Black Hawk

Born at the village of Saukenuk in west‐central Illinois, Black Hawk as a young man acquired a reputation for bravery, good leadership, and cultural conservatism. Although never a village chief, he was a respected leader.

During the War of 1812, he led many Sauks to join the British. In 1813 they fought at the Battle of Frenchtown and in the sieges of Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson. In Black Hawk's absence young Keokuk became the recognized war chief of their village, leading to long‐term competition and bitterness between the two men. The warriors returned to Illinois (1814), where they defeated U.S. forces near Rock Island twice.

After the war, the Sauks tried to resume their peacetime activities, but increasing confrontations with the pioneers occurred. By 1830, Black Hawk had become a leader for those Sauks determined to occupy their traditional Illinois lands, while Keokuk accepted the need to migrate west. Dissident Sauks, Mesquakies, and Kickapoos coalesced in early 1832 into the British Band, who considered Black Hawk an elder statesman. He encouraged them to return to Illinois, which precipitated the Black Hawk War. For his role in those events, authorities imprisoned him. He returned to Iowa in 1833 and died there in 1838.

Black Hawk's life spanned an era of transition from relative freedom for midwestern tribes to their total subjugation by the federal government. Sauk actions illustrated the limited choices Indians had in the early nineteenth century, and demonstrated how the inflexible demands Americans made of their tribal neighbors brought disaster.

[See also Black Hawk War.]

Bibliography

• Donald Jackson, ed., Black Hawk: An Autobiography, 1955.
• Roger L. Nichols, Black Hawk and the Warrior's Path, 1992

A Native American war chief, Black Hawk (1767-1838) led his people, the Sauk, in a noble fight to preserve their tribal lands in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

At the great Sauk village on the Rock River (near the present city of Rock Island, Ill.), Black Hawk was born and given the name Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kiakiak (Black Sparrow Hawk). His tribe had a long tradition of trading furs to Spaniards and Frenchmen in St. Louis for supplies and weapons. It was there Black Hawk first heard of Americans, and he took a strong dislike to them when he learned they had made the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1804 William Henry Harrison negotiated a treaty with another Sauk chief, named Quashquame, and a Fox chief; in the treaty the Sauk and Fox tribes agreed to cede 15 million acres of their land to the United States; this cession included the Sauk lands in Illinois - and thus the site of their great village on the Rock River. Black Hawk, by now a rising war chief, always claimed that Quashquame and the other chief had made this treaty with no tribal authority and had in fact been induced to sign it while drunk.

During the War of 1812, because of his hatred of the United States, Black Hawk sided with the British and fought under Tecumseh, a charismatic leader preaching Native American unity against the Americans. In 1816 Black Hawk signed a document confirming the treaty of 1804, but afterward he claimed he was ignorant of the terms of the agreement. Between 1816 and 1829 he brooded about the loss of the Sauk and Fox lands east of the Mississippi River and worked to get British help from Canada for an Indian uprising. Also, in league with White Cloud, a Waubesheik medicine man and prophet, he sought a general Native American confederation against the United States.

In June 1831, under Black Hawk's leadership, the Sauk returned to their ancient village on the Rock River. However, American troops soon arrived at Rock Island at the request of the governor of Illinois. Black Hawk thereupon withdrew to the mouth of the lowa River on the west side of the Mississippi.

A year later, in April, Black Hawk and 400 to 500 warriors and their families recrossed the Mississippi to fight for their lands in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. They believed they would receive help from Canada, and some Winnebago, Potawatomi, and Mascouten did join them. Before they could reach the site of their old village, however, American troops arrived, whereupon Black Hawk's army disintegrated.

The conflict known as the Black Hawk War began when Illinois volunteers assaulted those sent by the Sauk chief under a flag of truce to parley. Two Indians were killed in the fighting. Black Hawk led his warriors northward, pursued by troops and Illinois volunteers, which included young Abraham Lincoln. Hampered by hunger and by their women and children, the Sauk retreated west of the Mississippi to end the fighting. But they were attacked at the mouth of Bad Axe River in Wisconsin, were defeated, and surrendered. Black Hawk, two of his sons, and other chiefs, including White Cloud, were taken as prisoners to Fort Armstrong, commanded by Gen. Winfield Scott. There on Sept. 21, 1832, a new treaty was signed, called the Black Hawk Purchase, in which the Sauk gave up more of their land in return for an annuity and a reservation in lowa.

