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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
| Biography: Black Hawk |
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).
| US History Companion: Black Hawk |
(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.
| Works: Works by Black Hawk |
| 1833 | Autobiography. Also published as Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, the book is the Sauk and Fox Indian chief's attempt to present his version of the events of the Black Hawk War (1832). Black Hawk dictated his story to Antoine Le Claire, a government interpreter at Fort Armstrong, and the journalist J. B. Patterson added contemporary literary flourishes for its publication. To settle a dispute over the authenticity of the autobiography, Donald Jackson published his research in a 1955 edition of the book, concluding that the work did indeed come from Black Hawk. The text is considered invaluable because of its Native American perspective on the war. |
| Wikipedia: Black Hawk (chief) |
| Black Hawk (Mahkate:wi-meši-ke:hke:hkwa) |
|
|---|---|
| 1767 – October 3, 1838 (aged 70–71) | |
 |
|
| Place of birth | Saukenuk, Illinois |
| Place of death | Davis County, Iowa |
| Allegiance | Sauk; (British Band, Band of 1812) |
| Years of service | 1782–1832 |
| Rank | War chief (not a civil, hereditary chief) |
| Commands held | Band of 1812, British Band |
| Battles/wars | Various tribal conflicts, War of 1812, Black Hawk War |
| Relations | great-grandfather, Nanamakee |
Black Hawk or Black Sparrow Hawk (Sauk Makataimeshekiakiak (Mahkate:wi-meši-ke:hke:hkwa), "be a large black hawk") (Spring 1767 – October 3, 1838) was a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle, he was not a hereditary civil chief of the Sauk, but was an appointed war chief. He was generally known in English as Black Hawk.
During the War of 1812, Black Hawk 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. After the war he was captured and taken to the eastern U.S. where he and other British Band leaders toured several cities. Black Hawk died in 1838 in what is now southeastern Iowa. He left behind an enduring legacy through many eponyms, and other tributes.
Contents |
Black Hawk, or Black Sparrow Hawk (Sauk Makataimeshekiakiak (Mahkate:wi-meši-ke:hke:hkwa), "be a large black hawk")[1] was born in the village of Saukenuk on the Rock River, in present-day Rock Island, Illinois in 1767.[2] The Sauk used the village in the summer for raising corn and as a burial site, 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. Although 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 18th birthday he had led war parties to victory.[3]
Black Hawk served as the leader of a band of Sauks at Saukenuk. He had always been opposed to ceding Native American lands to white settlers and their governments. In particular, he denied the validity of Quashquame's 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 because the full tribal councils had not been consulted, nor did those representing the tribes have authorization to cede lands.[5] Black Hawk participated in skirmishes against the newly constructed Fort Madison in the disputed land; this was the first time he fought directly with U.S. forces.[6]
When the War of 1812 erupted between Great Britain and her northern American colonies 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 quite 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 at the battle of Fort Meigs, and the attack on Fort Stephenson.[7][8] The British 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 that 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 in campaigns along the Mississippi River near the Illinois Territory.[7] Black Hawk helped to push the Europeans out of the upper Mississippi River valley, at the Battle of Credit Island and by harassing U.S. troops at Fort Johnson.[9] 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]
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.[10] Angered by the loss of his birthplace, between 1830 and 1831 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 1,000 warriors and non-combatants into Illinois.[10] Finding no allies, he attempted to return to Iowa, but the undisciplined Illinois militia's actions led to the Battle of Stillman's Run.[11] 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.[12][13] The group included members of the Sauk, Fox and Kickapoo Tribes. 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.[13]
As the war progressed, factions of other tribes joined, or attempt to join Black Hawk, and others carried out acts of violence for their own personal reasons amidst the chaos of the war.[14][15] 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.[16] This act was, however, an exception as most Ho-Chunk sided with the United States during the Black Hawk War.[16] The warriors that attacked St. Vrain's party acted with no authority or oversight from the Ho-Chunk nation.[16] Sympathetic Potawatomi warriors also joined with Black Hawk's Band in the months between April and August.[17]
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 led to the decisive clash of the war at Bad Axe. At the mouth of the Bad Axe River, hundreds of men, women and children were killed by pursuing soldiers, their Indian allies, and a U.S. gunboat.[18]
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.[17] After eight 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 their final destination was prison at Fortress Monroe in Virginia.[17] They stayed only a few weeks at the prison, during which they mostly posed for 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.[17] Reaction in the west, however, was much different. For instance, in Detroit, a crowd burned and hanged effigies of the prisoners.[17]
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.[19] 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 Cincinnati, Ohio, as interpreted by Antoine LeClaire and edited by J.B. Patterson.[2][7] The book immediately became a best seller.[7]
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.[20]
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.[21] In modern times Black Hawk has become a tragic hero and a large number of present-day commemorations exist.[7] These are mostly in the form of eponyms; roads, sports teams and schools are commonly named after Black Hawk. Of all the wars fought in United States history, the Black Hawk War is one of few wars named for a person.[22]
The claim that Jim Thorpe is directly related to Black Hawk has been debunked by his daughter, Grace.[23] 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.[23]
The Iowa Hawkeye athletic teams of the University of Iowa are all named after Black Hawk, via an editor of the Burlington Hawk Eye newspaper who admired Black Hawk's memory.[24]
The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League are indirectly named after Chief Black Hawk.[citation needed] The Blackhawks' first owner, Frederic McLaughlin, was a commander with the 333rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 86th Infantry Division during World War I.[citation needed] This Division was nicknamed the "Blackhawk Division" after Chief Black Hawk. McLaughlin named the hockey team in honor of the military unit.[citation needed]
The United States Army named the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter for the famous Sauk Chief.[citation needed] The U.S. Army generally uses Native American names for its aircraft.
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| US History Companion. The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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