CHAPTER I.
BIRTH–PERSONAL DESCRIPTION AND CHARACTER OF BLACK HAWK–NOT A CHIEF–MADE
A BRAVE–EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE OSAGES–DEATH OF PY-E-SA–PERIOD OF
MOURNING–EXPEDITION AGAINST THE OSAGES–EXPEDITION AGAINST THE
CHEROKEES–EXPEDITION AGAINST THE CHIPPEWAS, OSAGES AND
KICKAPOOS–THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE AMERICANS.
Black Hawk’s name, as given in his autobiography, was
Ma-ka-tai-she-kia-kiak[1], and, without reference to the many renditions
of it by various writers, is the version that will be adopted in this
work as nearest authentic. He was born in the year 1767 at the Sac or
Sauk village, located on the north bank of Rock River in the State of
Illinois, about three miles above its confluence with the Mississippi.
His father, Py-e-sa, a grandson of Na-na-ma-kee or Thunder (a descendant
of other Thunders), was born near Montreal, Canada, where the Great
Spirit was reputed in Indian lore to have first placed the great Sac
nation. Black Hawk was a full blood Sac, five feet eleven inches tall in
his moccasins; of broad but meager build[2] and capable of great
endurance. His features were pinched and drawn, giving unusual
prominence to the cheek bones and a Roman nose, itself pronounced. The
chin was sharp. The mouth was full and inclined to remain open in
repose. His eyes were bright, black and restless, glistening as they
roamed during a conversation. Above these rested no eyebrows. The
forehead was given the appearance of unusual fullness and height from
the fact that all hair was plucked from the scalp, with the single
exception of the scalp lock, to which, on occasions of state, was
fastened a bunch of eagle feathers. In his later years it was his boast
that he had worn the lock with such prominence to tempt an enemy to
fight for it and to facilitate its removal should he be slain in the
encounter. This statement, however, must be received as a boast and
nothing more, because among the Sacs the custom of plucking from the
scalp all hairs save the scalp lock was general and not confined to
Black Hawk’s redoubtable person, as he would have us believe. J.C.
Beltrami, the Italian traveler, who ascended the Mississippi in 1823,
stopping at all the Indian villages, particularly Black Hawk’s upon Rock
River, which he reached May 10th, has this to say, which is interesting:
“The faces of the Saukees, although exhibiting features characteristic
of their savage state, are not disagreeable, and they are rather well
made than otherwise. Their size and structure, which are of the middle
kind, indicate neither peculiar strength nor weakness. Their heads are
rather small; that part called by French anatomists _voute orbitaire_
has in general no hair except a small tuft upon the pineal gland, like
that of the Turks; this gives the forehead an appearance of great
elevation. Their eyes are small and their eyebrows thin; the cornea
approaches rather to yellow, the pupil to red; they are the link between
those of the orang-outang and ours. Their ears are sufficiently large to
bear all the jewels, etc., with which they are adorned; two foxes’ tails
dangled from those of the Great Eagle. I have seen others to which were
hung bells, heads of birds and dozens of buckles, which penetrated the
whole cartilaginous part from top to bottom. Their noses are large and
flat, like those of the nations of eastern Asia; their nostrils are
pierced and ornamented like their ears. The maxillary bones, or
pommettes, are very prominent. The under jaw extends outwards on both
sides. Their mouths are rather large; their teeth close set, and of the
finest enamel; their lips a little inverted. Their necks are regularly
formed; they have large bellies and narrow chests, so that their bodies
are generally larger below than above. Their feet and hands are well
proportioned. Except the tuft on the head, which we have already
remarked, they have no hair on any part of the body. Books which deal
greatly in the marvelous convert this into an extraordinary phenomenon,
but the fact is that, from a superstition common to all savages, they
pluck it out, and, as they begin at an early age and use the most
perservering means for its extirpation, nothing is left but a soft
down.”
With this personal description of Black Hawk, it may be well to add the
following, published in the “Annals of Iowa,” 3rd series, Vol. 4, page
195: “Bones of Black Hawk.–These bones, which were stolen from the grave
about a year since, have been recovered and are now in the Governor’s
office. The wampum, hat,[4] etc., which were buried with the old chief,
have been returned with the bones. It appears that they were taken to
St. Louis and there cleaned; they were then sent to Quincy to a dentist
to be put up and wired previous to being sent to the East. The dentist
was cautioned not to deliver them to anyone until a requisition should
be made by Governor Lucas. Governor Lucas made the necessary requisition
and they were sent up a few days since by the Mayor of Quincy and are
now in the possession of the Governor. He has sent word to
Na-she-as-kuk, Black Hawk’s son, or to the family, and some of them will
probably call for them in a few days. Mr. Edgerton, the phrenologist,
has taken an exact drawing of the skull, which looks very natural, and
has also engraved it on a reduced scale, which will shortly appear on
his new chart. Destructiveness, combativeness, firmness and
philoprogenitiveness are, phrenologically speaking, very strongly
developed. Burlington Hawk Eye, Dec. 10, 1840.”[3]
An intimate knowledge of Black Hawk is denied us. The little known of
him prior to 1832 is derived from less than a dozen sources, the most
important being his autobiography;[5] the others, nearly all military,
are to be found in treaties and the records of the war department. A few
settlers only knew him, because settlers about his haunts in those days
were exceedingly scarce. And so it has come to pass that his character
has been universally judged by the contact with him during the last five
or six years of his long life, while he was in a sense a captive,
brooding over his fallen estate, while the drapery of an eternal evening
was fast falling about him. At such an age, shorn of power, chafing
under restrictions, disgruntled at the supremacy of his ancient enemy
Keokuk, who had answered for his good behavior, the old man’s ambitions
crushed, he was naturally a distressing object, evoking that pity which
so universally appeals to an American and is so surely allowed to cover
a multitude of sins. Those few last years have been thus carelessly
permitted to become the monument to the man, and those who drove him
from power have been harshly judged or jocularly denominated “carpet
soldiers,” as much as to say the pioneers had never suffered hardships
nor endured wrongs. Justice to those whose wives and children had been
butchered, whose fathers and brothers had been burned at the stake,
demands that all the truth be told and the reason given why those
settlers, infuriated at the loss of two successive crops from Black
Hawk’s perfidy, finally drove his band into the Mississippi River at the
mouth of the Bad Axe and almost annihilated it.
It has been written that he possessed a mind of unusual strength, but
slow and plodding, with little genius and few talents to manage a great
enterprise in war.[6] The influence to sustain such a paradox, as well
as kindred irregularities and disorders of the man’s mind, may be
attributed to the fact that he was a confirmed hypochondriac, morbidly
regarding as frivolous everything save war. He was discontented and
reckless, envious of others with greater influence or name, and in
meeting questions in or out of the council with such men as Keokuk he
was churlish to a degree unless his individual will ruled. While it must
candidly be owned that the whites have been guilty of the most revolting
injustices to other Indians, notably Shabona, the same cannot be pleaded
for Black Hawk. He was found making and breaking engagements and
treaties[7] the greater part of his very long life, and then, when
retribution was imminent, he hoisted flags of truce down to August 2d,
1832, when his power for further mischief was forever crushed.
The reputation which he has established in Indian annals comes not from
any sacrifice he made for his people, for never in his life did he make
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
taken St. Louis and that we should never see our Spanish father again.
This information made all our people sorry.”
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