Black Hawk

Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk

 

Born Potawatomi but married a Sauk woman.

 

To protest the usurpation of Sauk lands in Northwest Illinois by white settlers, Black Hawk led a war party of about 1,000 Indians (including women and children) east across Northern Illinois, north into Wisconsin, and west to the place where the Bad Axe River meets the Mississippi River.

 

Many of Black Hawk's braves were massacred at the Battle of Bad Axe. Some survived the United States Army's assault by swimming across the Mississippi River but were killed by Sioux warriors who waited on the far shore. (Black Hawk War of 1832).

 

During the Black Hawk War, most Potawatomi remained neutral, or even helpful to the the white settlers of Illinois. But the Indian Creek Massacre, where a small band of Sauk and Potawatomi warriors collaborated in the slaughter nine white settlers, eclipsed all acts of good will and shadowed subsequent treaty negotiations.