The defeat of Tecumseh was, for Harrison, a political asset that paid dividends for decades.

Tecumseh, who understood what Harrison was, died before seeing the full consequences of his defeat.

The Memory Of Tecumseh: A Complex Legacy

The way Tecumseh has been remembered in the century and a half since his death is itself an interesting historical story.

Among the various Native peoples who were connected to his confederacy, he has been remembered as a hero — a leader who saw what needed to be done, who came closer than anyone to actually doing it, and who died in the attempt.

The specific forms of this memory vary across communities, and the oral traditions that preserve it are not uniform, but the general evaluation is consistent: he was right about the problem and right about the solution, and the failure was not a failure of vision but of circumstances and, at Tippecanoe, of execution.