The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
speak for them. You tell the truth about the treaty at Prairie du
Chien, but the Menominees struck us first and we struck back. The
chiefs have said, “Do not let us strike first.” What do you expect us
to do? We only do what our old chiefs have told us. The chiefs that
have spoken told the truth; but what can we do when our young men will
not listen?’
“Keokuk, he that has been everywhere, a Sac brave:
“‘You tell the truth about the treaty at Prairie du Chien. I was there
myself; but you tell a little more. After the treaty was concluded at
Prairie du Chien, I and four chiefs went to General Clark and Colonel
Morgan and said to them, “What will you do with those that strike
first?” They told us that the principal men should be delivered. This
is what I mean when I say “a little more.” It was then discovered and
explained that the word “principal” had not been interpreted.
“‘My old man (pointing to Quash-quah-ing) did not understand. After
the affair of last year we went to General Clark and Colonel Morgan
and, notwithstanding the attack of the Menominees, they made all good
and even. But now, if what they did and what we have now done was put
in scales, it would balance. I expect it is because our names are Sacs
and Foxes that you make a noise about it. When we do the least thing,
you make a great noise about it. Last winter I went to the Missouri.
There an Ioway killed an Omaha. Why was he not hung? They were at the
treaty. The reason I say so much against you is because our hearts are
good. Our chiefs were killed with the pipe of peace and the wampum in
their hands. This is all I have to say. As for my chiefs and braves,
they will do as they please. I have said all that I have to say; but
why do you not let us fight? Your whites are constantly fighting. They
are now fighting way east. Why do you not interfere with them? Why do
you not let us be as the Great Spirit made us, and let us settle our
difficulties?’”
As this speech of Keokuk’s was received by the Indians with applause for
its ingenuity, the commanding officer thought it proper to add that such
treaties as were made at Prairie du Chien were frequently made between
the white nations at the east and enforced.
That it was not because they were Sacs that the present demand was made,
but because it was not wished that the Sacs would become liars. That as
it regarded the Omahas, whenever they demanded redress for the murder
from the United States, it would then be time to interfere. That the
affair did not concern the Sacs.
James H. Lockwood, Vol. 2, p. 170, and John H. Fonda, Vol. 5, p. 256, in
writing of these events from memory for the Wisconsin Historical
Collections, fixed upon the year 1830 for the murders of the Sioux and
Kettle’s Foxes, Fonda including the Menominee affair in the same year.
A.R. Fulton, in his “Red Men of Iowa,” inferentially used the same year
for the three events; all agreed that the three followed in _rapid_
succession. Lockwood has made so many glaring errors in other parts of
his narrative that it is easy to believe that he was wrong in placing
any of them in 1830. The three affairs did occur with unusual
propinquity of succession, but in 1831, as the contemporaneous reports
herein given have shown, and which must be believed against memory. L.C.
Draper, usually accurate, fell into Lockwood’s mistake in his note to
Fonda’s letter, by not taking time to investigate.
-----
Footnote 84:
Peters’ U.S. Stat. at Large, Vol. vii. p. 272.
Footnote 85:
See same in map of “Military Tract.”
Footnote 86:
Vol. 2, Wis. Hist. Colls., p. 170.
Footnote 87:
Keokuk, as will be seen later, said the matter was “made all good and
even,” but no record of the transaction is to be found.
Footnote 88:
Twenty-five.
Footnote 89:
Untrue in every respect. Every Sac who attempted an explanation had a
widely different version.
Footnote 90:
Substantially different from the other version and painfully unreal.
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CHAPTER XV.
NE-A-POPE’S MISSION–KEOKUK’S VILLAGE–COUNCIL–BLACK HAWK MOVES DOWN IOWA
RIVER AND UP THE MISSISSIPPI TO ROCK RIVER–ATKINSON MOVES UP TO
FORT ARMSTRONG.
With these contentious spirits, Black Hawk, restless Black Hawk,
employed his genius, sending out runners to all points of the compass,
some going as far as the Gulf of Mexico, to rally round him the
confederacy which Tecumseh attempted, but who, with his transcendent
genius for organization and war, failed, and so did Black Hawk, much
more ingloriously, though assured by his runners of an irresistible
force to join him the moment he rose to strike the whites. He had in
1831 sent his lieutenant, Ne-a-pope,[91] to the British in Canada to
solicit aid. That Indian, inauspiciously returning through the village
of Wa-bo-ki-e-shiek, the cross-bred Winnebago prophet, who lived at his
village on the left bank of Rock River forty miles from its mouth, told
the latter vicious meddler of the object of the Canadian trip. The
unscrupulous prophet, delighted at the possibility of making trouble for
the whites, performed for Ne-a-pope numerous incantations, received a
few visions, and made a prophecy that if Black Hawk would take up the
hatchet once more against the whites he would be joined by the Great
Spirit and a great army of worldlings, and in no time at all he would
vanquish the whites and be restored to his ancient village. It is more
than probable that this hocuspocus had great influence with Black Hawk,
which, added to Ne-a-pope’s falsehoods, determined Black Hawk to open
another campaign against the whites without delay. To begin with, his
followers had wantonly wasted their provisions, and even before winter
had set in he had inaugurated nightly raids upon the storehouses of the
whites, stealing the grain and vegetables there stored with a devilish
glee. These raids continued with exasperating frequency and regularity
all winter and spring. He even brought himself to believe that he could
easily create dissension among the followers of Keokuk and overthrow his
power entirely.
