Among the American public, the memory of Tecumseh has been more complicated.

He became, in the popular literature of the nineteenth century, a figure of romantic tragedy — the “noble savage” who was great enough to be almost American, who understood the inevitability of American expansion and who died fighting against it with dignity.

This framing, which was patronizing in its assumptions and inaccurate in its analysis, nevertheless expressed something real: a widespread recognition that Tecumseh was a significant historical figure who deserved acknowledgment.

The towns and institutions named after him — seven cities in the United States and one in Canada, as the History.com article notes — are part of this memory.