Life of Black Hawk

Content Warning: This section references racist and violent actions committed by white people and the nations of the United States, France, Spain, and Great Britain.  

Black Hawk was a leader and warrior of the Sauk, an Indigenous tribe that lived in present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin. By the 19th-century, due to immigration and displacement, the tribe had settled along the Mississippi in areas like Illinois and Missouri. After being forced to leave their lands, they moved to Iowa and finally settled in Oklahoma.

Black Hawk was born in 1767 in Saukenuk village in Rock River, present day Rock Island, Illinois. His father was a “medicine man,” a spiritual leader and traditional healer of the tribe named Pyesa. He was a descendant (great-grandson) of Na-nà-ma-kee, or Thunder, an important chief of the Sauk tribe. As a young man, Black Hawk established himself as a capable warrior of the tribe by leading war parties and raids on neighboring villages. He was on his father’s side in an attack against the Osage tribe, where he gained reputation by killing his first enemy. He participated in several other battles until he had a principal success as a leader of a war party against the Osage. His father died after being wounded during a battle with the Cherokee nation. After his death, Black Hawk inherited his father’s sacred bundle that established him as a distinguished man among the Sauk. Black Hawk never became a civil, hereditary tribal chief of the Sauk but remained an important war leader.

The Sauk tribe had established an alliance and friendship with the Meskwaki (Fox) tribe. During the summer, the Sauk used their village in Illinois as a sacred burial place and to raise their corn. Black Hawk opposed the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis between the Sauk and Fox tribes and governor William Henry Harrison according to which the tribes ceded their lands in most of Illinois and part of Wisconsin to the United States. Black Hawk claimed that the treaty was signed by members that were not authorized to represent the Sauk nation and had not received the consensus of the tribal councils. This signaled the start of military conflicts between the Sauk and the United States.

When the War of 1812 began between the United States and Great Britain, Black Hawk as a leader of the war party of the Sauk and Fox tribes supported the British army against the Americans. The British depended on their alliances with Indigenous tribes, and Colonel Robert Dickson, also an English fur trader, managed to assemble a force of Indigenous warriors that also included the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Ottawa. Black Hawk supported the British, hoping to maintain control of their lands and inhibit further European settlement. During the war, he was ordered as brevet Brigadier General. As the British suffered great losses during the battle, Black Hawk was disappointed with the immense loss of life. Soon the tribe retreated and returned to their homeland. Black Hawk rejoined the British forces toward the end of the war at their military campaigns in Illinois territory. Upon his return home, his rival Keokuk had become a war leader. After the end of the war and the victory of the United States, Black Hawk and Keokuk had to sign a peace treaty in 1813, which reaffirmed the treaty of 1804, a term about which Black Hawk later claimed ignorance.

As a result of both treaties, the Sauk tribe left their lands in Illinois and moved west of the Mississippi by 1828. Black Hawk resented the tribe’s relocation and continued to dispute the validity of the treaties. Angered and determined to resist, Black Hawk led a party of Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoos back to the east of Mississippi and toward Illinois between 1830 and 1831. His intention was to peacefully reclaim and resettle to his homeland. Under the threat of bloodshed, they were persuaded to return west. Still determined to defend his homeland, and with the promise of support by the British, Black Hawk returned east in 1832. He found no allies within other tribes, and British support never came. The party attempted to return to Iowa, but the actions of the Illinois militia led to military conflict.

A series of violent conflicts between both sides followed, culminating in the Black Hawk War, when the militias in Illinois and Michigan organized to hunt Black Hawk’s band. By this time, Black Hawk’s party included, apart from warriors, many elders, women, and children. Black Hawk’s final intention was to secure land where his tribe would cultivate corn for their sustenance. After the soldiers’ attack on his people, Black Hawk was taken as a prisoner of war. To save the lives of his nation, he accepted removal west of the Mississippi. During his time as a prisoner, Black Hawk toured the eastern states along with his band, where large crowds gathered to see them. Black Hawk decided to relate his life’s story to Antoine Le Claire, with the purpose of clarifying his actions in warfare and to make the history of his nation visible. His account is one of the earliest narratives by an Indigenous American, even though the accuracy of the transcript remains controversial.

Black Hawk died in 1838 in Iowa where he lived with his family. Until his death, he participated in councils and delegations that traveled to Washington to remain vocal about the rights of his people.