Historic Figures

The fictional story of Little Woods identifies several historic figures, whose lives touched the events of 1833, without involving them personally in any dramatic action. Below is an example of the technique. Black Hawk and Mike Girty were real people in history. Although it appears that Watseka is accusing Mike Girty of a crime, the reader will learn later in the story that Watseka was mistaken, and the banditti who injured her husband, Mud Paw, was not Mike Girty.

 

 

Excerpt: Little Woods (Snow Moon 1833: White Man's Moon)

 

“Mother, what did the banditti want?” Shickshack asked as he pried a stone from the hard mud and threw it toward the river’s far shore. He slapped a half-rotten, frozen log as a crisp pop reported that the stone struck solid ice close to midstream.

 

Watseka took measure of her nine-year old son. “They came to take our ponies. They also tried to take some of the young girls.”

 

Shickshack scratched his head. “Why would they want a girl?”

 

“They’d make the girls plant crops and cook food for them.” Shickshack’s not ready for the truth about the fate of a young squaw in the hands of cruel men.

 

“Who’s Mike Girty?”

 

“Mike Girty’s father was white, but his mother was Potawatomi.” Watseka’s eyes involuntarily shifted to the northwest, and she caught a whiff of rotting meat that was out of place in the normally pristine gusts of winter. “Mike Girty fought under Chief Black Hawk. He might be one of only a few survivors from the Battle at Bad Axe, where the white army defeated Black Hawk’s warriors."

 

“Did father fight for Black Hawk at the Battle of Bad Axe?”

 

“No.” Watseka shook her head. “Black Hawk was a war chief for the Sauk nation. Most Potawatomi stayed away from the fight or assisted the American army. Your uncle, Two Horse, served as a scout for the white soldiers. That’s how he got his rifle. Gray Eye also served the army to the end of the war. Your father traveled with the army for a short time but returned to the Little Woods before blood was shed.

 

“Why would any Potawatomi brave join the Sauk war party?”

 

“Black Hawk was born Potawatomi. He married Sauk. Mike Girty wanted war against the whites by all Indian nations. His hatred ran deep. Many believed Mike Girty died at Bad Axe, and some say he is in captivity of the white army. I only saw him a few times over the years. The man who wounded your father looked very much like Mike Girty.”

 

Shickshack’s brow furrowed. “Then I’ll grow up and kill Mike Girty.”

 

“You will not!” Anger pursed Watseka’s lips. “Chief Black Hawk himself said that only white men can do evil their whole lives and receive forgiveness at the time of their death. Neshnabek must be good always if we want to reach peace with the Great Spirit. You must be a good man.”

 

“If Chief Black Hawk was so good, then why did he want to kill the whites?”

 

“Some Sauk chiefs were tricked into signing a treaty that they did not understand. One day last year when Black Hawk’s people returned from the hunt, they found whites living on the land of their village. Black Hawk’s people were forced west across the Mississippi River. They went hungry while they watched the whites harvest crops that the Sauk had planted.” Watseka absently reached to her side and lifted an ear of corn.

 

“Black Hawk received assurances,” she continued, “that if he went on the warpath, other Indian nations would rise up in support. But few joined him. After a brief victory at a place called Stillman’s Run, the Sauk war party traveled east to escape the militias that formed behind them. They fled north, then west. When they reached the place where the Bad Axe River flows into the Mississippi, army cannons ended the rebellion in slaughter.”

 

“Did Black Hawk die there?”

 

“No. He was captured by the army, and they took him to the east to surrender to the white fathers in Washington.”