STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE.  THE BLACK HAWK WAR


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STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE
by Reuben Gold Thwaites
New York  Cincinnati  Chicago
American Book Company
Copyright, 1900, by Reuben Gold Thwaites.
Sto. Badger Sta.
W. P. 7
page(s) 134-145


THE BLACK HAWK WAR

In November, 1804, the Sac and Fox Indians, in return for a paltry annuity
of a thousand dollars, ceded to the United States fifty million acres of
land in eastern Missouri, northwestern Illinois, and south western
Wisconsin. There was an unfortunate clause in this compact, which quite
unexpectedly became one of the chief causes of the Black Hawk War of 1832;
instead of obliging the Indians at once to vacate the ceded territory, it
was stipulated that, "as long as the lands which are now ceded to the
United States remain their property, the Indians belonging to said tribes
shall enjoy the privilege of living and hunting on them."

Within the limits of the cession was the chief seat of Sac power, a village
lying on the north side of Rock River, three miles above its mouth. It was
picturesquely situated on fertile ground, contained the principal cemetery
of the tribe, and was inhabited by about five hundred families, being one
of the largest Indian towns on the continent.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the principal character in
this village was Black Hawk, who was born here in 1767. Black Hawk was
neither hereditary nor an elected chief, but was, by common consent, the
village headman. He was a restless, ambitious, handsome savage; was
possessed of Some of the qualities of successful leadership, was much of a
demagogue, and aroused the passions of his people by appeals to their
prejudices and superstitions. It is probable that be was never, in the
exercise of this policy, dishonest in his motives. A confiding disposition
too was ever leading his judgment astray; he was readily duped by those
who, white or red, were interested in deceiving him.  The effect of his
daily  communication with the Americans was often to shock rudely his high
sense of honor; while the studied courtesy accorded him upon his annual
begging visit to the British military agent at Malden, in Canada,
contrasted strangely, in his eyes, with his experiences with many of the
inhabitants on the Illinois border.


At the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and the United States
in 1812, Black Hawk naturally allied himself with Tecumseh and the British.
After burying the hatchet, he settled down into the customary routine of
savage life, hunting in winter and loafing about his village in summer,
improvidently existing from band to mouth, although surrounded with
abundance. Occasionally he varied the monotony by visits to Malden, whence
he would return laden with provisions, arms, ammunition, and trinkets, his
stock of vanity increased by wily flattery, and his bitterness against the
Americans correspondingly intensified. it is not at all surprising that he
hated the Americans. They brought him naught but evil. The even tenor of
his life was continually being disturbed by them; and a cruel and causeless
beating which some white settlers gave him, in the winter of 1822-23, was
an insult which he treasured up against the entire American people.

In the summer of 1823, squatters, covetous of the rich fields cultivated by
the " British band," as Black Hawk's people were often called, began to
take possession of them. The treaty of 1804 had guaranteed to the Indians
the use of the ceded territory so long as the lands remained the property
of the United States and were not sold to individuals. The frontier line of
homestead settlement was still fifty or sixty miles to the cast; the
country between had not yet been surveyed, and much of it not explored. The
squatters had no rights in this territory, and it was clearly the duty of
the general government to protect the Indians within it so long as no sales
were made.

The Sacs would not have complained had the squatters settled in other
portions of the tract, and not sought to steal the village which was their
birthplace and contained the cemetery of their tribe. There were outrages
of the most flagrant nature. Indian cornfields were fenced in by the
intruders, squaws and children were whipped for venturing beyond the bounds
thus set, lodges were burned over the heads of the occupants. A reign of
terror ensued, in which the frequent remonstrances of Black Hawk to the
white authorities were in vain. Year by year the evil grew. When the
Indians returned each spring from the winter's hunt, they found their
village more of a wreck than when they had left it in the fall. It is
surprising, in view of their native love of revenge, that they acted so
peaceably while the victims of such harsh treatment.

Returning to his village in the spring of 1831, after a gloomy and
profitless winter's hunt, Black Hawk was fiercely warned away by the
whites; but, in a firm and dignified manner, he notified the settlers that,
if they did not themselves remove, he should use force. This  announcement
was construed by the whites as a threat against their lives. Petitions and
messages were showered in by them upon Governor John Reynolds, of Illinois,
setting forth the situation in exaggerated terms that would be amusing,
were it not that they were the prelude to one of the darkest tragedies in
the history of our Western border.

The governor caught the spirit of the occasion, and at once issued a
flaming proclamation calling out a mounted volunteer force to " repel the
invasion of the British band." These Volunteers, sixteen hundred strong,
cooperated with ten companies of regulars in F, demonstration before Black
Hawk's village on the 25th of June. During that night the Indians, in the
face of this superior force, quietly withdrew to the west bank of the
Mississippi, whither they had previously been ordered. On the 30th they
signed a treaty of capitulation and peace, solemnly agreeing never to
return to the east side of the river without express permission of the
United States government. 

