Response Assignment 1

Tecumseh to William Henry Harrison, 1810

Your response should be up to two pages double spaced long. It should include a clear thesis and a set of arguments that responds to the questions below.

Part I: Essay – Questions to be answered:

• What is the significance of this document for understanding America at the beginning of the 19th Century?
• Why does Tecumseh believe that U.S. policies toward Native Americans are flawed?
• What does Tecumseh believe that Native Americans should do to protect tribes that inhabit North America?
• What does Tecumseh’s letter tell us about Native American resistance?
• Discuss the relationship of Tecumseh’s letter to the letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison regarding policies toward the Native Americans. How does Jefferson’s letter influence your interpretation of Tecumseh’s plan for resistance?

Part II: Discussion Question – please add this below your essay (not as part of it). You can put it on the same page as your essay, but in a separate section.

• Please pose one discussion question about this reading. What do you think is important to talk about with regard to this source? What is a question that you could ask to deepen your understanding by relating it to other readings, class themes, or issues in American history?

Responses will be graded according to the following criteria:

• Does the response address all the questions posed?
• Does the response demonstrate that the student has done a close and careful reading of the text?
• Does the response offer a thoughtful engagement with the text?
• Does the response demonstrate a concerted effort to think about the significance of the text and its relationship to course topics and other readings in the class, specifically the letter from Thomas Jefferson to Harrison?
• Does the response make sense? Are the ideas within it clearly communicated?
• Is the response written in essay form, with a thesis, a set of paragraphs that each address a distinct argument in support of the thesis, and a conclusion?
• Have you included one question, separate from the essay, that engages the source?

This is the reading.