The Black Hawk War (eBook)

Frank Stevens (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
106 Seiten
Merkaba Press (Verlag)
978-0-00-001996-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Black Hawk's name, as given in his autobiography, was Ma-ka-tai-she-kia-kiak, and, without reference to the many renditions of it by various writers, is the version that will be adopted in this work as nearest authentic. He was born in the year 1767 at the Sac or Sauk village, located on the north bank of Rock River in the State of Illinois, about three miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. His father, Py-e-sa, a grandson of Na-na-ma-kee or Thunder (a descendant of other Thunders), was born near Montreal, Canada, where the Great Spirit was reputed in Indian lore to have first placed the great Sac nation. Black Hawk was a full blood Sac, five feet eleven inches tall in his moccasins; of broad but meager build and capable of great endurance. His features were pinched and drawn, giving unusual prominence to the cheek bones and a Roman nose, itself pronounced. The chin was sharp. The mouth was full and inclined to remain open in repose. His eyes were bright, black and restless, glistening as they roamed during a conversation. Above these rested no eyebrows. The forehead was given the appearance of unusual fullness and height from the fact that all hair was plucked from the scalp, with the single exception of the scalp lock, to which, on occasions of state, was fastened a bunch of eagle feathers. In his later years it was his boast that he had worn the lock with such prominence to tempt an enemy to fight for it and to facilitate its removal should he be slain in the encounter. This statement, however, must be received as a boast and nothing more, because among the Sacs the custom of plucking from the scalp all hairs save the scalp lock was general and not confined to Black Hawk's redoubtable person, as he would have us believe. J.C. Beltrami, the Italian traveler, who ascended the Mississippi in 1823, stopping at all the Indian villages, particularly Black Hawk's upon Rock River, which he reached May 10th, has this to say, which is interesting: 'The faces of the Saukees, although exhibiting features characteristic of their savage state, are not disagreeable, and they are rather well made than otherwise. Their size and structure, which are of the middle kind, indicate neither peculiar strength nor weakness. Their heads are rather small; that part called by French anatomists voute orbitaire has in general no hair except a small tuft upon the pineal gland, like that of the Turks; this gives the forehead an appearance of great elevation. Their eyes are small and their eyebrows thin; the cornea approaches rather to yellow, the pupil to red; they are the link between those of the orang-outang and ours. Their ears are sufficiently large to bear all the jewels, etc., with which they are adorned; two foxes' tails dangled from those of the Great Eagle. I have seen others to which were hung bells, heads of birds and dozens of buckles, which penetrated the whole cartilaginous part from top to bottom. Their noses are large and flat, like those of the nations of eastern Asia; their nostrils are pierced and ornamented like their ears. The maxillary bones, or pommettes, are very prominent. The under jaw extends outwards on both sides. Their mouths are rather large; their teeth close set, and of the finest enamel; their lips a little inverted. Their necks are regularly formed; they have large bellies and narrow chests, so that their bodies are generally larger below than above. Their feet and hands are well proportioned. Except the tuft on the head, which we have already remarked, they have no hair on any part of the body. Books which deal greatly in the marvelous convert this into an extraordinary phenomenon, but the fact is that, from a superstition common to all savages, they pluck it out, and, as they begin at an early age and use the most perservering means for its extirpation, nothing is left but a soft down.'

Textauszug

CHAPTER II.

British Intrigue Against the Frontiers–Hatred of the Americans–Treaty of 1804.

By the treaty of Paris, Sept. 3, 1783, Great Britain covenanted to surrender certain western forts which were of great strategic importance to the Americans in protecting the frontier from Indian incursions and also in dealing with such as were disposed to treat honorably with the Government. The compact was solemnly made and signed, but, disgruntled from the loss of her colonies, the British government sent secret instructions to its garrisons to retain these forts, and in consequence not one of them was surrendered. Nor was this the only violation by the British of their engagements. Agents were set to work over our vast frontier to foment insubordination among the Indians against American domination. These Indians were supplied with provisions and arms and incited openly to war against the whites and drive them back east of the mountains, and year after year they continued until the sickening horrors of the stake and scalping knife were sweeping the feeble settlements of the West from end to end.

France and Spain, both with colonial possessions to the west, while gratified to see England stripped of her possessions, were suspected of aiding the design of the British to restrict American settlements to the shores of the Atlantic. Spain claimed exclusive ownership of the Mississippi and commerce upon her waters by Americans was prohibited. The “dark and bloody ground” of Kentucky, long the scene of carnage, was made the first scene of British intrigue, where the atrocities of the Indians were the most frightful in history. The tribes of Ohio and Indiana, which were in the league, penetrated the settlements of the whites, deluging the land with the blood of innocent women and children.

The Government, hopelessly involved with debt and graver questions of state, could offer the struggling settlers no relief, and thus alone they were forced to stand in hourly fear of butchery. They grew to look for no help save in their own resources, and yearly meeting with defiance, a pioneer community of militant husbandmen gradually grew and moved westward; instinctively taught to rush to arms upon the breaking of a twig or the rustle of a leaf in defense of their defenseless loved ones in the cabin. When, therefore, Black Hawk lent a willing ear to the British agent, accepted his presents and performed his murderous behests, which he did, he should have expected the awful consequences of defeat and annihilation which followed his years of hypocrisy, and accepted the Government’s final requital with gratitude, or at least Indian stolidity, instead of snarling at his fate and constantly bewailing the elevation of others over him who had loyally stood by the Americans and their Government in perilous times. He invited destruction and was destroyed. The attention of the student is directed to this phase of Black Hawk’s character as it develops in these pages down to his defeat, August 2d, 1832.

