Black Hawk War

BLACK HAWK WAR

BLACK HAWK WAR (1832), a conflict between the United States and a faction of Sauk (or Sac) and Fox Indians, waged mainly in Illinois and Wisconsin. The leader of the Sauk and Fox was an aging chief named Black Hawk, who was the rival of Keokuk, another Sauk chief. Keokuk had been receptive to ceding land to the whites and with his faction of the Sauk and Fox had moved across the Mississippi River to Iowa in 1823. Black Hawk, who had fought on the side of the British in the War of 1812, declined to evacuate his village at Rock Island, Illinois.

At issue was a treaty made at St. Louis in 1804, under the terms of which the Sauk and Fox supposedly agreed to cede all their lands on the eastern side of the Mississippi River and in return remain undisturbed until the country should be opened to settlement. Black Hawk vehemently denied the validity of the 1804 treaty, maintaining that the party of Sauk and Fox who had signed the treaty had had no authority to do so and had been deceived while intoxicated. In 1829, under pressure from Indian agents, a band of Sauk under the leadership of Keokuk moved to the western side of the Mississippi and established a village on the Iowa River. Black Hawk tried to organize the discontented Sauk east of the Mississippi into a confederacy to resist further incursions by the Americans. He believed strongly that the British would back them against American aggression, although support never materialized.

Intertribal conflicts and clashes with settlers came to a head in 1831 when settlers preempted the site of Black Hawk's village at present-day Rock Island, Illinois. Hostilities with the Indians were narrowly averted that year when an army of regulars and Illinois militiamen assembled. Black Hawk yielded to this threat of force and withdrew west across the Mississippi.

Early in 1832, despite the opposition of Keokuk, Black Hawk crossed back into Illinois and moved toward Rock Island with four hundred warriors and their families. The militia ordered Black Hawk to return to Iowa. War erupted after a peaceful emissary sent by Black Hawk was murdered. After Black Hawk won a bloody skirmish, the poorly trained American troops regrouped and strengthened. Battles raged for fifteen weeks and moved up the Rock River into southern Wisconsin. Black Hawk was finally overtaken by a force of American volunteers and defeated on 28 July in a crushing battle in which sixty-eight Indian warriors were killed and many more wounded. The remnant of Black Hawk's forces pushed across southern Wisconsin to the mouth of the Bad Axe River, where on 2 August they were massacred as they attempted to escape across the Mississippi into Iowa. Black Hawk himself escaped but was later captured by the Winnebagos, who turned him over to American troops for the reward.

Under the terms of the peace settlement, signed on 21 September 1832, the Sauk and Fox agreed to cede 6 million acres of land in eastern Iowa, and a tract of 400 square miles was reserved along the western bank of the Mississippi for Keokuk and his followers, who had refrained from hostilities during the war. Nine Sauk and twenty-four Fox signed the treaty. As punishment, Black Hawk was briefly incarcerated in Virginia; he then returned west to Iowa and was placed under the supervision of Keokuk.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hagan, William Thomas. The Sac and Fox Indians. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.

Jackson, Donald, ed. Black Hawk: An Autobiography. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1964.

Nichols, Roger. Black Hawk and the Warrior's Path. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1992.

Wallace, Anthony F. Prelude to Disaster: The Course of Indian-White Relations Which Led to the Black Hawk War of 1832. Spring field: Illinois State Historical Society, 1970.

Kenneth M. Stewart / h. s.

See also Warfare, Indian ; Mesquakie ; Wars with Indian Nations: Early Nineteenth Century (1783–1840) ; and vol. 9: Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kai-kiak .