The rest of the summer was spent by the evicted savages in a state of
misery. It being now too late to raise another crop of corn and beans, they
suffered for want of the actual necessaries of life. White Cloud, the
eloquent and crafty Prophet of the Winnebagoes, was Black Hawk's evil
genius. He was half Sac and half Winnebago, a hater of the whites, an
inveterate mischief maker, and, being a "medicine man,". possessed much
influence over both tribes. He was at the head of a Winnebago village some
thirty-five miles above the mouth of the Rock, on the east side of the
Mississippi; and to this village he invited Black Hawk, advising him to
raise a crop of corn there, with the assurance that in the autumn the
Winnebagoes and Pottawattomies would join him in a general movement against
the whites in the valley of the Rock.

Relying on these rose-colored promises, Black Hawk spent the winter on the
west bank of the Mississippi, recruiting his band, and on the 6th of April,
1832, crossed the great river at Yellow Banks, below the mouth of the Rock.
Thus he invaded the State of Illinois, in the face of his solemn treaty of
the year before. With him were his second in command, Neapope, a wily
scoundrel, who was White Cloud's tool, and about five hundred Sac warriors
with their women and children, and all their belongings. Their design was
to carry out-the advice of the Prophet, in regard to the corn planting, and
if possible to take up the hatchet in the autumn.

But it became evident to Black Hawk, before he reached the Prophet's town,
that the main body of the Pottawattomies, now controlled by the peace
loving Chief Shaubena, did not intend to go to war; and that the rascally
Winnebagoes, while cajoling him, were preparing as usual to play double. He
tells us in his autobiography that, crestfallen, he was planning to return
peacefully to the west side of the Mississippi, when of a sudden he became
aware that the whites had raised an army against him, and he was confronted
with a war not in the time and manner of his asking.

The news of his second invasion had spread like wildfire throughout the
Illinois and Wisconsin settlements. The United States was appealed to for a
regiment of troops; and meanwhile, under another fiery proclamation from
the governor of Illinois, an army of eighteen hundred militiamen was
quickly mustered. Amid intense popular excitement, during which many
settlers fled from the country, and others hastily threw up log forts, the
army was mobilized by General Atkinson, who appeared at the rendezvous with
three hundred regulars. There were many notable men upon this expedition:
Abraham Lincoln, then a rawboned young fellow, was captain of a company of
Illinois rangers; Zachary Taylor, famous for his bluff manner, was a
colonel of regulars; and Jefferson Davis, who was wooing Taylor's daughter,
was one of his lieutenants; also of the regulars, was Major William S.
Harney, after, ward the hero of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War; and the
mustering-in officer was Lieutenant Robert Anderson, who ' was to become
famous in connection with Fort Sumter.

Black Hawk was foolish enough to send a message of defiance to General
Atkinson, and, retreating up the Rock, he came to a stand at Stillman's
Creek. Here he repented, and sent out runners with a flag of truce, to
inform the white chief that he would surrender; but the drunken pickets of
the militia advance wantonly killed these messengers of peace. This so
angered the Hawk that with a mere handful of thirty-five braves, on foot,
and hid in the hazel brush, he turned in fury upon the two hundred seventy-
five horsemen who were now rushing upon him. The cowardly rangers, who fled
at the first volley of the savages, without returning it, were haunted by
the genius of fear, and, dashing madly through swamps and creeks, did not
stop until they had reached Dixon, twenty-five miles away. Many kept on at
a keen gallop till they reached their own firesides, fifty or more miles
farther, carrying the absurd report that Black Hawk and two thousand
bloodthirsty warriors were sweeping northern Illinois with the besom of
destruction.

Rich in supplies captured in this first encounter, and naturally encouraged
at the result of his valor, the Hawk thought that so long as the whites
were determined to make him fight, he would show his claws in nest.
Removing the women and children to faraway swamps on the headwaters of the
Rock River, in Wisconsin, he thence descended with his braves for a general
raid through northern Illinois. The borders flew like chickens to cover, on
the warning of the Hawk's foray. There was consternation throughout the
entire West. Exaggerated reports of his forces, and of the nature of his
expedition, were spread throughout the land. His name became coupled with
fabulous tales of savage cunning and cruelty, and served as a household
bugaboo the country over. The effect on the Illinois militia was singular
enough, considering their haste in taking the field; in a frenzy of fear,
they instantly disbanded!

A fresh levy was soon raised, but in the interval there were irregular
hostilities all along the Illinois-Wisconsin border, in which Black Hawk
and a few Winnebago and Pottawattomie allies succeeded in making life
miserable enough for the frontier farmers of northern Illinois and the lead
miners of southwest Wisconsin. In these border strifes fully two hundred
whites and nearly as many Indians lost their lives; and there were numerous
instances of romantic heroism on the part of the settlers, men and women
alike.

