The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
During the years 1803 and 1804, the British were in their ugliest humor
toward the Americans, and no effort to aggravate, yea murder, the
frontier was spared. In the face of those atrocities and in face of the
further fact that on January 9th, 1789, a solemn treaty of friendship
was made between the United States and the Sacs, at Fort Harmar, signed
by Te-pa-kee and Kesh-e-yi-va, the 14th article of which is as follows:
“The United States of America do also receive into their friendship and
protection the nations of the Pottiwatimas and Sacs, and do hereby
establish a league of peace and amity between them respectively; and all
the articles of this treaty, so far as they apply to these nations, are
to be considered as made and concluded in all, and every part, expressly
with them and each of them,”[15] it would seem in extreme bad taste for
Black Hawk to desire a continuance of British paternity and British
provisions, and flout British authority in the faces of those Americans
who were the sufferers. A sane man would expect something to happen.
Black Hawk stated and emphasized the fact that Pike went up the
Mississippi and returned before the treaty of 1804 was made, when as a
matter of fact he went up the river in 1805 and returned in 1807. Now if
he committed such glaring errors in matters of passing importance, what
can be expected in matters of graver importance? And where can the
intelligent student draw the line between fact and fabrication?
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Much else that Black Hawk has said is altogether incorrect as well as
preposterous. There can be no excuse for his untruthful statement that
but four chiefs signed the treaty, because there were five, as the
record itself discloses, and Pash-e-pa-ho, the then principal chief of
the Sac nation, was one of them. Nor can it be seen that he strengthened
his standing with the public to charge William Henry Harrison, the most
upright of men, with giving the Indian emissaries fine clothes and
medals as part consideration for their signatures, and with stupefying
them with liquor and finally murdering outright the prisoner, and it is
certainly regrettable to find in his narrative no mention of the
sorrowing wife and weeping children of the murdered American who never
returned to his hearthstone.
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CHAPTER IV.
TREATY OF 1804.
That the Indian had many wrongs must not be denied, but that such wrongs
should be transferred from those who suffered them to the personal
account of Black Hawk, either entire or to any great extent, is a
proposition too monstrous for sober consideration. The simpering casuist
has strenuously endeavored to effect that transfer, even to the extent
of adopting his statements about the liquor and the murder. As needless,
yea repugnant, to all sense of propriety and truth as the task may be to
shore up the reputation of Governor Harrison against Black Hawk’s
aspersions, it has been thought best to quote the only historical record
at hand on the subject of the murder, and dissipate for all time the
maudlin sympathy which his contention has raised:
“Some time about the middle of the year 1804, three American citizens,
who had settled above the Missouri, were murdered by a party of Sack
Indians; and the Governor having learnt this circumstance, as well as
the hostile dispositions of the Sacks and Foxes toward the United
States, sent them a message by Captain Stoddart, in the month of
October, requiring their chiefs to meet him in St. Louis; and on his
arrival at that place he learnt the circumstance of the murder, as
well as the exertions which were making by some of the old chiefs
among them to give up the perpetrators of it, but who were opposed by
a majority of the nation, who declared their satisfaction at what had
been done, and their determination to protect the murderers at all
risk. The Governor dispatched another messenger to the Sack chiefs, to
inform them of his arrival at St. Louis, and urge them to make every
possible exertion to apprehend, and bring with them, the murderers;
but if that could not be effected, he requested that they would come
to him at any rate, assuring them of their being permitted to return
in safety.
“The Governor, conceiving that if they could be prevailed upon to come
to a conference it would be easy to convince them of the necessity of
preserving the friendship of the United States, had no doubt that he
would prevail upon some of them to remain with him as hostages for the
delivery of the murderers. But before his messenger had arrived, the
petty chief who headed the war party had surrendered himself to the
sachems or head men of the nation, and declared his willingness to
suffer for the injury he had done. On the arrival of the chiefs at St.
Louis, he was delivered up to the Governor, and a positive assurance
given that the whole nation were sorry for the injury which had been
done, and that they would never in future lift the tomahawk against
the United States.”[16]
At this same meeting, the treaty was made which has already been set out
at length, and while the same authority mentions the fact without
comment, it will be quoted, and following it some reasons may be noted
why the bargain was not one of particular rigor. At least Black Hawk’s
argument may be shown to be specious:
“At this meeting with the chiefs of the Sac and Fox Indians, the
Government negotiated a treaty by which the Indian title was
extinguished to the largest tract of land ever ceded in one treaty by
the Indians since the settlement of North America, as it includes all
the country from the mouth of the Illinois River to the mouth of the
Ouisconsing, on the one side, and from the mouth of the Illinois to
near the head of the Fox River on the other side; and from the head of
the latter a line is drawn to a point 36 miles above the mouth of the
Ouisconsing, which forms the northern boundary, and contains upwards
of 51 millions of acres.”
