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The white trespassers kept coming in. They respected nothing. They even built fences around the corn fields of the principal 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.
The pick and pride of foreign herds have regenerated our neat stock, and the Morgan and the Black-Hawk eat their oats in our stalls. The sheepfold and the sty abound with choice blood. Sterling agricultural journals are on every farmer's table, and Saxton's hand-books upon agricultural specialties are scattered everywhere.
Two of the flag-of-truce party came in. They had escaped. The third young man had been shot while in the soldiers' camp. The Black-hawk band took the blankets and provisions left in the soldiers' camp, and proceeded to war in earnest. Of what use was a white flag? They sent away their families. Some Winnebagos, hearing of the great victory, enlisted. Now Black-hawk was much feared.
He waited fifteen minutes, to give the Indian women and children that much time to hide; then he opened on the white flag with canister and musketry. The first cannon shot "laid out three." In all, he killed twenty-three. Black-hawk fought back, but he could not do very much against a steamboat in the river. So he had been unable to surrender, or to cross the Mississippi.
And every right, title, or claim forfeited under this act shall be taken and deemed to be vested in the United States, without any other or further proceedings." In March, 1833, the act of 1807 was revived with special reference to the Iowa country to which the Indian title was, in accordance with the Black-Hawk treaty of 1832, to be extinguished in June.
Black-hawk's sons did not like this, and had the bones brought back. They were stored in the historical collection at Burlington, where in 1855 a fire burned them. Black-hawk probably did not care what became of his old bones. He was done with them. The white race had over-flowed the land that he loved, and the bones of his fathers, and he had ceased fighting.
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.
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.
Like the great Cornstalk, he said to the people that if they were bound to go to war, they should first put all the women and children "into the long sleep, for we enter upon a trail that has no turn." He was called a coward by the Black-hawk band; but the other Sacs and Foxes stayed where they were. "General" Black-hawk fought beside General Tecumseh.
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.
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