Part I
Near where I grew up in
Sac County, Iowa,
(called after the Sac or Sauk Indians) there's a glacial
lake
named for their famed leader, Black Hawk.
A statue of him stands near to the northern shore. This long narrative poem
remembers him and the tragedy that befell him and his people.
Pictured with a crest,
A tuft atop his head;
He resisted movement west,
But sadly it must be said,
This, to tragedy led!
Of him did history write
And scribe his native stand:
He stood against the white
Uprooting from the land...
His village was nigh to where,
Two rivers met and mingled:
And coming together there,
Their running waters singled...
In Saukenuk, he dwelt,
The houses hided with bark;
There venison hung, and pelt,
And fires illumed the dark...
And the Indian village around,
Whereon the eye could gaze,
Was bluegrass growing found,
A pasture for ponies to graze...
At the Mississippi's swish
And the rushing of the Rock,
The rapids swam with fish,
Food for the native flock...
They planted beans and pumpkin,
And put seeds of squash in soil;
And where the prairie lay,
The Indian women, they,
Did hoe
their corn in toil...
Above the prairie there rose a bluff,
Where gushed spring water clear...
Maybe nigh in season fruit enough,
In bush and brambles near...
Black Hawk
The native who stood was Sauk,
But called himself "a Sac"...
His English name Black Hawk...
Yet in syllables spoken, no lack,
And uttered in native tongue,
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak,
A name to which he clung...
He stood of medium size,
Dark hazel were his eyes;
From his ears and neck were hung
Strings of wampum strung;
Hollow cheeked and bent of nose,
He buckskin wore for clothes.
Aside, he wore a pouch of hawk,
Whence his name in paleface talk...
The Sauk
His tribe's once lived in Michigan,
In the region of Saginaw Bay,
But westward came the clan,
They came Wisconsin way...
They also were known as Saukie
And by the longer, Asakiwaki...
Among what meanings or origins say:
"The outlet," or people of "yellow earth"
In myth created of yellow clay ―
Such, was the heritage of his birth.
Confederated with the Sauk,
Was the Indian tribe of Fox,
Like separate feet together,
In a pair of Indian moccs...
Together but apart,
The tribes they did locate,
In villages of their own,
Along the river great...
From the river mouth,
Where the Rock flowed forth,
The Sauk were to the south,
The Fox were to the north....
Mis-treaty of 1804?
In the year of 1803,
For pennies an acre paid,
The French, they did agree,
To a Purchase America made:
The nation, Louisiana bought,
A land of great extent:
North from the Gulf to Canada,
And west to the Rockies went...
With this land, this great expanse,
She doubled in size from France...
The following year, she sought,
A tract of tribal land;
And again, by treaty wrought,
America did expand...
Not only land she acquired,
From the Mississippi west,
But land to the east desired,
Land the natives possessed...
Land from the river Wisconsin,
South to the Gasconade,
And east to the Illinois,
She gained by pact she made...
But for the Fox and Sauk,
It did the Indian cost;
And these included Black Hawk
―A lot of
land they lost!
These questions we may pose
And ask the past to disclose:
Whether the natives put quill
To a treaty not fully understood;
Whether the white man's will,
Embraced more than they thought
it would...
Whether a few were pressed to cede,
More than the many would've agreed...
Whether the mind of Quashquame
Was befogged with drink;
Whether he and others, they,
Were too grogged to clearly think...
Removal and Return
In the course of time America sold
The land the Indian once did hold...
And for the natives, their fortunes sank,
East of the Mississippi bank...
That is to say, no longer were they,
Allow'd to abide upon that side...
Across the river the Hawk was forced,
Across to Ioway...
But after some moons, back he coursed,
Against the palefaced way...
Across the current they paddled canoe,
And swam the horses the water through...
Black Hawk returned to enjoy
Ancestral land in Illinois...
He did not intend a fray
But thought to defend and stay...
Thus the Indian Sac,
In time flown by before,
This Hawk flew back,
Flew the river o'er...
And his talons, they alit,
On a land he
wouldn't quit...
He was heartened by Neapope's report
Of tribal help and British support
And word from one, believed endowed:
Wobokieskiek,
the prophet White Cloud...
Up the Rock
From the flowing mouth of the Rock,
They up the river, singing went;
With drums abeat, this native flock
Was silent not in its intent...
General Gaines did this assert:
He'd crush them, like a piece of dirt...
And thus revealed in soldier mind,
The thought of force o'er Indiankind...
The Indian came by canoe and horse,
To make their corn and gather force...
But the help foretold, came not to pass,
Not sinew enough to strength amass...
The British were coming not,
The Winnebagos wouldn't unite,
The Potawatomies had no corn...
