Tecumseh’s speech to the Osages and Pontiac’s speech at Detroit

Tecumseh’s speech to the Osages and Pontiac’s speech at Detroit

Listening to different statements made by people portrays a correlation which the speech has with the person reading it. However, some speeches leave readers as well as the audience not satisfied with especially when the speechwriter is not well known. The paper focus to compare Tecumseh’s speech to the Osages and Pontiac’s speech at Detroit

The two statements have contrastive relationships that make them unique from each other. However, Pontiac’s remains true to his old stories based on the Native America people because the author was an English man who knew the Ottawa language(Pontiac 224). The speech also contains social issues such as “worshipping of the devil” which was common among the NativeAmericans. Notably, the speech is assumed to have been influenced by European contact because, after the construction of Christian churches in the area, the social lives were oppressed (Pontiac 224).

Additionally, in comparison with Tecumseh’s speech, the latter seems to be more straightforward because of the use of a first-person narrator to write the speech. The young boy in Tecumseh’s speech makes the statement much attractive and easy to understand as well as analyze. The approach of presentation in each statement differs because of the different storyline that each wanted to portray.

The difference in messages is also portrayed in the embracement towards the gun. According to Tecumseh, gun signifies victory over the colonial dominance while in Pontiac; he embraces the Great Spirit to show the power in trusting the spirits to win victory. Tecumseh associates victory by war while Pontiac views Christianity as the source of peace.

The Great Spirit

The Great Spirit in both speeches is similar because they are used to restore peace and cohesion. They act as the unit circle where the society can reclaim dignity (Tecumseh 233). However, they differ in the sense that one, Pontiac’s is peaceful while the latter is warlike.

In conclusion, Tecumseh’s seems to be less accurate than Pontiac’s because when incidences were happening, he was still a young boy. Similarly, the speech was written after eleven years of the occurrences making it losing its actual meaning due to the distortion of some crucial scenes.

 

Work Cited

Pontiac.  Speech at Detroit.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  Vol. 1.  Shorter 8th ed.  Ed. Nina Baym, et al.  New York:  Norton, 2008.

Tecumseh.  Speech to the Osages.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1.  Shorter 8th ed.  Ed. Nina Baym, et al.  New York:  Norton, 2008.

 

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