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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Black Hawk Biography BLACK HAWK (1767-1838) A celebrated chief of the Sac Indians. In 1788 he succeeded his father as head chief of the Sacs. In 1804 the Sacs and Foxes agreed, for an annuity of $1000, to give up to the United States their lands east of the Mississippi; but Black Hawk promptly repudiated this arrangement, and in the War of 1812 took part against the United States. The cession of the disputed territory was again provided for by treaties in 1815 and 1816, the latter being signed by Black Hawk; and in 1823 the majority of the Sacs and Foxes, under Keokuk (q.v.), moved across the Mississippi, a new treaty being signed at Prairie du Chien, on July 15, 1830. When the whites began to occupy the vacated lands, Black Hawk threatened retaliation and by crossing the Mississippi with a small force in June, 1831, precipitated the Black Hawk War. The Indians were defeated by General Dodge, near the Wisconsin River, on July 21, 1832, and by General Atkinson, at the Bad Axe River, August 1-2, and Black Hawk surrendered on August 27. He and nine other warriors were held for a time as hostages, and after being taken to several Eastern cities, were confined in Fortress Monroe until June 8, 1833. The Sacs and Foxes under Keokuk soon moved to a reservation near Fort Des Moines, where Black Hawk died, Oct. 3, 1838. Consult: Patterson, Life (Boston, 1834); Drake, Life (Cincinnati, 1846). Also consult an article, "Story of the Black Hawk War," by Thwaites, in vol. xii of the Collections of the Wisconsin State Historical Society (Madison, 1885); id., Chapters in Fox River Valley History, ut supra (Madison, 1913); Frank E. Stevens, The Black Hawk War (Chicago, 1903); Wokefield's History of the Black Hawk War, edited by F. E. Stevens for the Caxton Club (Chicago, 1908). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. III (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 356. |