Tenskwautawa's original name was Lalwethika, or "the
rattle" (not a good thing to be named.) He was generally known as the local
drunk until his 1805 visions. His chosen name means "The Open Door." Although he certainly was a unifying force for the Shawnee and the Native alliance, there was a
dark side to his
religious movement. He was absolutely intolerant of viewpoints contrary to his own; in 1806, he instigated a sort of
witch hunt among the
Delaware and
Wyandot tribes, in which a chief and several tribespeople were burned as "witches" for converting to
Christianity.
In 1811,
William Henry Harrison camped his army across
Tippecanoe Creek from Prophetstown, where Tenskwatawa was living. The Prophet ignored his brother's orders to wait for reinforcements and led a
suicide squad against Harrison. The battle ended in a draw, but the Shawnee warriors were forced to retreat, and Harrison burned Prophetstown. In 1812, he led what would be his final
military mission against Harrison, which also ended in failure.
After the death of his brother in 1813, Tenskwautawa wandered around for a few years. In 1826, he led a group of 200 Shawnee from Ohio to Kansas, a journey of starvation which few survived. The Prophet died in 1836, a man hated by his own people.