In the spring of 1833 Black Hawk was taken east for a meeting with President Andrew Jackson. Afterward, he was confined for a short time at Fortress Monroe, Va., before being returned to lowa. But Black Hawk's position as tribal leader had been undermined by younger men who did not want to fight the whites, and he spent his last days in lowa, under the supervision of Chief Keokuk. He dictated his reminiscences to a journalist, J. B. Patterson, explaining his position and his attitudes before he died on Oct. 3, 1838, at his lodge on the Des Moines River.

Further Reading

The Autobiography of Black Hawk, edited by J. B. Patterson (1833), was republished in 1955 as Black Hawk: An Autobiography, edited by Donald Jackson. Other useful works include Frank E. Stevens, The Black Hawk War: Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life (1903), and William T. Hagan, The Sac and Fox Indians (1958).

(click to enlarge)
Black Hawk, oil painting by George Catlin, 1832; in the National Museum of American Art, … (credit: Courtesy of National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)

(born 1767, Sauk Sautenuk, Va. — died Oct. 3, 1838, village on the Des Moines River, Iowa, U.S.) Sauk Indian leader. Long antagonistic to whites, Black Hawk was driven into Iowa from Illinois in 1831. Defying the government orders to vacate villages along the Rock River in Illinois, he led a faction of Sauk and Fox Indians back across the Mississippi River the following year. This act led to the brief but tragic Black Hawk War of 1832. He himself survived the final battle, a massacre. The ruthlessness of the war so affected neighbouring Indian groups that by 1837 most had fled far west, leaving most of the Northwest Territory to white settlers.

For more information on Black Hawk, visit Britannica.com.

(1767-1838), Sac Indian leader. "We always had plenty. Our children never cried with hunger; our people were never in want." This was Black Hawk's idealized memory of his early years. He was born in Saukenuk, a village of the Sac (or Sauk) Indians in Illinois. The lands provided ample crops, which the men supplemented through hunting, trading, and the spoils of war.

By 1803 Black Hawk had gained fame through his exploits in battle. But Lt. Zebulon Pike's exploratory push into the upper Mississippi valley that year signified the end of an era for the Sacs and their allies, the Foxes. Soon the Indians were debating whether to accommodate or resist the advance of the whites' frontier. One group, headed by another Sac, Keokuk, argued for accommodation, but Black Hawk fiercely opposed such a policy. He was confirmed in his convictions when Americans convinced Sac and Fox representatives in 1804 to sign a treaty they little understood.

Black Hawk, who sympathized with Tecumseh's efforts to forge a pan-Indian confederacy, sided with the British in the War of 1812. In August 1814, he assisted the British in routing the American forces of the young Zachary Taylor and was disappointed when the British ended the war. But after a brief battle with the Americans in May 1815, he too gave up fighting.

The next decade witnessed a steady decline in the fortunes of the Sacs and Foxes. White population pressures forced the Indians to adhere to the treaty of 1804 and abandon their old territory. By the end of the 1820s, all had been forcibly removed and the lands sold by the state at public auction.

Black Hawk kept returning to the land even after it had been sold. He and his followers ventured back in the summer of 1830 without a major confrontation and announced their intention to return the next year. But when the Indians claimed the land in June 1831, they were confronted by hundreds of soldiers who forced them to evacuate and sign an agreement. They were never again to return to Saukenuk and Keokuk was to be their spokesman.

Black Hawk spurned this unhappy armistice, and in a subsequent conflict between the Foxes and the Menominees, some of the Foxes sought his assistance. The smoldering resentment of the younger men fired Black Hawk's spirit: he would go back to his homeland and show the Americans and Keokuk he could not be vanquished.

This resistance only provoked the tragic conflict known as the Black Hawk War. From April until August 1832, Black Hawk and his followers fought, but the American military, swollen by volunteers including miners, farmers, and even a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, was too much for them. Black Hawk's defiant trail ended on August 3 in Wisconsin with the death of dozens of his people. He escaped but was later turned in.

He lived for six more years. He had his portrait painted and received much attention during a trip east in 1833. But he had to acknowledge Keokuk as the leader of the Sacs and Foxes, and the days of plenty became but a distant memory.

Even in death Black Hawk suffered indignity. His corpse was exhumed by a white man and his bones sold to an Iowa museum for public display. They were lost in a fire that engulfed the building in 1853.

Bibliography:

Black Hawk, Black Hawk: An Autobiography, ed. Donald Jackson (1955); William T. Hagan, The Sac and Fox Indians (1958).

Author:

Peter Iverson

See also Indians.

