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The Shawnee Indian leader Tecumseh was killed on October 5th, 1813, at the age of 45. He met his death near the Thames River in Ontario, Canada. Tecumseh was a renowned chief and orator who led strong resistance against white settlers in the Ohio Valley. Tecumseh sided with the British during the war of 1812, and managed to capture Detroit before retreating from an army led by future president William Henry Harrison. Although a frieze scene of his death in the Capitol Rotunda shows him being shot by Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, there are conflicting reports of his manner of death. With
Tecumseh's death came the end of effective Native American resistance to U.S. settlement of the Northwest Territory, yet his most famous words survive: "No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?"
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