United States or Djibouti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Among the regulars were General Scott, later the commander in the war with Mexico; Colonel Zachary Taylor, who had defended Fort Harrison from Tecumseh and probably Black-hawk in the war of 1812, and who was to be President; Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, who became president of the Confederate States; Lieutenant Albert Sydney Johnston, who became a Confederate general; Lieutenant Robert Anderson, who commanded Fort Sumter in 1861; and among the volunteers was Captain Abraham Lincoln.
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.
He had but forty men with him; the rest were out hunting. Presently here came all the white soldiers, galloping and yelling, to ride over him. They were foolish they seemed to think that the Sacs would run. But Black-hawk was old in war. He laid an ambush his forty warriors waited, and fired a volley, and charged with the tomahawk and knife, and away scurried the soldiers like frightened deer.
However, when they had signed, the warrior was let out, and as he started to come to them, the soldiers had shot him dead. They still were not certain just what land they had signed away. That made the council and people angry. Black-hawk called the chiefs fools. They had no right to sell the land without the consent of the council.
The bullets flew like bees in the air, and whizzed by our ears like wind through the trees in winter. My warriors fell around me; I saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black-hawk. His heart is dead.
Black-hawk and his warriors, and other women and children, had cut across by land. When they came to the mouth of the Bad Axe River, at the Mississippi above the Wisconsin, the armed steamboat Warrior met them. Sioux were upon the western bank. Black-hawk decided to surrender.
The British traders had been more generous with the Indians than the American traders. Now the British father at the Lakes saluted him as "General Black-hawk." Only Black-hawk's band went. All the other Sacs and Foxes paid attention to the talk of Keokuk, the Watchful Fox, who was the Sac peace chief.
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.
Among the Sac leaders was Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak Big-black-breast, or Black-hawk. Like Little Turtle of the Miamis he had not been born a chief; but he was of the Thunder clan, the head clan of the Sacs. His father was Py-e-sa, a warrior of the rank of braves, and keeper of the tribal medicine-bag. His grandfather was Na-na-ma-kee, or Thunder also a brave.
Before he finally settled down in a lodge built near Iowaville on the lower Des Moines River, Iowa, he made other trips through the East. Keokuk went, also but it was "General Black-hawk" for whom the people clamored. He died on October 3, 1838, at his home. His last speech was made at a Fourth of July banquet, at Fort Madison, Iowa, where he was a guest of honor.
Word Of The Day