For other uses of Blackhawk/Black Hawk, see Black Hawk.

Black Hawk

Black Hawk or Black Sparrow Hawk (Sauk Makataimeshekiakiak (Mahkate:wi-meši-ke:hke:hkwa), "be a large black hawk")^[1] (1767–October 3, 1838) was a leader and warrior of the Sauk Native American tribe in what is now the United States. While he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle, he was not an hereditary civil chief of the Sauk. He was, however, appointed a war chief, and was generally known in English as Black Hawk. During the War of 1812 he fought on the side of the British. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors against settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War.

Early life

Black Hawk was born in the village of Saukenuk on the Rock River, in present-day Rock Island, Illinois in 1767.^[2] The Sauk used the town in the summer, for raising corn and burials, while moving across the Mississippi for winter hunts and fur trapping. Black Hawk was born a great-grandson of Thunder, Nanamakee, who was an important principal chief among the Sauk. Though, Black Hawk was never a civil chief he often led war parties and had killed his first man by the time he was 15 years old.^[3] Before his 18 birthday he had led war parties to victory.^[3]

Military career

The War of 1812

Main article: War of 1812

Black Hawk, the leader of a band of Sauks near Rock Island at Saukenuk, had always been opposed to ceding Native American lands to white settlers and their governments. Black Hawk, in particular, denied the validity of an important 1804 treaty between the Sauk and Fox nations and then Indiana Territory Governor William Henry Harrison. The treaty ceded territory, including Saukenuk, to the United States.^[4] This treaty was subsequently disputed by Black Hawk and other members of the tribes, since the full tribal councils had not been consulted, nor did those representing the tribes have authorization to cede lands.^[5]

When the War of 1812 erupted between the United Kingdom and the United States, Colonel Robert Dickson, an English fur trader, amassed a sizable force of Native Americans at Green Bay to assist the British in operations around the Great Lakes. Most of the warriors Dickson assembled were from the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Kickapoo and Ottawa tribes. Dickson then summoned Black Hawk's Band of about 200 Sauk warriors. When Black Hawk arrived he was given command of all Natives gathered at Green Bay, presented with a silk flag, a medal, and a written certificate of good behavior and alliance with the British. In addition, Dickson bestowed upon Black Hawk the rank of brevet Brigadier General.^[4] The certificate would be found 20 years later, after the Battle of Bad Axe, carefully preserved along with a flag very similar to the one Dickson gave to Black Hawk.^[4]

During the war, Black Hawk and his warriors fought in several engagements with Major-General Henry Procter on the borders of Lake Erie.^[5] Black Hawk was present at the battle of Fort Meigs, and the attack on Fort Stephenson.^{[citation needed]} The and the Indian Confederacy, led by Tecumseh, were repulsed with great losses to the British. Black Hawk despaired over the waste of lives caused by the use of European attack methods; soon after, he quit the war to return home. Back in Saukenuk he found his rival Keokuk had become the tribe's war chief.^[4] However, Black Hawk rejoined the effort toward the end of the war and participated alongside the British on campaigns along the Mississippi River near the Illinois Territory.^{[citation needed]}

After the War of 1812 ended, Black Hawk signed a peace treaty in May 1816 that re-affirmed the treaty of 1804, a provision of which Black Hawk later protested ignorance^[5]. The British then abandoned all of their promises of land recovery to Native Americans.^{[citation needed]}

Black Hawk War

Main article: Black Hawk War

As a consequence of an 1804 treaty between the Governor of Indiana Territory and a group of Sauk and Fox leaders regarding land settlement, the Sauk and Fox tribes vacated their lands in Illinois and moved west of the Mississippi in 1828. However, Chief Black Hawk and others disputed the treaty, claiming that the full tribal councils had not been consulted, nor did those representing the tribes have authorization to cede lands.^[6] Angered by the loss of his birthplace, between 1830–31 Black Hawk led a number of incursions across the Mississippi River, but was persuaded to return west each time without bloodshed. In April 1832, encouraged by promises of alliance with other tribes and the British, he again moved his so-called "British Band" of around 1000 warriors and non-combatants into Illinois.^[6] Finding no allies, he attempted to return to Iowa, but the undisciplined Illinois militia's actions led to the Battle of Stillman's Run.^[7] A number of other engagements followed, and the militias of Michigan Territory and Illinois were mobilized to hunt down Black Hawk's Band. The conflict became known as the Black Hawk War.

