The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
one. Neither comes it from his struggles for an oppressed race, for he
never conceived a solitary scheme for its amelioration. He had never a
lofty aspiration for his nation. His every venture was made for personal
aggrandizement or popularity. Tecumseh dreamed of a great confederation;
not to become a leader. Cornstalk, Logan and Pontiac were ambitious for
their people, but Black Hawk never. Black Hawk said of Keokuk that the
latter was a groveling sycophant, but Keokuk was the most powerful
orator of his race, and, penetrating the inevitable destiny of the
whites, he conformed to it and used his great genius to gain for his
people the greatest good. While Black Hawk was stolidly plotting for
war, Keokuk was planning to secure for his people good homes and larger
annuities, and these he secured, to their very great benefit. Black
Hawk’s prominence comes from notoriety alone.
In his various conflicts with the whites he was invariably the
aggressor. The unfortunate affair which resulted in the death of his
so-called adopted son cannot be, by any conceivable logic, tortured into
an exception, as we shall presently see. After the treaty of 1804 he and
his band were permitted to remain unmolested upon the ceded lands year
after year and decade after decade, a license rarely allowed and, as it
proved, a thoroughly mistaken policy. He received his yearly annuities
and retained the lands for which the annuities were given, literally
eating his cake and keeping it. His passions were many, but the
consuming passion of his life was hatred of the Americans, a hatred
without cause and as unjustifiable and unreasonable as man’s baser
passions are always found to be. Yet this may not be surprising, fed as
he was by his devouring gloom and restless, war-like spirit. The mantle
of charity has many a time before and since covered graver faults; so
let it be with Black Hawk’s, for it is said of him that in his domestic
life he was a kind husband and father, and in his transactions with his
people he was upright and honest,[8] if he was not ambitious for their
elevation.
Black Hawk was not a chief of the Sac nation.[9] He was simply a brave.
His father was the tribal medicine man, and whatever standing Black Hawk
may have secured was derived from his personal bravery and daring as a
warrior, which have never been questioned. Possessed, as we have seen,
of a martial spirit, he was ever ready and eager to lead war parties of
young companions to battle, and one or two engagements alone were
sufficient firmly to establish him in that leadership which bravery
fitted him to hold over his followers in war.
At fifteen, having distinguished himself by wounding an enemy, he was
permitted to paint and wear feathers and join the rank of the
Braves.[10] About the year 1783 he united in an expedition against the
Osages and had the fortune to kill and scalp one of the enemy, for which
youthful act of valor he was for the first time permitted to mingle in
the scalp-dance. As one exploit followed another his desire for blood
became insatiable, and from his own account, the number of the enemy
slain by him staggers credulity.
A short time after the ’83 tragedy–“a few moons,” as he puts it–Black
Hawk was leader of a party of seven which attacked a band of one hundred
Osages, killed one of their number and retreated without loss, Black
Hawk taking the credit for this fatality to his personal valor. His
taste for war, coupled with his prowess, attracted notice from others,
and very presently he was found marching at the head of one hundred and
eighty braves against the Osage village on the Missouri. Finding it
deserted, the greater number of his young followers became dissatisfied,
abandoned the enterprise and returned home, but Black Hawk continued,
and, with but five followers, came upon the Osages, killed and scalped
one man and a boy and then returned home. In consequence of this mutiny
he has told us he was not again able to raise sufficient force to move
against the Osages until his nineteenth year, during which interim, it
was claimed, the Osages committed many outrages on his nation.
In 1786 his restless spirit had planned another attack of a retaliatory
nature against the Osages. Setting out with two hundred followers, he
met a party of the enemy about equal in strength, which for a time
stubbornly resisted Black Hawk’s attack, but, unable to maintain an
unequal contest with the fierce Sac fighters, the Osages were finally
routed and the band almost annihilated. One hundred of them were killed
outright and the remnant which remained was left to be scalped while
helplessly wounded, or driven from the country, while, on the other
hand, Black Hawk’s loss was but nineteen men. Six of the enemy were
killed by Black Hawk–five men and one squaw–and in alluding to this he
adds these words: “I had the good fortune to take all their scalps.” In
recording his glorious enterprise his interpreter doubtless insisted
that the murder of a female by a great warrior was not creditable, for,
once the enormity of his offense is cited, he pleads in extenuation that
the squaw was accidentally killed; yet he scalped her.
The severe cost to the Osages of this battle brought about a treaty of
peace between the belligerents which lasted for a considerable period,
as peaceful times between Indian nations seem then to have been
reckoned.
The stormiest periods of Black Hawk’s life were all born of tranquil
times, and this interval of peace served to incubate a plan of campaign
against his ancient and inveterate enemy, the Cherokees, which was to be
fraught with consequences more serious than all his former campaigns
together.
