The Black Hawk War was a conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. The war erupted after Black Hawk and a group of Sauks, Meskwakis (Fox), and Kickapoos, known as the "British Band", crossed the Mississippi River, to the U.S. state of Illinois, from Iowa Indian Territory in April 1832. Black Hawk's motives were ambiguous, but he was apparently hoping to reclaim land that was taken over by the United States in the disputed 1804 Treaty of St. Louis.
U.S. officials, convinced that the British Band was hostile, mobilized a frontier militia and opened fire on a delegation from the Native Americans on May 14, 1832. Black Hawk responded by successfully attacking the militia at the Battle of Stillman's Run. He led his band to a secure location in what is now southern Wisconsin and was pursued by U.S. forces. Meanwhile, other Native Americans conducted raids against forts and colonies largely unprotected with the absence of the militia. Some Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi warriors took part in these raids, although most tribe members tried to avoid the conflict. The Menominee and Dakota tribes, already at odds with the Sauks and Meskwakis, supported the United States.
Commanded by General Henry Atkinson, the U.S. forces tracked the British Band. Militia under Colonel Henry Dodge caught up with the British Band on July 21 and defeated them at the Battle of Wisconsin Heights. Black Hawk's band was weakened by hunger, death, and desertion, and many native survivors retreated towards the Mississippi. On August 2, U.S. soldiers attacked the remnants of the British Band at the Battle of Bad Axe, killing many and capturing most who remained alive. Black Hawk and other leaders escaped, but later surrendered and were imprisoned for a year.
The Black Hawk War gave Abraham Lincoln his brief military service, although he saw no combat. Other participants who would later become famous included Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, and James Clyman. The war was used to justify the U.S. policy of Indian removal, in which Native American tribes were pressured to sell their lands and move west of the Mississippi River to reside.
Background
In the 18th century, the Sauk and Meskwaki (or Fox) Native American tribes lived along the Mississippi River in what are now the U.S. states of Illinois and Iowa. The land they lived on was considered sacred because of the fertile soil, prime hunting, accessibility to lead, and access to water, which was helpful for trade. The two tribes had become closely connected after having been displaced from the Great Lakes region in conflicts with New France and other Native American tribes, particularly after the so-called Fox Wars ended in the 1730s. By the time of the Black Hawk War, the population of the two tribes was about 6,000 people.
Disputed treaty
As the United States colonized westward in the early 19th century, government officials sought to buy as much Native American land as possible. In 1804, territorial governor William Henry Harrison negotiated a treaty in St. Louis in which a group of Sauk and Meskwaki leaders supposedly sold their lands east of the Mississippi for more than $2,200, in goods and annual payments of $1,000 in goods. The treaty became controversial because the Native leaders had not been authorized by their tribal councils to cede lands. Historian Robert Owens argued that the chiefs probably did not intend to give up ownership of the land, and that they would not have sold so much valuable territory for such a modest price. Historian Patrick Jung concluded that the Sauk and Meskwaki chiefs intended to cede a little land, but that the Americans included more territory in the treaty's language than the Natives realized. According to Jung, the Sauks and Meskwakis did not learn the true extent of the cession until years later.
The 1804 treaty allowed the tribes to continue using the ceded land until it was sold to American colonists by the U.S. government. For the next two decades, Sauks continued to live at Saukenuk, their primary village, which was located near the confluence of the Mississippi and Rock Rivers. In 1828, the U.S. government finally began to have the ceded land surveyed for colonists. Indian agent Thomas Forsyth informed the Sauks that they should vacate Saukenuk and their other settlements east of the Mississippi.
Sauks divided
The Sauks were divided about whether to resist implementation of the disputed 1804 treaty. Most Sauks decided to relocate west of the Mississippi rather than become involved in a confrontation with the United States. The leader of this group was Keokuk, who had helped defend Saukenuk against the Americans during the War of 1812. Keokuk was not a chief, but as a skilled orator, he often spoke on behalf of the Sauk civil chiefs in negotiations with the Americans. Keokuk regarded the 1804 treaty as a fraud, but after having seen the size of American cities on the east coast in 1824, he did not think the Sauks could successfully oppose the United States.
The Americans knew Keokuk was for peace and would not wage war against them. For this reason, the Americans gave him many gifts, hoping to bribe Keokuk into moving across the Mississippi into Iowa. The American plan succeeded when Keokuk and a majority of the tribe decided to leave. However, about 800 Sauks—roughly one-sixth of the tribe—chose instead to resist American expansion. Black Hawk, a war captain who had fought against the United States in the War of 1812 and was now in his 60s, emerged as the leader of this faction in 1829. Like Keokuk, Black Hawk was not a civil chief, but he became Keokuk's primary rival for influence within the tribe. Black Hawk had actually signed a treaty in May 1816 that affirmed the disputed 1804 land cession, but he insisted that what had been written down was different from what had been spoken at the treaty conference. According to Black Hawk, the "whites were in the habit of saying one thing to the Indians and putting another thing down on paper."
Black Hawk was determined to hold onto Saukenuk, a village at the confluence of the Rock River with the Mississippi, where he lived and had been born. When the Sauks returned to the village in 1829 after their annual winter hunt in the west, they found that it had been occupied by squatters who were anticipating the sale of land. After months of clashes with the squatters, the Sauks left in September 1829 for the next winter hunt. Hoping to avoid further confrontations, Keokuk told Forsyth that he and his followers would not return to Saukenuk.
Against the advice of Keokuk and Forsyth, Black Hawk's faction returned to Saukenuk in the spring of 1830. This time, they were joined by more than 200 Kickapoos, a people who had often allied with the Sauks. Black Hawk and his followers became known as the "British Band" because they sometimes flew a British flag to defy claims of U.S. sovereignty, and because they hoped to gain the support of the British at Fort Malden in Canada.
