They loved this country. They especially loved Rock Island, in the Mississippi--where today is located a Government a.r.s.enal.
It was indeed a beautiful island for them. It bore grapes and nuts, and they called it their garden. In a cave there, a kind spirit dwelt, who blessed the land of the Indians. The spirit had white wings, like a swan. But in 1816 the United States built Fort Armstrong right on top of the cave, and the good spirit flew away, never to come back.
The guns of the fort frightened it.
Black-hawk himself had another favorite spot, upon a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and his village of Saukenuk. Here he liked to sit. It is still known as Black-hawk"s Watch Tower.
After Fort Armstrong was built, and the United States was again at peace with the other white nations, settlers commenced to edge into this Sac country of western Illinois. Although by another treaty, which Black-hawk himself had signed, the treaty of 1804 was re-pledged by the Sacs and Foxes, this all was United States land, and no settlers had any rights to it.
The Indians were unable to put the settlers off, and trouble arose.
Once Black-hawk was taken, in the forest, by settlers who accused him of shooting their hogs; they tore his gun from him, and beat him with sticks.
This was such a disgrace to him, that he painted a black mark on his face, and wore the mark for almost ten years. Only a scalp could wipe it off.
The white trespa.s.sers kept coming in. They respected nothing. They even built fences around the corn fields of the princ.i.p.al Sac village, at the mouth of Rock River; they ploughed up the grave-yard there; they took possession of Black-hawk"s own lodge; and when in the spring of 1828 the Black-hawk people came back from their winter hunt, they found that forty of their lodges had been burned.
Up to this time none of the land had been put on the market by the United States. But the Indian agent was trying to persuade the Sacs to move across the Mississippi, into Iowa. That was for their own good.
The white settlers were using whiskey and every other means, to get the upper hand.
Chief Keokuk agreed with the agent. He was not of the rank of Black-hawk and the Thunder clan, but he had fought the Sioux, and was of great courage and keen mind and silver tongue. He was an orator; Black-hawk was a warrior.
So the Sacs split. Keokuk--a stout, heavy-faced man--took his Sacs across into the country of the Foxes. Black-hawk"s band said they would be shamed if they gave up their village and the graves of their fathers.
Black-hawk visited some white "chiefs" (judges) who were on Rock Island. He made complaint. He said that he wore a black mark on his face; but that if he tried to avenge the black mark, by striking a white man, then the white men would call it war. He said that the Sacs dared not resent having their lodges burned and their corn fields fenced and their women beaten, and the graves of their fathers ploughed up.
"Why do you not tell the President?"
"He is too far off. He cannot hear my voice."
"Why do you not write a letter to him?"
"It would be written by white men, who would say that we told lies.
Our Great Father would rather believe a white man, than an Indian."
The two judges said that they were sorry for the Sacs, but could do nothing.
Now in 1829 the settlers were so anxious to keep the Sac lands at the mouth of the Rock River, that the Government put these on the market.
This would dispose of Black-hawk"s people, for they would have no village. Whether the other lands were sold, did not matter.
It was done while Black-hawk and his men and women were hunting. On their return to plant their crops, they learned that their village and grave-yard had been sold to the whites--the most of whom were already there.
So the white people had won out. They in turn asked protection, of the Government, from "General Black-hawk" and his band. The Government listened, and ten companies of regular troops were sent to Rock Island in a steamboat, to remove the Sacs, "dead or alive," to the west side of the Mississippi.
A council was held with Black-hawk at Fort Armstrong, on Rock Island.
Black-hawk rose to speak. He said that the Sacs never had sold their lands; it had been a mistake, and that they were bound to keep their village.
"Who is this Black-hawk?" retorted General Edmund P. Gaines, the commander of the troops. "Is he a chief? By what right does he appear in council?"
Black-hawk wrapped his blanket around him and strode angrily out of the council room. But the next morning he made answer.
"My father, you asked yesterday, who is Black-hawk? Why does he sit among the chiefs? I will tell you who I am. I am a Sac, my father was a Sac--I am a warrior and so was my father. Ask these young men, who have followed me to battle, and they will tell you who Black-hawk is.
Provoke our people to war, and you will learn who Black-hawk is."
