For Tecumseh, the war created both opportunity and danger.

The opportunity: the British were now formally at war with the Americans, and British military support for the confederacy — which had been cautious and indirect while the two powers were nominally at peace — could now be explicit and substantial.

British commanders needed Native allies, and the confederacy could provide them in large numbers.

In exchange, the confederacy could obtain British weapons, supplies, and military backing that gave it a fighting chance against the American military.

The danger: the war placed the fate of the confederacy’s independence at the mercy of the British military’s performance.