When the British Band once again returned to Saukenuk in 1831, Black Hawk's following had grown to about 1,500 people, and now included some Potawatomis, a people with close ties to the Sauks and Meskwakis. American officials determined to force the British Band out of the state. General Edmund P. Gaines, commander of the Western Department of the United States Army, assembled troops with the hope of intimidating Black Hawk into leaving. The army had no cavalry to pursue the Sauks should they flee further into Illinois on horseback, and so on June 5 Gaines requested that the state militia provide a mounted battalion. Illinois governor John Reynolds had already alerted the militia; about 1,500 volunteers turned out. Meanwhile, Keokuk convinced many of Black Hawk's followers to leave Illinois.
On June 25, 1831, Gaines sent troops to Vandruff Island across from Saukenuk. The island had been named for a farmer and trader who operated a ferry, as well as sold liquor to the natives, which had previously prompted a raid by Black Hawk to destroy the whiskey. This time, underbrush had grown to impede the militiamen from landing, so the next day the militia tried to assault Saukenuk itself, only to find that Black Hawk and his followers had abandoned the village and recrossed the Mississippi. On June 30, Black Hawk, Quashquame, and other Sauk leaders met with Gaines and signed an agreement in which the Sauks promised to remain west of the Mississippi and to break off further contact with the British in Canada.
Black Hawk's return
In late 1831, Neapope, a Sauk civil chief, returned from Fort Malden and told Black Hawk that the British and the other Illinois tribes were prepared to support the Sauks against the United States. Why Neapope made these claims, which would prove to be unfounded, is unclear. Historians have described Neapope's report to Black Hawk as "wishful thinking" and the product of a "fertile imagination". Black Hawk welcomed the information, though he would later criticize Neapope for misleading him. He spent the winter in an unsuccessful attempt to recruit additional allies from other tribes and from Keokuk's followers.
According to Neapope's erroneous report, Wabokieshiek ("White Cloud"), a shaman known to Americans as the "Winnebago Prophet", had claimed that other tribes were ready to support Black Hawk. Wabokieshiek's mother was a Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), but his father had belonged to a Sauk clan that provided the tribe's civil leaders. When Wabokieshiek joined the British Band in 1832, he would become the ranking Sauk civil chief in the group. His village, Prophetstown, was about thirty-five miles up the Rock River from Saukenuk. The village was inhabited by about 200 Ho-Chunks, Sauks, Meskwakis, Kickapoos, and Potawatomis who were dissatisfied with tribal leaders who refused to stand up to American expansion. Although some Americans would later characterize Wabokieshiek as a primary instigator of the Black Hawk War, the Winnebago Prophet, according to historian John Hall, "actually discouraged his followers from resorting to armed conflict with the whites".
On April 5, 1832, the British Band entered Illinois once again. Numbering about 500 warriors and 600 non-combatants, they crossed near the mouth of the Iowa River over to Yellow Banks (present-day Oquawka, Illinois), and then headed north. Black Hawk's intentions upon reentering Illinois are not entirely clear, since reports from both colonists and Indian sources are conflicting. Some said that the British Band intended to reoccupy Saukenuk, while others said that the destination was Prophetstown. According to historian Kerry Trask, "even Black Hawk may not have been sure where they were going and what they intended to do".
As the British Band moved into Illinois, American officials urged Wabokieshiek to advise Black Hawk to turn back. Previously, the Winnebago Prophet had encouraged Black Hawk to come to Prophetstown, arguing that the 1831 agreement made with General Gaines prohibited a return to Saukenuk, but did not forbid the Sauks from moving to Prophetstown. Now, instead of telling Black Hawk to turn back, Wabokieshiek told him that, as long as the British Band remained peaceful, the Americans would have no choice but to let them settle at Prophetstown, especially if the British and the area tribes supported the band. Although the British Band traveled with armed guards as a security precaution, Black Hawk was probably hoping to avoid a war when he reentered Illinois. The presence of women, children, and the elderly indicated that the band was not a war party.
Intertribal war and American policy
Although the return of Black Hawk's band worried U.S. officials, they were at the time more concerned about the possibility of a war among the Native American tribes in the region. Most accounts of the Black Hawk War focus on the conflict between Black Hawk and the United States, but historian John Hall argues that this overlooks the perspective of many Native American participants. According to Hall, "the Black Hawk War also involved an intertribal conflict that had smoldered for decades". Tribes along the Upper Mississippi had long fought for control of diminishing hunting grounds, and the Black Hawk War provided an opportunity for some Natives to resume a war that had nothing to do with Black Hawk.
After having displaced the British as the dominant outside power following the War of 1812, the United States had assumed the role of mediator in intertribal disputes. Before the Black Hawk War, U.S. policy discouraged intertribal warfare. This was not strictly for humanitarian reasons: intertribal warfare made it more difficult for the United States to acquire Indian land and move the tribes to the West, a policy known as Indian removal, which had become the primary goal by the late 1820s. U.S. efforts at mediation included multi-tribal treaty councils at Prairie du Chien in 1825 and 1830, in which tribal boundaries were drawn. Native Americans sometimes resented American mediation, especially young men, for whom warfare was an important avenue of social advancement.
The situation was complicated by the American spoils system. After Andrew Jackson assumed the U.S. presidency in March 1829, many competent Indian agents were replaced by unqualified Jackson loyalists, argues historian John Hall. Men like Thomas Forsyth, John Marsh, and Thomas McKenney were replaced by less qualified men such as Felix St. Vrain. In the 19th century, historian Lyman Draper argued that the Black Hawk War could have been avoided had Forsyth remained as the agent to the Sauks.