One hundred and forty years of warfare between the Native American tribes, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, each fighting for primacy in the trade of furs for European manufactured goods, climaxed in the great geopolitical struggle of the age, the French and Indian War. The war ended with the French surrender of all territorial claims in Canada. At the end of that struggle, a significant political and cultural change happened among citizen of British Crown colonies in North America. With a Calebesque will to take what they thought of as theirs, whites pour over the Appalachians and down the Ohio. But there were others who thought the land was theirs and would fight for it—the native tribes of what becomes known as the Northwest Territory. From these tribes arose one of the most powerful and charismatic leaders of any nation, place, or time—the Shawnee, Tecumseh. (The English translation of that name is “A Panther Crosses Over”.) In addition to being charismatic, Tecumseh was extremely intelligent and farsighted. He had great martial skills and courage, but far greater was his ability to build coalitions. He spent twenty-one years building such a coalition of native tribes from the Caribbean to Canada. Fifty thousand warriors who would rise together to chase the Americans back east of the Allegheny Mountains when, “I stomp my foot.” Against Tecumseh stood an equally talented, implacable, and shrewd opponent, William Henry Harrison. Harrison’s job, assigned to him by President John Adams, was to make the Northwest Territory available for white settlement. It is a job at which he excelled. Not since Hector of Troy battled Achilles of the Achaeans has any struggle of civilizations been led by two such fascinating warriors who were so totally representative of the archetype of their respective cultures. The decades long struggle between these two comes to a dramatic conclusion at the Battle of Tippecanoe, where Tecumseh learns that the ability to control one’s world does not mean one can control one’s family. The story of this struggle, between two men of extremely forceful personalities thrown against each other by destiny, is A Panther Crosses Over. A Panther Crosses Over is the first book of The American Trilogy series, three novels that tell the story of the rise and fall of the society and culture that is the American Midwest—1769–1999.