Tecumseh’s Promise

Random House,

Tecumseh was born in the late 1700s in the midst of raids, killings, and land wars between the native peoples of the country and its newcomers. At 40, he is chief of the Shawnee, and heads the greatest confederacy of Indian tribes in the center of the continent. They have taken a stand to sell no more of their land to the whites, and in the creation of the “Indian Barrier State,” come incredibly close to confining white settlement to the East Coast. The years between 1810-1813, when Tecumseh’s nation would prove to be its most powerful, were pivotal in determining the future of burgeoning colonial America, and are marked by decisive events far beyond just the celebrated War of 1812; the very heart and soul of the country was in limbo. Ultimately, it was the inability of Tecumseh’s nation to fully unite that would decide the future of a people and a country. And at the center of this turmoil, the two figures of Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison, who led oddly parallel lives on either side of a deep cultural divide, will meet on one fateful day that will determine the future of an entire nation.

Centering around this deep rivalry, and the men and women at the center of it, Tecumseh’s Promise tells the story of the extraordinary series of events that shaped our nation as it strives to further shed light on the question of just who America belongs to.