Black Hawk's British Band was composed of about 500 warriors and 1,000 old men, women and children when they crossed the Mississippi on April 5.^[8][9] The group included members of the Sauk, Fox and Kickapoo Nations. They crossed the river near the mouth of the Iowa River and then followed the Rock River northeast. Along the way they passed the ruins of Saukenuk and headed for the village of Ho-Chunk prophet White Cloud.^[9]

As the war progressed factions of other tribes would join, or attempt to join Black Hawk, and others would carry out acts of violence for their own personal reasons amidst the chaos of the war.^[10][11] In one example a band of hostile Ho-Chunk intent on joining Black Hawk's Band attacked and killed the party of Felix St. Vrain after the outbreak of war in an event that became known as the St. Vrain massacre.^[12] This act, was, however, an exception as most Ho-Chunk sided with the United States during the Black Hawk War.^[12] The warriors that attacked St. Vrain's party acted with no authority or oversight from the Ho-Chunk nation.^[12] Sympathetic Potawatomi warriors also joined with Black Hawk's Band in the months between April and August.^[13]

The war stretched from April to August 1832 and a number of battles, skirmishes and massacres took place. When the Illinois Militia and Michigan Territory Militia finally caught up with Black Hawk's "British Band" following the Battle of Wisconsin Heights it would lead to the decisive clash of the war at Bad Axe. At the mouth of the Bad Axe River, hundreds of men, women and children would be killed by pursuing soldiers, their Indian allies, and a U.S. gunboat.^[14]

Tour of the East

Following the Black Hawk War, with most of the British Band dead and the rest captured or disbanded, the defeated Chief Black Hawk was held in captivity at Jefferson Barracks with Neapope, White Cloud, and eight other leaders of the British Band.^[13] After 8 months, in April 1833 they were taken east, as ordered by then U.S. President Andrew Jackson. The men traveled by steamboat, carriage, and railroad, and met with large crowds wherever they went. Once in Washington, D.C., they met with Jackson and Secretary of War Lewis Cass, though there final destination was prison at Fortress Monroe in Virginia.^[13] They stayed only a few weeks at the prison, during which they mostly posed for multiple portraits by different artists. On June 5, 1833, the men were sent west by steamboat on a circuitous route that took them through many large cities. Again, the men were a spectacle everywhere they went, and met with huge crowds of people in cities such as New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia.^[13] Reaction in the west, however, was much different. For instance, in Detroit, a crowd burned and hanged effigies of the prisoners.^[13]

Near the end of his captivity in 1833, Black Hawk told his life story to a government interpreter, which was edited by a local reporter and became the first Native American autobiography published in the United States.^[15] The Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, Embracing the Traditions of his Nation, Various Wars In Which He Has Been Engaged, and His Account of the Cause and General History of the Black Hawk War of 1832, His Surrender, and Travels Through the United States. Also Life, Death and Burial of the Old Chief, Together with a History of the Black Hawk War was published in 1833 in Oquawka, Illinois, as interpreted by Antoine LeClair and edited by J.B. Patterson.^{[2][citation needed]}

Last Days

Black Hawk sculpture by Lorado Taft

After that tour, Black Hawk was transferred back to his nation, and he lived with them along the Iowa River and later the Des Moines River in what is now southeast Iowa. He died on October 3, 1838 after two weeks of illness, and was buried on the farm of his friend James Jordan on the north bank of the Des Moines River in Davis County. In July 1839, his remains were stolen by James Turner who prepared his skeleton for exhibition. Black Hawk’s sons Nashashuk and Gamesett went to Governor Robert Lucas of Iowa Territory, who used his influence to bring the bones to security in his offices in Burlington where, with the permission of the Chief's sons, they were left in the care of the Burlington Geological and Historical Society. When the Society's building burned down in 1855, Black Hawk’s remains were destroyed.^[2]

Legacy

A sculpture by Lorado Taft overlooks the Rock River in Oregon, Illinois, titled The Eternal Indian, this statue is commonly known as the Black Hawk Statue.^[16] Black Hawk was popular among the Easterners who settled the Midwest and a large number of present-day commemorations exist. These are mostly in the form of eponyms; roads, sports teams and schools are commonly named after Black Hawk.

