The Prophet Tenkswatawa.
Tenkswatawa (1775 - 1836), known to whites as the Prophet, was the younger son of the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, and was the spiritual leader of the Indian confederacy that Tecumseh organized in the Confederation of Indiana in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Tenkswatawa was born in early 1775 to Puckenshinwa, a leader of the Kispokotha clan of the Shawnee. Tenkswatawa was one of three triplet brothers; although one of Tenkswatawa's brothers died in infancy, the other survived to adulthood. Known as Lalawethika ("The Noisy One") as a youth, he showed little promise at first, falling victim to alcoholism. Tecumseh, who was seven years his senior, was very athletic and soon became a favorite of the Kispokotha.
In his late twenties, Lalawethika experienced a series of visions that led him to give up alcohol and reform himself. He renamed himself Tenkswatawa ("Open Door"), and began to preach to the other Indians that they should reject assimilation to European ways and return to their old traditions. He and his brother Tecumseh began to form their confederation, uniting several Indian tribes of Indiana and Vandalia, including the Osage, the Missouri, the Dakota, and the Iowa. By 1808, a "pact of union" and political organization had been established, and Tecumseh began leading a powerful army against the Indiana militia. He defeated a force led by General William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Twin Forks in 1810, and destroyed another force of Indiana militia the following year at the Battle of Bloody Creek.
By 1814 Tecumseh's army was laying siege to Burgoyne, the capital of the Confederation of North America. Although Tecumseh was unable to take the city, he was able to avoid defeat by the combined armies of the C.N.A., and the Indian confederation led by his brother and himself remained a constant threat to white settlers in Indiana for the next generation.