Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation, by Peter Stark, Random House, New York, 2023, $28.99
When one broaches the subject of westward expansion, many picture Conestoga wagons creaking down the Santa Fe Trail. In Gallop Toward the Sun author Peter Stark reminds readers that the expansion of the nascent United States first subsumed the Northwest Territory (not the Great Plains), and it was there Americans of all stripes initially experienced the tragedies and the triumphs of westward migration.
The Northwest Territory (roughly encompassing the present-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota) was ceded to the United States by the British at the end of the Revolutionary War. Understandably, the people whose ancestors had lived there for centuries believed the land was already spoken for. Regardless, Americans intended to settle this territory, and for 30 years the question of ownership was addressed through treaties, land purchases, wars, massacres, peace conferences, duplicity and chicanery. Dominating the political landscape during much of this period were two men known by their respective people as skilled politicians, brutal warriors and consummate leaders—namely Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and Indiana Territory Governor William Henry Harrison.
Harrison secured millions of acres of the contested territory through conquest, treaties and purchase (often from tribal chiefs with no actual ties to the land). Tecumseh fought the acquisitions with words, tomahawks and the creation of an intertribal confederation to speak with one voice and act in unison.
