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[In 1809] Tecumseh knew the established chiefs were against him, but he didn't care about them anyway.  He regarded them as corrupt, selling the ground from beneath their people to gain bribe, or secure their positions by controlling treaty annuities.  No, Tecumseh's hopes were pinned upon the warriors, particularly the younger warriors.  He reasoned that they would be finding the compromises that came with living within surrounding white settlements irksome, and they would welcome a haven on the remote Wabash.  Ironically, Tecumseh was actually advising these Indians to give up ancestral lands, but it was to create a stronger barrier somewhere else.

Returning to Wapakoneta, which seems to have been his first port of call, Tecumseh saw much that worried him.  The Shawnees had not been adopting white culture wholesale, and they were working hard to control the liquor trade, but most of what had been achieved under the supervision of William Kirk was nothing short of blasphemous.  It rejected the Indian heritage, which had been the gift of Waashaa Monetoo.  Kirk himself was no longer at Wapakoneta, having surprisingly been dismissed by the American government, but one of his hired laborers was still at work, and a stock of tools supplied by the Americans had been left in the care of James Logan [Spemicalawba].  A sawmill stood unfinished-and progress would not be resumed until October 1811, when the Quakers took full responsibility for the project-but there was no doubt about the path the chiefs intended to follow.