In about three weeks after Stillman's defeat the reorganized militia took
the field, reenforced by the regulars under Atkinson. Black Hawk was forced
to fly to the swampy region of the upper Rock; but, when the pursuit became
too warm, he hastily withdrew with his entire band westward to the
Wisconsin River. Closely following upon his trail were a brigade of
Illinois troops under General James D. Henry, and a battalion of Wisconsin
lead mine rangers under Major Henry Dodge, afterwards governor of Wisconsin
Territory.

The pursuers came up with the savages at Prairie du Sac. Here the south
bank of the Wisconsin consists of steep, grassy bluffs, three hundred feet
in height; hence the encounter which ensued is known in history as the
Battle of the Wisconsin Heights. With consummate skill, Black Hawk made a
stand on the summit of the heights, and with a small party of warriors held
the whites in check until the noncombatants had crossed the broad river
bottoms below, and gained shelter upon the willow-grown shore opposite. The
loss on either side was slight, the action being notable only for the Sac
leader's superior management.

During the night, the passage of the river was accomplished by the
fugitives. A large party was sent downstream upon a raft, and in canoes
begged from the Winnebagoes; but those who took this method of escape were
brutally fired upon near the mouth of the river by a detachment from the
garrison at Prairie du Chien, and fifteen were killed in cold blood. The
rest of the pursued, beaded by Black Hawk, who had again made an attempt to
surrender his forces, but had failed for lack of an interpreter, pushed
across country, guided by Winnebagoes, to the mouth of the Bad Ax, a little
stream emptying into the Mississippi about forty miles above the mouth of
the Wisconsin River. His intention was to get his people as quickly as
possible on the west bank of the Mississippi, in the hope that they would
there be allowed to remain in peace.

The Indians were followed, three days behind, by united army of regulars,
who steadily gained on them.  The country between Wisconsin Heights and the
Mississippi is rough and forbidding in character; there are numerous swamps
and rivers between the steep, thickly wooded hills. The uneven pathway was
strewn with the corpses of Sacs who had died of wounds and starvation; and
there were frequent evidences that the fleeing wretches were sustaining
life on . the bark of trees and the flesh of their fagged-out ponies.

On Wednesday, the 1st of August, Black Hawk and his now sadly depleted and
almost famished band reached the junction Of the Bad Ax with the
Mississippi. There were only two or three canoes to be had,  and the
crossing of the Father of Waters progressed slowly an d with frequent loss
of life. That afternoon there appeared upon the scene a government supply
steamer, the Warrior, from Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien), at the mouth
of the Wisconsin. The Indians a third time tried to surrender, but their
white flag was deliberately fired at, and round after round of canister
swept the camp.

The next day the pursuing troops arrived on the heights above the river
bench, the Warrior again opened its attack, and thus, caught between two
galling fires, the little army of savages soon melted away. But fifty
remained alive on the spot to be taken prisoners. Some three hundred
weaklings had reached the Iowa shore through the hail of iron and lead. Of
these three hundred helpless, half-starved, unarmed noncombatants, over a
half were slaughtered by a party of Sioux, under Wabashaw, who had been
sent out by our government to waylay them. So that out of the band of a
thousand Indians who had crossed the Mississippi over into Illinois in
April, not more than a hundred and fifty, all told, lived to tell the
tragic story of the Black Hawk War, a tale that stains the American name
with dishonor.

The rest can soon be told. The Winnebago guerrillas, who had played fast
and loose during the campaign, delivered to the whites at Fort Crawford the
unfortunate Black Hawk, who bad fled from the Bad Ax to the Dells of the
Wisconsin River, to seek an asylum with his false friends. The proud old
man, shorn of all his strength, was presented to the President at
Washington, imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, forced to sign articles of
perpetual peace, and then turned over for safe keeping to the Sac chief,
Keokuk, his hated rival. He died on a small reservation in Iowa, in 1838.
But he was not even then at peace, for his bones were stolen by an Illinois
physician, for exhibition purposes, and finally were accidentally consumed
by fire in 1853.

Black Hawk, with all the limitations of his race, had in his character a
strength and manliness of fiber that were most remarkable, and displayed
throughout his brief campaign a positive genius for military evolutions. He
may be safely ranked as one of the most interesting specimens of the North
American savage to be met with in history. He was an indiscreet man. His
troubles were brought about by a lack of mental balance, aided largely by
unfortunate circumstances. His was a highly romantic temperament, He was
carried away by mere sentiment, and allowed himself to be deceived by
tricksters. But he was honest, and was more honorable than many of his
conquerors were. He was, above all things, a patriot. The year before .his
death, in a speech to a party of whites who were making a holiday hero of
him, he thus forcibly defended his motives: " Rock River was a beautiful
country. I liked my town, my cornfields, and the home of my people. I
fought for them." No poet could have penned for him a more touching
epitaph.