Black Hawk offers to leave the question of bargain to the people of the
United States. From present day standpoints it might be considered a
hard bargain, but from the facts in the case, the reply might be made
with an inquiry if the Wisconsin farmer got much of a bargain when he
bought from a sharper the Masonic Temple of Chicago for $2,000.
Two-thirds or more of the land ceded was claimed and occupied by the
Winnebagoes and Pottowattomies at the time, and Black Hawk knew the fact
and admitted it times without number on subsequent occasions. Even down
so close to him as the Prophet’s village, in the present county of
Whiteside, the country was Winnebago territory; the same at Dixon’s
Ferry, while over on the Illinois River the Pottowattomies had for a
great length of time held dominion, and this had never been controverted
by the Sacs and Foxes. The fact is that the United States acquired but
very little territory by that treaty, when the magnificent proportions
are mentioned without regard to the facts.
With his usual carelessness of fact, Black Hawk omitted to mention the
payments down in money and trade which were made and which in those days
were not regarded as trifling. He made no mention of subsequent and
additional payments and annuities, neither did he credit the Government
for the use and occupation of those same lands for over a quarter of a
century after they had been ceded. He omitted entirely that he had never
kept a treaty in his life until he was finally crushed and driven from
power at the point of the bayonet, and he forgot to omit the further
fact that all the Sac and Fox Indians, save Black Hawk and his immediate
followers, recognized that treaty as just in 1808, when a delegation
visited Fort Madison to ascertain if its erection was in violation of
it. Schoolcraft, Vol. VI, page 393, made a very sensible observation
regarding the sales by Indians of their lands: “But while any section of
their territories abounded in game, the Indians elected to retire
thither, and bestowed but little attention on either grazing or
agriculture. There was, therefore, a singular concurrence in the desire
of the emigrants to buy and in the willingness of the Indians to sell
their lands.”
At no time had the Illinois lands been valuable to the Sacs for hunting,
the streams and forests of Iowa having always been sought for their
annual hunts. There can be no doubt that this feature had its influence
exactly as Schoolcraft, the friend always to the Indian, has stated.
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CHAPTER V.
ERECTION OF FORT MADISON–RUMORS OF INDIAN ATTACK–BLACK HAWK JOINS
TECUMSEH–RETURNS TO HIS VILLAGE–ATTACKS FORT MADISON–THE SIEGE.
The object of the expedition of Lieutenant Pike, in 1805-6-7, was, among
other things, to select suitable locations for military reservations,
Indian posts and forts. One of the last named he located at the head of
the Des Moines Rapids, immediately above the mouth of the river of that
name, on the west bank of the Mississippi.
In 1808, First Lieutenant Alpha Kingsley, with Captain Ninian Pinckney’s
company, was sent there from below to construct the fort and garrison
it. His work attracted the attention of passing Sacs and excited the
suspicion that the act might be a possible infraction of the 1804
treaty. To determine the matter, a party, including Black Hawk, traveled
down the river to the scene, where a council or talk was immediately
held, at which the intention of the Government was fully discussed. The
explanations were satisfactory in every particular to the respective
chiefs, who, every one, cheerfully ratified the action of the
Government, commending the act as one of prevision for both parties, and
with assurances of good feeling returned to their respective homes. Even
Drake, the especial champion of Black Hawk, is forced to state, on page
79: “Some of the Indians went down the river, and, after an interview
with the officers in charge of the troops constructing it, returned
home, satisfied that there was no infraction.”
Not so with Black Hawk. He came to the spot bent on mischief, and while
the others entered and were engaged in the council, he remained aloof,
that no obligation might rest upon him if the talk should result
adversely to his wishes, his favorite trick for avoiding the meshes of
engagements which might conflict with the arrangements he had made with
his British friends, who were furnishing him supplies, as we have seen.
Thus was the construction of Fort Madison permitted to continue, and
thus was it in due time completed and garrisoned by seventy-five men;
but Black Hawk had studied well its plans and marked it for his
vengeance at such a time as stealth should permit him to ambush it and
butcher its garrison, lulled into a supine security[17].
During the winter of 1808-9, British agents, taking advantage of the
suppositious dissatisfaction of the Indians, moved industriously among