , in settlements that were ridden with diseases and alcoholism.
Tenskwatawa�s message spread around like wildfire, and soon people from the various Native tribes came to live with the two brothers in a village, called �Prophetstown, in Northern Indiana.
Whilst his brother supplied the spiritual guidance, under Tecumseh�s organizational leadership the movement soon changed from a religious to a political one that succeeded to unite various Native American Nations, Shawnees, Ottawa, Wyonlat, Sauk and Fox, Ojibway and others. It soon became a danger for the steadily creeping and seemingly unstoppable advance of European settlers into Native American territory.
Although tensions between the rebellious tribes and the settlers and their government began to rise, as Tecumseh�s coalition fought a small scale guerilla war against European settlements and army outposts, a full blown war didn�t break out until 1811.
In November 1811 a force of Native tribes attacked an US army camp, but was defeated and in the aftermath �Prophetstown� was captured and destroyed.
At the outbreak of the British-American War of 1812, Tecumseh joined forces with the British who put him in charge of all their Native allies. Tecumseh and his men distinguished themselves during the siege and capture of Fort Detroit in the early days of the war. But fortunes soon changed, and the British and their allies were pushed back into Canada. On October 5, 1813 Tecumseh was killed in the battle of Thames River and his rebellion came to an end.


What else happened on this day?

1305 - William Wallace, who led the Scottish resistance against England, was captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London for trial and execution.

1936 - At the Berlin Olympics, the Black-American Jesse Owens wins his 3rd Olympic medal ( and, what was even better, he really upset Adolf Hitler, who had to watch from the stands as his white and blue-eyed �Master race� athletes were beaten by a black man. Hitler refused to shake Jesse Owens hand at the medal ceremony.)

1964 - The bombing of North-Vietnam begins � US-American aircrafts bomb cities in North Vietnam in retaliation for the alledged attack of US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonking by North-Vietnamese gunboats.

Full list:

Wikipedia

Edited by Komnenos

Tecumseh in British general's uniform. He was respected by ally and enemy alike, including the parents of William T. Sherman