The Sacs were originally British Indians, domiciled near Montreal. By constant quarrels and wars with their neighbors their tribes, once numerous and powerful, were reduced to a remnant and finally driven from the country altogether. They settled in Wisconsin, where they met the Foxes, similarly driven from Canada, and the two tribes immediately combined, ever after being considered as a confederated nation. They again grew powerful and arrogant and became involved in wars with their neighbors. At the time of the last French and English war they took sides with the English and received from that source presents for many years. This British sympathy was born in Black Hawk, and continued with him, growing in intensity as the Americans expanded and defeated the English, until it became positive hatred. When, therefore, he repeats the statement that he heard bad accounts of the Americans in 1803, and then asserts that all his differences with the Americans date from the signing of the treaty of 1804, he states that which cannot be received with confidence. Prior to 1803 he never had found himself in contact with the Americans to an extent worthy of note, and no cause, real or imaginary, had been given him for a difference, yet on leaving the Spanish father, mentioned in the last chapter, he catches a rumor, adopts a prejudice and dictates for his autobiography the following ill-natured words, false to begin with and as malignant as he was generally found to be in speaking or writing of the Americans: “I inquired the cause and was informed that the Americans were coming to take possession of the town and country, and that we should lose our Spanish father. This news made myself and band sad, because we had always heard bad accounts of the Americans from Indians who had lived near them.”

KE-O-KUK.

 

PA-SHE-PA-HO.

ANTOINE LE CLAIRE.

 

J.B. PATTERSON.

During the years 1803 and 1804, Gov. William Henry Harrison of Indiana concluded treaties with the Kaskaskias and the Wabash tribes, obtaining thereby title to a large extent of country south of the Illinois River. Having an immense stretch of country unserviceable for fishing and hunting, many of the Sacs and Foxes considered it desirable to receive annuities, after the manner of the Wabash tribes. A bad hunt could thus be recouped in a certain money stipend. Accordingly, slight overtures were thrown out to this effect. The Sacs and Foxes roamed north of the Illinois River, like the fugitive buffalo or lonesome bird of passage. Those broad prairies afforded them no subsistence in hunting or fishing. The bare claim to possession was their sole exercise of it, and that frail tenure had been wrenched by conquest from others without compensation in the smallest degree. Along the streams a few harmless, nondescript Indians and tribal remnants lived, or rather remained, as dependent vassals of the mighty Sacs and Foxes, but these were so inconspicuous and weak as to be ignored by both the whites and Indians in treaties.

There can be no doubt of a knowledge by the Government of this desire for annuities by the Sacs and Foxes. President Jefferson was not the man to simulate the existence of any unfair postulate in treating with the Indians, who were at all times objects of his especial solicitude. Accordingly, on the 27th day of June, 1804, he directed Governor Harrison to treat with the Sacs and Foxes and obtain cessions of lands on both sides the Illinois River, granting as a consideration therefor an annual compensation. Agreeably with his instructions, Governor Harrison called the head chiefs of the consolidated tribes to meet him at St. Louis, which Pashepaho, head chief of the Sacs, Layowvois, Quashquame, Outchequaha and Hashequarhiqua did. Here, on November 3d, the following treaty was solemnly made and signed:

Articles of a Treaty, made at St. Louis, in the district of Louisiana, between William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory and the District of Louisiana, Superintendent of Indian affairs for the said Territory and district and Commissioner plenipotentiary of the United States, for concluding any treaty or treaties, which may be found necessary with any of the Northwestern tribes of Indians, of the one part; and the Chiefs and head men of the united Sac and Fox tribes of the other part.

Article 1. The United States receive the united Sac and Fox tribes into their friendship and protection and the said tribes agree to consider themselves under the protection of the United States, and no other power whatsoever.

Art. 2. The General boundary line between the land of the United States and the said Indian tribes shall be as follows, to wit: Beginning at a point on the Missouri River opposite to the mouth of the Gasconade River; thence, in a direct course so as to strike the River Jeffreon, at the distance of 30 miles from its mouth and down the said Jeffreon to the Mississippi; thence, up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ouisconsing River, and up the same to a point which shall be 36 miles in a direct line from the mouth of the said river, thence, by a direct line to the point where the Fox River (a branch of the Illinois) leaves the small Lake called Sakaegan; thence, down the Fox River to the Illinois River, and down the same to the Mississippi. And the said tribes, for and in consideration of the friendship and protection of the United States, which is now extended to them, of the goods (to the value of two thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty cents) which are now delivered, and ofthe annuity hereinafter stipulated to be paid, do hereby cede and relinquish forever, to the United States, all the lands included within the above described boundary.

Art. 3. In consideration of the cession and relinquishment of land made in the preceding article, the United States will deliver to the said tribes, at the town of St. Louis, or some other convenient place on the Mississippi, yearly and every year, goods suited to the circumstances of the Indians of the value of one thousand dollars (six hundred of which are intended for the Sacs and four hundred for the Foxes), reckoning that value at the first cost of the goods in the City or place in the United States, where they shall be procured. And if the said tribes shall hereafter at an annual delivery of the goods aforesaid, desire that a part of their annuity should be furnished in domestic animals, implements of husbandry, and other utensils, convenient for them, or in compensation to useful artificers, who may reside with or near them, and be employed for their benefit, the same shall, at the subsequent annual delivery, be furnished accordingly.

Art. 4. The United States will never interrupt the said tribes in the possession of the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.7.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• ISBN-10: 0-00-001996-8 / 0000019968
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-001996-7 / 9780000019967