Purification
Tenskwatawa had a series of religious visions which transformed his life and led him to reject his old ways. More revelations followed in succeeding months, revelations that the white invaders from the east were “not my children, but the children of the Evil Spirit.". He led a purification movement to return his people to their traditional ways, and to extirpate the evils represented by the Americans. Indian witches still remained the most active agents of that spirit on earth, and Tenskwatawa sought to identify and destroy them. He formed a new community of followers near the present site of Greenville, Ohio in 1805. His following grew even more rapidly after he accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 1806 humiliating Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison. Harrison had publicly derided Tenskwatawa as a fraud to the tribal leaders and the accuracy of Tenskwatawa's prediction was taken as proof of his power by many members of the tribes.
His followers eventually followed him west to form a large multi-tribal community known to the whites as Prophetstown or Tippecanoe in what is now Indiana in 1808. The site had both practical and spiritual significance. The site was located near the juncture of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers. Such places at the junction of two rivers had significant spiritual significance in tribal culture. The site was also a geographic central point to the political and military alliance that was forming around Tenskwatawa's brother Tecumseh.
When some chiefs tried to promote compromise and conciliation, Tenskwatawa, proclaiming his obedience to the Great Spirit, lashed out against these government sympathizing chiefs, depicting them as wicked traitors and minions of the Americans.
Willig (1997) argues that Tippecanoe was not only the largest Native American community in the Great Lakes region but served as a major center of Indian culture and base to expel the whites and European culture. It was an inter-tribal, religious stronghold along the Wabash River in Indiana for three thousand Native Americans, Tippecanoe, known as Prophetstown to whites, served as a temporary barrier to settlers' westward movement. Led by Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, thousands of Algonquin-speaking Indians gathered at Tippecanoe to gain spiritual strength. US government attempts, from the George Washington to William Henry Harrison administrations, to rid the area of the numerous Indian tribes eventually met with success as the Indians retreated westward by 1840 to avoid the large numbers of whites entering their territory.
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