Crushing the American Indians
After the Battle of Lake Erie gave America control of the lake, the Army of the Northwest moved against the Tecumseh confederation. British General Henry Proctor was forced to withdraw from Detroit and the Americans under William Henry Harrison pursued him. When Proctor arrived at Amherstberg he found the fort there indefensible, in part because its cannon had been removed to arm the British ships captured in Put-in-Bay. Proctor continued to withdraw up the Thames River, accompanied by Tecumseh and between 500 to 1,000 American Indians. They retreated to Moraviantown, the site of a Lenape town.
Just below Moraviantown the Americans caught up with the British and Indians and at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, dealt them a crushing defeat, sending some of the British into headlong retreat, and capturing about 600 of the rest, who surrendered. The Americans then destroyed the Indians, who fought back as the British surrendered or fled. Tecumseh was killed. Following his death the remaining Indians withdrew. The Americans then burned the village of Moraviantown. The Battle of the Thames ended the Tecumseh confederation and the United States had retaken control of the frontier.
Tecumseh’s confederation had sparked a civil war among factions of the Creek Indians along the Mississippi. Most of the Creek Indians wanted to remain at peace with the United States, but a war party known as the Red Sticks began waging war against their fellow Creek and the United States, leading to the Fort Mims massacre of American militia and their families. Andrew Jackson assembled an army of militia from several states and territories and began a punishing campaign against the Red Sticks, and by the early spring of 1814 he was supported by US regular troops under his command.
In March of 1814 Jackson and his troops caught about 1,000 Red Sticks at their fortified village at what is known as Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. About 800 of the Creeks were killed in the battle, after which Jackson moved his army to a fortified post on the Alabama River which he called Fort Jackson. There Jackson dictated the treaty through which the Creek Indians ceded most of western Georgia and nearly the whole of what is now the state of Alabama. Some of the land the Creeks ceded to the United States was actually claimed and occupied by the Cherokee, allies of the United States at the time.
Jackson then moved against the surviving Red Sticks, most of whom fled to the Seminole lands in Florida. One of them was named Osceola. The cession of the Creek lands was the only territory gained by any side which was retained after the War of 1812. Jackson and Harrison both built reputations during the campaigns of the War of 1812 which made them national heroes and eventually helped both of them win the Presidency. With the defeat of Tecumseh’s confederation and the Red Sticks all of the eastern American Indian tribes were subdued, other than renegade groups and the Seminole.