This, no doubt, has been a very shrewd and influential man, but circumstances have destroyed him, as they have many other great men before him, and he now lives respected, but silent and melancholy, in his tribe. I conversed with him a great deal about his brother Tecumseh, of whom he spoke frankly, and seemingly with great pleasure; but of himself and his own great schemes he would say nothing. He told me that Tecumseh’s plans were to embody all the Indian tribes in a grand confederacy, from the province of Mexico to the Great Lakes, to unite their forces in an army that would be able to meet and drive back the white people, who were continually advancing on the Indian tribes and forcing them from their lands toward the Rocky mountains; that Tecumseh was a great general, and that nothing but his premature death defeated his grand plan. (_Catlin, 2._) +Chapter V+ KÄNAKÛK AND MINOR PROPHETS KÄNAKÛK My father, the Great Spirit holds all the world in his hands. I pray to him that we may not be removed from our lands.... Take pity on us and let us remain where we are.—_Känakûk._ I was singularly struck with the noble efforts of this champion of the mere remnant of a poisoned race, so strenuously laboring to rescue the remainder of his people from the deadly bane that has been brought amongst them by enlightened Christians.—_Catlin._ The scene now shifts to the west of the Mississippi. With the death of Tecumtha the confederacy of the northwestern tribes fell to pieces, and on the closing of the war of 1812 the government inaugurated a series of treaties resulting, within twenty years, in the removal of almost every tribe beyond the Mississippi and the appropriation of their former country by the whites. Among others the Kickapoo, by the treaty of Edwardsville in 1819, had ceded the whole of their ancient territory in Illinois, comprising nearly one-half the area of the state, in exchange for a much smaller tract on Osage river in Missouri and $3,000 in goods. (_Treaties, 1._) The government also agreed to furnish two boats to take them up the river to their new home, where “the United States promise to guarantee to the said tribe the peaceable possession of the tract of land hereby ceded to them, and to restrain and prevent all white persons from hunting, settling, or otherwise intruding upon it.”