The Shawnee Leader Who Almost Built A Native American Nation — And Why His Plan Was The Last Real Chance

This extension was the key innovation.

If individual Shawnee chiefs had no right to sell Shawnee land without the consent of all the Shawnee, then by the same logic, no group of Native nations could sell the land of all Native peoples without the consent of all.

The Northwest Territory — all of it, from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes — was the collective heritage of all the peoples who had lived there.

Tecumseh made this argument explicitly and repeatedly in his negotiations with Harrison and other American officials.