On the whole, setting aside for the present the history of this nation for the last thirty years, during which we have suffered most from them, it would seem that a more warlike or more hostile people has scarcely existed upon the continent. Where, rather than here, should we look for the birth and education of Tecumseh, [FN] the modern Philip, and when, rather than at the stormy period of the Revolution? Probably, at the very time when the troops of our Congress (in 1780,) were expelling them westward from the river Scioto, and burning their villages behind them, the young hero, who afterwards kindled the flame of war upon the entire frontier of the States, by the breath of his own single spirit, was learning his first lessons of vengeance amid the ruins of his native land, and in the blood of his countrymen. * * * * * [FN] Pronounced by the Indians _Tecumthe_ and sometimes so written. His native land, we say, for it is tolerably well ascertained that he was born on the banks of the Scioto, near Chilicothe. His father, who was a noted Shawanee warrior, fell at the battle of Kenhawa, while Tecumseh was yet a mere boy. His mother is said by some to have been a Shawanee, and by others a Creek; but he is understood himself to have told a gentleman at Vincennes, in 1810, that she was a Cherokee, who had been taken prisoner in a war between that nation and the Shawanees, and adopted, according to Indian custom, into a family of the latter nation which resided near the Miami of the Lake. This account is confirmed by the circumstance of this woman having migrated into the Cherokee territory in advanced age, and died there. The _totem_ of her tribe is said to have been a turtle, and that of the father's a tiger.