Black Hawk decided not to fight...
Black Hawk believed
Himself deceived...
His trust was shaken,
He'd been mistaken!
If pursuers on them did close,
And they were overtaken,
Surrender then, he chose...
A White Flag Torn
On a day in May
With militia just miles away...
His hopes did sag,
His hopes were hollowed...
He sent a white flag
To those who followed...
The trucebearers went to talk,
Of council with Black Hawk,
Of where the parties could meet,
Woes discuss, and then retreat:
The Indian flock
Would descend the Rock...
And several Indians, sent to watch,
Were seen, far out upon the prairie...
But events to follow, would rip apart,
The flag of truce the natives did carry...
Fighting Begins
The sighting flashed through
the militia force,
And some in haste, hastened ahorse;
And from their encamping place,
Toward those afar, they did race!
They galloped o'er the prairie,
Alarming, as on they sped...
The observers stayed not to tarry,
But turned instead...and fled!
But shot! in a volley were two,
By those who did pursue!
For the Indian quest, O sadly,
The whites reacted badly,
Even attacking those in truce
―And a battle they did produce!
Their impetuosity
Unloosed ferocity...
The white pulled back
The bow that bent,
And nocked the arrow,
The Indian sent...
When the militia came galloping ahorse,
With most of the warriors miles away...
Black Hawk with some forty of force,
By bushes he hid and sprang in fray...
In fright the whites, they wheeled about,
And away in panic, they fled in rout...
In gathering darkness,
things were scary:
They fled away to Dixon's Ferry...
And the natives pursued the white
In the gathering gloom and night...
This Battle of Stillman's Run,
The Indian fought,
The Indian won
But the peace besought...
Alas,
Moons would pass,
Before the fighting begun,
Would be over and done...
Eleven whites were slain,
And not only did Indian slay,
But they also scalped,
In a very sanguine way...
And limbs did sever,
From the fallen forever...
The band ascended the Rock
To the Winnebago praise,
Who offered to safety lead them,
To what's Wisconsin these days...
It should be remembered that
As the Winnebagos go,
Some would be their friend,
Some would be their foe...
Even Keokuk, a chief of Sauk,
Offered to serve against Black Hawk!
Raids
In part for supplies to raise,
Black Hawk unloosed forays...
In an assault at Indian Creek,
Some settlers were suddenly hit,
By Potawatomies in main,
Yet Fox and Sac were blamed for it...
The attackers did cruelties do,
And captured maidens two...
But they in safety stayed with Sac,
Who both the girls did ransom back...
Between Galena and Dixon's Ferry,
Some, with dispatches to carry,
Were met by a party of war...
And the Winnebagos killed four.
Yet Fox and Sac were blamed,
For weapons that others aimed...
And among the slain
Was the agent St. Vrain;
And with his life at end,
The Indians lost a friend...
Lost on this occasion,
Was one of peace, of persuasion...
And reporting that he had died,
The St. Louis Beacon cried:
A hundred Indian lives is too small,
For each of the victims who did fall...
And here the Beacon shone light
Upon the dark of sight.
On the Pecatonica,
A pursued party of war
Was trapped at a river's bend,
The whites killed them, and more:
They scalped those brought to end...
Yet more on them would descend,
And more, the dead would rend:
Menominees
Winnebago and Sioux
Fell upon these,
And cut them cruelly too...
On the Apple River,
Black Hawk a fort attacked,
And after a siege,
Left a settlement sacked...
Away from Kishkonong with fish,
And famished for food to eat,
The band ate roots and bark,
And frailty and death did meet...
Their number was also bereft,
When other tribesmen left...
With fear of encircling foe
Black Hawk decided west to go...
He did recommend
The Wisconsin descend,
And cross the great river o'er,
Cross to farther shore...
In Pursuit
After a string of setbacks
And signs, anon,
The trail of Fox and Sacs,
They came upon
On the 21st of July,
The soldiers one did eye
An Indian grieving alone,
Alone on the grave of his wife,
There mourning her, his own...
They shot him, they took his life!
And not content with his demise,
His scalp they took it too;
And remember this, and realize,
This thing the white did do!
They came upon the guard behind
And pressed on in falling rain;
The Indians tried to throw them off
But the army continued to gain...
Statue of Black Hawk at Lake View
Profile of Black Hawk in rock from Pipestone, Minnesota. The rock is roughly split in layers. Some of the surface was cut away and some was left as it was. Black Hawk's names in Indian and English are also etched in the stone (see the ninth stanza). Most of the cutting was done with a small screwdriver that was sharpened for the work. If you look at the left edge, you'll see another profile facing the other way, hewn on the opposite side.
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