Benson John Lossing was an American historian, known best for his illustrated books on the American Revolution and American Civil War and features in Harper's Magazine. He was a charter trustee of Vassar College.
Lossing in 1860
Benson John Lossing by Thomas Seir Cummings (c. 1835)
Portrait of Tecumseh by Benson John Lossing, after a pencil sketch by French trader Pierre Le Dru at Vincennes, published in Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812
Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting intertribal unity. Even though his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian popular history.
Painting of Tecumseh based on an 1808 sketch
Black Hoof (Catecahassa) emerged in the 1790s as the principal spokesman for the Ohio Shawnees. Most Shawnees followed his lead rather than Tecumseh's.
Tenskwatawa, Tecumseh's younger brother, founded a religious movement in 1805. (George Catlin, 1832)
In a famous 1810 meeting, Tecumseh accosts William Henry Harrison when he refuses to rescind the Treaty of Fort Wayne.
