Lafayette Journal & Courier

Prophetstown focus of summit

April 4, 2008

(College of Liberal Arts) -- Andy Warrior stood and looked around at the buildings re-creating a portion of the American Indian village known as Prophets-town along the Wabash River.

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"It's humbling to be here," he said. "To see that this was at one time a stopping point for our people."

Warrior, director of cultural preservation for the Absentee Shawnee Tribe based in Oklahoma, was one of about 30 people from around the country who toured the site Thursday morning.

The tour kicked off "Prophets-town Revisited: An Early Native American Studies Summit," which will run through Saturday at Purdue University. The three-day summit will include discussions and workshops about Prophetstown and other American Indian issues, as well as an evening with award-winning American Indian filmmaker Chris Eyre.

"Most places commemorate the destruction of Prophetstown," said Dawn Marsh, Purdue assistant professor of Native American history. "This conference was set up to bring scholars and people interested in the topic to celebrate more the founding of the community and its historic importance."

Marsh served as the tour guide for the site, located in Prophetstown State Park in Battle Ground.

Founded as a religious community in 1808 by Shawnee Indian Tenskwatawa, also known as The Prophet, the community drew hundreds of American Indians from several tribes who shared his vision of resisting the expansion of European settlers into the area. Tenskwatawa's brother Tecumseh also shared that idea, Marsh said.

The U.S. Army destroyed the village in 1811, around the time of the Battle of Tippecanoe. This year mark's the 200th anniversary of its founding, Marsh said.

Marsh expressed her disappointment in the recreation of the village that includes a council house, medicine lodge, chief's cabin and granary. She said more work is needed to create a more accurate depiction of the village. The real village was much bigger, she said.

Paula Bongen agreed. She is a member of the Indiana Historical Bureau.

"They ought to burn everything down and start over again," she said.

Though some expressed disappointment about the buildings at the site, others pointed out that the site itself is more important than any buildings on it.

"The war that he fought is still being fought today," Warrior said about Tecumseh. "As far as preservation, resistance to assimilation, it's just a different approach at a different time."