World history knows many legends and stories about the curses of kings and the highest nobility. It is interesting that in the history of the United States there is also a presidential one. It is called the Tekumseh curse after the person who cursed American presidents. He was the chief of the Shawnee tribe.
This originally large tribe lived in the territories of the modern American states of Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. After the arrival of white settlers, the Shawnee were pushed into the territory of Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Texas. This Indian tribe had to migrate a lot in the past due to the attacks of the Iroquois.
Now the descendants of those Shawnee live mainly in Oklahoma. It is difficult to calculate their number accurately, since the Indians not only live in their own communities, but also assimilate, often marry white Americans. According to various estimates, there are now Shawnee in the United States from 6 to 14 thousand.
Curse of Tekumse
The legendary leader Tekumse tried to resist the expansion of the Europeans. To do this, he wanted to unite different Indian tribes in the struggle for their ancestral territories. Together with him, his brother Tenskvatava waged the war against the whites. Tekumse is known as a man of unparalleled courage. He took part in the Civil War of 1812. He fought on the side of the British against the Americans.
Tekumse was killed in hand-to-hand combat in 1813, on October 5th. Before his death, he cursed the "leaders" (presidents) of the white invaders for breaking the treaty. The curse was that every president of America down to the seventh generation would die before the end of his presidential term. The date of election to office was set by the condition of the curse. It had to be divisible by 20 without a remainder.
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7 knees
1. In the beliefs of the Indians, much importance was given to numbers and different patterns. Unusually, the Tecumseh curse did come true. The First Tribe was William Henry Harrison. He did not become president immediately. Initially, he served as governor, moreover, he was elected to this post in 1840 (divisible by 20 without a remainder).
Harrison, according to the 1809 treaty (signed in Fort Wayne), actually took away more than 12 thousand square meters from the indigenous population of America. km of its ancestral lands. A year after being elected governor, he became president, but he did not sit in this chair for long - only a month. From him the curse of Tekumse began to come true.
2. Abraham Lincoln became the second tribe. He was elected president by the Americans in the unfortunate 1860s. Lincoln managed to be re-elected for a second term (1864), but could not escape the curse of the Indian chief. He was shot in the head in 1965.
3. The third tribe was President James Garfield. Its citizens were elected in the same unlucky year 1880. Garfield managed to be president for a little over a year, after which he was overtaken by a bullet. The injury was not fatal, but inept doctors were at the disposal of the president. As a result of their barbaric treatment (they literally crawled into Garfield's wound with dirty fingers to get a bullet), the president died in a fever after 3 months.
4. The fourth tribe was also condemned by the curse to death, William McKinley. In 1900, he was re-elected for a second term, after which the curse of the Indian leader began to work. In 1901, an attempt was made on his life. Anarchist Leon Cholgosh's bullet stuck in the president's back. They tried to save the man, but the wound began to fester. McKinley died of gangrene in terrible agony. This happened a few weeks after the injury.
5. The fifth tribe was Warren Harding. He was elected to the highest office in 1920. This President of America died under unexplained circumstances (probably from a heart attack or stroke) 3 years after his inauguration.
6. The sixth and most successful was Franklin Roosevelt. He was re-elected president several times. This happened once in the "bad" 1940. Despite his luck, Roosevelt did not escape the fate of the victim of the Tekumseh curse. He died of stroke during his fourth re-election as president (1944).
7. The last, seventh tribe was John F. Kennedy, who was elected to his post in 1960 by coincidence. The story of his assassination in 1963 is widely known. After Kennedy, the curse of the Shawnee chief ceased to work. It has been doing its dirty work for more than 1.5 centuries. According to legend, his strength was only enough for 7 knees.
The next president is Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980. A year after the inauguration, he was also wounded, and very seriously. The bullet touched a lung. But either the curse has ceased to work, or medicine has become better, and yet Reagan managed to survive. Subsequent US presidents also often avoided death, although they had every chance of dying. So the curse of Tekumse worked, and even in compliance with all the conventions.