Gallop Toward the Sun
Tecumseh and william henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation
The conquest of Indigenous land in the American East through corrupt treaties and genocidal violence laid the groundwork for the conquest of the American West. Acclaimed author Peter Stark exposes the fundamental conflicts at play through the little-known but consequential struggle between two extraordinary leaders.
William Henry Harrison was born to a prominent Virginia family, son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He journeyed west, became governor of vast Indiana Territory and sought statehood by attracting settlers and imposing one-sided treaties. Tecumseh belonged to an honored line of Shawnee warriors and chiefs. His father died while fighting the Virginians flooding into Kentucky in the 1770s, and in his dying words, Tecumseh’s father extracted a promise from his sons to "Never give in" to the land-hungry Americans. Tecumseh was, by all accounts, one of the nineteenth century’s greatest leaders.
An eloquent speaker, he travelled from Minnesota to Florida and west to the Great Plains convincing far flung tribes to to join a great confederacy to hold onto their lands and face down their common, American, enemy. Eager to stop U.S. expansion, the British backed Tecumseh’s confederacy in a series of battles during the forgotten western front of the War of 1812 that would determine control of the North American continent.
Tecumseh’s brave stand was likely the last chance to protect Indigenous people from U.S. expansion – and prevent the upstart United States from becoming a world power. In this fast-paced narrative—with its bloody battles, high-stakes diplomacy, and sharply drawn characters—Peter Stark brings this pivotal moment to life.
Praise for gallop toward the sun
"As the title promises, Peter Stark's taut, multi-layered narrative of the legendary Shawnee chief Tecumseh, William Henry Harrison, and the making of a very young USA, pulled me in and wouldn't let go. Gallop Toward the Sun offers a much-needed reevaluation of this crucial period of our nation's history."
— Laurence Bergreen, author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe.
“Too many Americans still believe the myth that America’s Indian Wars began in the far West after the Civil War. In this convincing and irresistible dual biography of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and his nemesis, William Henry Harrison, Peter Stark documents how America’s fatal confrontation with the indigenous tribes began as soon as the American Revolution was over. Stark is a writer who brilliantly understands both narrative story-telling and the major, violent themes of American life. You can’t understand America without understanding this book.”
— Rinker Buck, bestselling author of The Oregon Trail and Life on the Mississippi
"What a good read...Tecumseh’s story deserves to be told often and well, and by coupling him with Harrison, Stark effectively presents this as a crucial collision in the making and meaning of America, warts and all."
— Colin Calloway, author of The Indian World of George Washington and Kimball Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College
"Peter Stark is a master of bringing history to breathing, bleeding life. In Gallop Toward the Sun, he animates a little-known era with powerful twin protagonists -- Tecumseh and Harrison -- each epic in his own way. Stark adds a provocative thesis and argues it passionately. A great read."
— Michael Punke, bestselling author of The Revenant and Ridgeline
"Peter Stark takes us back to a crucial fork in the road of the frontier past, where the course of our national life might have turned out so differently. You can’t read this fresh and surprising work without thinking, “What if?”
— Hampton Sides, NYT bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice
"In Stark's vivid and skillful and passionate telling, the story of the struggle between Tecumseh, one of the greatest Americans, and William Henry Harrison, the future President who invaded his homeland and betrayed him, carries the reader breathlessly along. If you don't know about Tecumseh, you don't know the first thing about the U.S.A. This is a terrific book."
— Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains
"Vivid biographical detail and astute analysis of how Harrison and Tecumseh’s competing visions for the future fueled the conflict make this is an informative chapter in the history of the American frontier.”
— Publishers Weekly, April 2023