The council was opened by Tecumseh, who stated his position on the irritating question between the whites and his race. Referring to the treaty made by the Governor at Fort Wayne the previous year, he boldly declared that he was determined to fight against the cession of lands by the Indians unless assented to by _all_ the tribes acting in concert. He admitted that he had threatened to kill the chiefs who signed the Fort Wayne treaty, and furthermore, he did not intend to let the village chiefs manage their affairs longer, but would place the power heretofore vested in them in the hands of the war-chiefs. The Americans had driven the Indians from the seacoast, and would soon drive them into the lakes; and while he disowned any intention of making war upon the United States, he asserted in the most emphatic language, that he would oppose any further intrusion of the whites upon their lands. He made a summary of the wrongs his people had suffered from the close of the Revolution to that day. It was plain that this appeal "struck fire" in the hearts of his own people, who would have followed his commands to the death. Having finished his speech, Tecumseh turned to seat himself, when he observed that no chair had been provided for him. Governor Harrison immediately ordered one, and, as the interpreter handed it to him, he said, "Your father requests you to be seated." "My father?" said Tecumseh; "the sun is my father and the earth is my mother, on her bosom will I repose;" and drawing his blanket about him with as much dignity as a Roman Senator would his toga, he seated himself among his warriors on the ground. We challenge the world to produce a more eloquent sentence than this. Replying to this address, Governor Harrison declared that the Indians were not one nation, having a common property in the land. The Miamis were the real owners of the tract on the Wabash, ceded by the late treaty, and the Shawnees had no business to interfere, since, on the arrival of the whites in this country, they had found the Miamis in possession of the land, the Shawnees at that time being residents of Georgia. It was absurd to contend that the Indians constituted one nation, for had such been the will of the Great Spirit, he would not have given them different languages.