The claim that Jim Thorpe is descended from Black Hawk has been debunked by his daughter Grace.^[17] She said that the family was descended from the "Thunder Clan" (Black Hawk's clan) but there was no direct relation to Black Hawk. However, Black Hawk was one of Thorpe's heroes; his daughter said he stated that being descended from the same clan as Black Hawk made him as proud as his Olympic gold medals. Part of the confusion about the Thorpe–Black Hawk connection probably comes from the fact that his mother, Charlotte, was descended from a Potawatomi chief, Louis Vieux.^[17]

References

1. ^ Bright, William (2004). Native American Place Names of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, pg. 66
2. ^ ^{a b c}
3. ^ ^{a b}
4. ^ ^{a b c d}
5. ^ ^{a b c}
6. ^ ^{a b}
7. ^ "May 14: Black Hawk's Victory at the Battle of Stillman's Run," Historic Diaries: The Black Hawk War, Wisconsin State Historical Society. Retrieved 6 August 2007.
8. ^ Harmet, "Apple River Fort," p. 13-13.
9. ^ ^{a b} Lewis, James. "Introduction," The Black Hawk War of 1832, Abraham Lincoln Digitization Project, Northern Illinois University. Retrieved 20 September 2007.
10. ^ "May 21, Indian Creek, Ill.: Abduction of the Hall Sisters," Historic Diaries: The Black Hawk War, Wisconsin State Historical Society. Retrieved 20 September 2007.
11. ^ Matile, Roger. "The Black Hawk War: Massacre at Indian Creek," Ledger-Sentinel (Oswego, Illinois), 31 May 2007. Retrieved 20 September 2007.
12. ^ ^{a b c}
13. ^ ^{a b c d e}
14. ^ McCann, Dennis. "Black Hawk's name, country's shame lives on," Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, April 28 2007. Retrieved July 30 2007.
15. ^ "Black Hawk Remembers Village Life Along the Mississippi," History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web, George Mason University. Retrieved 20 September 2007.
16. ^ Oregon Sculpture Trail, The Eternal Indian, City of Oregon. Retrieved 28 September 2007.
17. ^ ^{a b}

External links

• Portrait with his son Whirling Thunder, painted by John Wesley Jarvis in 1833 (at the Gilcrease Museum)
• Works by Black Hawk at Project Gutenberg
• Black Hawk State Historic Site, Rock Island, Illinois, the original site of Saukenuk
• Black Hawk Surrender Speech
• "Black Hawk (Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak)", John E. Hallwas, ed., Illinois Literature: The Nineteenth Century, Illinois Heritage Press, Macomb, Illinois (1986)

Black Hawk War (1832)
Factions	British Band • Fox • Ho-Chunk • Illinois Militia • Kickapoo • Menominee • Michigan Territorial Militia • Potawatomi • Sauk • United States Army
People	John Giles Adams • Henry Apple • Elizabeth Armstrong • Henry Atkinson • David Bailey • Black Hawk • Hugh Brady • Jesse B. Brown • Jefferson Davis • John Dement • Henry Dodge • Mike Girty • Henry Gratiot • Rachel Hall • Sylvia Hall • William S. Hamilton • James D. Henry • George W. Jones • Keewassee • Keokuk • Abraham Lincoln • Neapope • Adam Payne • Elijah Phillips • Alexander Posey • James Sample • Lucy Sample • Winfield Scott • Shabbona • Adam Wilson Snyder • James W. Stephenson • Isaiah Stillman • Clack Stone • James M. Strode • Felix St. Vrain • Zachary Taylor • Wabokieshiek • Waubonsee • Weesheet • Samuel Whiteside •
Places	Illinois: Apple River Fort • Buffalo Grove • Dixon's Ferry • Fort Armstrong • Galena • Indian Creek • Kellogg's Grove • Plum River • Saukenuk • Stillman Creek • Stillman's Run Battle Site • Waddams Grove • Yellow Creek Michigan Territory (Wisconsin): Bad Axe River • Fort Blue Mounds • Black Hawk Tree • Fort Defiance • Fort Hamilton • Fort Jackson • Fort Koshkonong • Gratiot's Grove • Hamilton's Diggings • Pecatonica River • Sinsinawa Mound • Wisconsin Heights Battlefield • Wisconsin River •
Engagements	Minor engagements • Battle of Stillman's Run • Buffalo Grove ambush • Plum River raid • Indian Creek massacre • St. Vrain massacre • Attacks at Fort Blue Mounds • Spafford Farm massacre • Battle of Horseshoe Bend • Battle of Waddams Grove • Battle of Kellogg's Grove • Attack at Ament's Cabin • Battle of Apple River Fort • Sinsinawa Mound raid • Battle of Wisconsin Heights • Battle of Bad Axe

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