Emissaries from the camp of Black Hawk had been busy in Keokuk’s village
on the Iowa River,[92] and, by insidious industry, murmurs began arising
upon all sides. Seizing this supreme moment, while Keokuk’s reputation,
influence and life, perhaps, were quivering in the balance, Black Hawk
threw off the mask and defiantly marched with his entire force to
Keokuk’s village to dispute the supremacy of Keokuk, steal away his
warriors and wage war upon the whites.
There at the village all was bustle and confusion. The rifle was loaded
and the knife and the hatchet strapped about the warriors’ loins. They
had importuned Keokuk to lead them to battle, and so subtle had been the
work of Black Hawk’s men that those importunities could not be ignored.
The torrent of a mighty and heedless anger raged and carried
conservatism, treaties, sentiment and every motive before it. Menaced
now by Black Hawk, who had so recently solemnly promised to behave
himself for all time, every frontier family stood in danger of the
tomahawk. Had the united Sacs and Foxes levied war against the whites,
the wavering tribes from Illinois north might have joined them and
devastated the country and desolated every hearth.
Black Hawk harangued the Indians with all his energy, firing them to a
pitch of excitement he had not expected and compelling Keokuk then and
there to promise to lead them to war; but in promising he, like Antony,
was permitted to make a speech–and like Antony’s it swayed the
mob–against Black Hawk.
“Kill your old men and squaws and children,” cried he, “for never will
you live to see them more,”[93] and haste was urged in doing it. An
electric wave from the skies never could have stricken those howling
beasts of the moment before as did that condition precedent. “You have
been imposed upon by liars,” he shouted, and when he had finished
speaking, he stood, a conqueror, in a silence inspired by awe, and Black
Hawk and his band moved sullenly down the river to war upon the whites
once too often.
It has been said, and no doubt truly, that one Josiah Smart,[94] the
representative of George Davenport, was present to learn of Black Hawk’s
success and was so secreted as to overhear every word of those memorable
proceedings, and for their truth he has vouched.
On April 1, 1832, Gen. Henry Atkinson, then in command at Jefferson
Barracks, received an order dated March 17th, announcing the
determination of the Government to interfere and demand from the Sacs
and Foxes at least eight or ten of the principal murderers of the
Menominees. In obedience to that order, General Atkinson started on
April 8th for the upper Mississippi with six companies of the Sixth
Infantry (220 men) and the following officers of the expedition, in the
steamboats Enterprise and Chieftain:
Brig.-Gen. Henry Atkinson, Commanding.
Brev. Maj. Bennet Riley, Commanding 6th Regiment.
Capt. Zalmon C. Palmer, 6th Regiment.
Capt. Henry Smith, 6th Regiment.
Capt. Thomas Noel, 6th Regiment.
Capt. Jason Rogers, 6th Regiment.
Capt. George C. Hutter, 6th Regiment.
First Lieut. Asa Richardson, 6th Regiment.
First Lieut. J. Van Swearengen, 6th Regiment.
Second Lieut. Albert Sidney Johnston, 6th Regiment, Asst. to Adjt.
Gen.
Second Lieut. Joseph D. Searight, 6th Regiment.
Second Lieut. Nathaniel J. Eaton, 6th Regiment, Acting Commissary of
Subsistence.
Brevet Second Lieut. T.L. Alexander, 6th Regiment, Adjutant of
Detachment.
Brevet Second Lieut. Thomas J. Royster, 6th Regiment.
J.S. Van Derveer, 6th Regiment.
J.S. Williams, 6th Regiment.
Second Lieut. W. Wheelwright, 1st Artillery, Ordnance Officer.
Will Carr Lane, Surgeon.
Maj. Thomas Wright, Paymaster.
On April 10th the expedition arrived at the rapids of the Des Moines
about 2 P.M., where General Atkinson was informed that Black Hawk on the
6th had crossed to the east bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of
the lower Iowa, with 400 or 500 horsemen, beside others to portage
canoes, making a total force able to bear arms of over 500 men, the
whole band, men, women and children, amounting, as then estimated, to
about 2,000 souls,[95] and going, as Black Hawk has told in his book,
“to make corn.”
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Footnote 91:
Pronounced Naw-pope.
Footnote 92:
Fulton’s Red Men, 233.
Footnote 93:
Almost identical with the speech of Cornstalk at Chillicothe, just
after the battle of Point Pleasant.
Footnote 94:
Armstrong.
Footnote 95:
Life of A.S. Johnston, p. 33.
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CHAPTER XVI.
COUNCIL–ATKINSON’S CALL FOR TROOPS–REYNOLDS’ PROCLAMATION–BLACK HAWK
DEFIANT–GRATIOT’S JOURNEY.
What the intentions of General Atkinson might have been, above his
actual instructions, when leaving St. Louis, are entirely conjectural.
The same may be said with reference to the 10th, but when he arrived at
Fort Armstrong, during the night of the 12th, they are plainly evident.
On the 13th, at 10 A.M., he called a council, at which Keokuk and his
head men, some seventy in number, including Wapello, attended, and there
he demanded the surrender of ten of the principal men concerned in the
murders. Keokuk replied that he was unable to deliver them up because
some had joined the Prophet’s band at his village, toward which Black
Hawk was then rapidly marching along the left bank of Rock River, and
the others were with Black Hawk.