Py-e-sa, Black Hawk’s father, the hereditary medicine man of his tribe,
had held the medicine bag for many years and his ability as a discreet,
fearless and upright man cannot be controverted. Regarding a campaign by
the young men so far from home as hazardous in the extreme, he joined
this expedition, and with his people paddled his canoe night and day
down the Mississippi River until the enemy was reached upon the Merameg
River, south of St. Louis, in vastly superior forces. The battle which
followed was stubbornly waged, but in it, as in so many others, the
ferocity of the attack put the Cherokees to flight, leaving twenty-eight
of their number dead upon the field, while the Sacs lost but seven
braves. But one of those seven was Py-e-sa, whose loss was never
thereafter supplied to the great Sac nation. Had he been spared to treat
of subsequent questions with the whites, his moderation had
unquestionably sustained Keokuk’s position and the campaigns of 1831 and
1832, with their trains of slaughter, would have been averted. In this
engagement Black Hawk himself killed three outright and wounded many
more.
By the death of Py-e-sa, Black Hawk fell heir to the medicine bag, with
its attendant responsibility. He immediately returned to his village,
blackened his face and remained tranquil for the succeeding five years
of his life, with no more stimulating employment than hunting, fishing
and meditation. During this period of inaction, Black Hawk maintains,
the Osages were constantly harassing his people by incursions into his
country, carrying with each invasion a predatory warfare extremely
distressing and galling. These became so frequent and offensive that, as
Black Hawk has told us, “the Great Spirit took pity on them” (the Sacs),
upon which event he took to the field. Here, at the head of a small
party, he overtook a few struggling Osages, so feeble that he simply
made them prisoners and handed them over to the Spanish father at St.
Louis. With this famous act of clemency he continued his plan of total
destruction of the offending Osages.
About the year 1800, the Iowa nation, having accumulated many grievances
against the Osages, made common cause with the Sacs for the purpose of
waging a war of extermination. Raising a force of about one hundred,
which joined the Sac forces, numbering now about five hundred more, the
two allies marched upon the unsuspecting Osages, who were unarmed and
wholly unprepared for defense. They valiantly defended their homes and
families and fought with the desperation known only to those who have
waged such defenses against overpowering odds. One by one and dozen by
dozen and score by score fell dead before the terrific attacks of the
most terrible of Indian fighters, until there was none left to fill the
gaps made in their ranks by the tomahawk and spear. Forty lodges were
destroyed and every inhabitant save two squaws was put to death. Then,
returning home, a great feast was made, at which Black Hawk exploited
his personal valor to his friends. In this engagement he killed seven
men and two boys with his own hand.
During those five years of meditation following his father’s death
resentment had but slumbered. They killed his father, ’tis true, but it
had been done defending themselves. The Sacs as a nation had no quarrel
with the Cherokees. But immediately he returned from his war upon the
unsuspecting Osages, Black Hawk collected another party and moved down
the river against them. In due season the enemy’s country was reached
and invaded, but, roam as they would, no more than five unknown people
could be found, four men and one squaw. The men, after a short
detention, were released, and the squaw was taken back to Black Hawk’s
village on Rock River.
The futility of this campaign rankled in Black Hawk’s heart for a time,
and to recoup his lost, or at least suspended reputation, he planned, in
the year 1803, about the ninth moon, the most extensive campaign of his
life against the combined forces of the Chippewas, Osages and
Kaskaskias. No just reason existed for this war; none of the tribes of
these nations had trespassed on Sac territory or rights, and none had
offended in any other particular. Black Hawk was piqued at his last
miscarriage and he simply made war against these people for the sake of
war, and bloody indeed it proved to be. During its continuance seven
pitched battles were fought, together with numerous skirmishes, in all
which more than one hundred of the enemy perished. Here again Black Hawk
boasts of personally killing with his own hands thirteen of the bravest
warriors in the enemy’s ranks. His ferocity in these engagements is the
best evidence for the statement that the glory of Black Hawk was placed
above every other consideration.
In 1763 France ceded Louisiana to Spain, though Senor Rious, the Spanish
agent, did not formally take possession of St. Louis and the upper
Louisiana country until 1768, and even then St. Ange, the French
Governor, continued to perform official acts until 1770. In 1800
Napoleon took it away again, retaining it until 1803, when it was
purchased by the United States.[11] During the Spanish domination Black
Hawk had been a periodical visitor to St. Louis, accepting frequent
presents and forming what might be termed a devotion to the Governor,
whom he designated as his “Spanish Father.”
After the conclusion of his last war, he paid this Spanish father a
friendly visit at St. Louis. Spanish and French domination had ended and
the Americans were just then taking possession of the country, much to
his regret and, as might be imagined, disgust. Here are his comments:
“Soon after the Americans arrived I took my band and went to take leave
for the last time of our father. The Americans came to see him also.
Seeing them approach, we passed out of one door as they entered another
and immediately started in our canoes for our village on Rock River, not
liking the change any more than our friends appeared to at St. Louis. On
arriving at St. Louis, we were given the news that strange people had