More troops were called, until there were twenty-five hundred. But seeing so many soldiers marching, Black-hawk took all his people and camped across the Mississippi, under a white flag.
After this Black-hawk was required to sign another treaty, which made him say that he had tried to enlist the Potawatomis, Winnebagos and Kickapoos in a war against the United States. It did not mention the fact that for a dozen and more years the whites had been warring upon him by seizing his lands and ploughing his fields and burning his lodges.
The paper also set him down below the other chiefs, who had left their lands. It set him below Keokuk, and the Fox chiefs--and this hurt him deeply. All the Sacs and Foxes laughed at the idea of Keokuk, and his lowly clan, being placed above Black-hawk and the Thunder clan.
In these years of trouble, the Black-hawk band had killed or abused no white settlers. The so-called "war," on their part, had been a war of words and fences. Now they soon were to take up the hatchet.
They had been expelled over the river in this year 1831 too late for planting crops. The white settlers declined to share with them, from the fields at the village of Saukenuk. One night some of the Sacs crossed "to steal roasting-ears from their own fields," as they said.
They were shot at by the settlers, and driven off.
This made more bad feeling.
Black-hawk had sent his head warrior, Nah-po-pe, or Soup, up to Canada, to ask council from the British "father" there. He had been "General Black-hawk" in the British army, and thought that he deserved help.
But the United States and Great Britain had been at peace many years.
The British father told Nahpope that if the Sacs never had sold their land, of course they had a right to live upon it. That was all.
On the way back, Nahpope stopped to see Wa-bo-kie-shiek, or White Cloud, who was half Sac and half Winnebago, and a great medicine-man or prophet. He had a village at his Prophet"s Town, thirty-five miles up the Rock River, in Illinois.
White Cloud pretended to rival the Open Door of the Shawnees. He fell into a trance, and cut several capers, and spoke a message from the Great Spirit. Let Black-hawk go to war. The Great Spirit would arouse the Winnebagos and the Potawatomis and the British, and the Americans would be driven away! White Cloud said this out of his own heart, which was black toward the Americans.
He invited Black-hawk to visit him and the Winnebagos and the Potawatomis, raise a summer crop and talk with the Great Spirit.
Much rejoiced, Nahpope hastened to tell the news to his chief. When Keokuk heard it, he advised Black-hawk to stay at home. The prophet White Cloud was a mischief maker and a liar.
Black-hawk was inclined to listen, and to wait until he was more certain of the other nations who might join with him. But the young men of his band were hot. Unless he did something, Keokuk would appear to be stronger than he. His people looked to him to get back their village and their grave-yard. The black mark on his face had not been wiped off.
None of Keokuk"s Sacs or the Foxes would help him. So in April of 1832 he took his men and their families and started up the river from Fort Madison, Iowa, for Rock River. The warriors were on horses, the women and children in canoes.
By the last treaty that he had signed, Black-hawk had promised not to cross to the east side of the Mississippi without the permission of the United States. Now he said that he was going up the Rock River, to the country of the Winnebagos, his friends, to visit among them and plant corn and beans.
On the way up the Rock River he was ordered back, by word from General Henry Atkinson, commander at Fort Armstrong.
Black-hawk replied that he had a right to travel peacefully, the same as white persons. He was going to the Winnebago country, for the summer.
The general sent another word, that if Black-hawk did not turn around, soldiers would make him turn around.
Black-hawk replied that he was at peace and would stay at peace unless the soldiers attacked him. He told his men not to fire first.
Pretty soon he met some Winnebagos and Potawatomis. They said that their nations never had sent him any message talking war. They wished no trouble with the United States. Wabokieshiek had lied.
So Black-hawk decided to give his guests a dog-feast, and then return home. He was an old man of sixty-five, and he was too weak to fight alone. He was getting tired.
He had made camp one hundred miles up the Rock River, near Kishwaukee, a few miles below present Rockford, Illinois. By this time, early in May, all Illinois was alarmed; the regulars and militia were on his trail. They gathered at Dixon, about forty miles down the river from his camp.
Major Isaac Stillman took two hundred and seventy-five mounted militia, to scout for Black-hawk. They arrived at Sycamore Creek, within eight miles of him, and did not see his camp. But Black-hawk knew that they were there.