The Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk - Black Hawk (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

good corn field, and plenty of game, and had been well treated by the few whites who had settled in his neighborhood. He spent several days with us and then left for home with a good winter outfit.

The change in the manner of payment of annuities would have been opposed by Keokuk and his head men, had they been let into the secret, as the annuity money when paid over was principally controlled by him, and always to the detriment of the Sacs’ traders who were in opposition to the American Fur Company, the former having to rely almost entirely upon the fall and winter trade in furs and peltries to pay the credits given the Indians before leaving for their hunts.

Black Hawk’s Last Visit

To Yellow Banks was in the fall of 1836, after the town of Oquawka had been laid out, and when told that the town had taken the Indian name, instead of its English interpretation, he was very much gratified, as he had known it as Oquawka ever since his earliest recollection and had always made it a stopping place when going out to their winter camps. He said the Skunk river country was dotted over with Cabins all the way down to the Des Moines river, and was filling up very fast by white people. A new village had been started at Shokokon (Flint Hills) by the whites, and some of its people have already built good houses, but the greater number are still living in log cabins. They should have retained its Indian name, Shokokon, as our people have spent many happy days in this village. Here too, we had our council house in which the braves of the Sac nation have many times assembled to listen to my words of counsel. It was situated in a secluded but romantic spot in the midst of the bluffs, not far from the river, and on frequent occasions, when it became necessary to send out parties to make war on the Sioux to redress our grievances, I have assembled my braves here to give them counsel before starting on the warpath. And here, too, we have often met when starting out in the fall for our fall and winter’s hunt, to counsel in regard to our several locations for the winter. In those days the Fur Company had a trading house here and their only neighbors were the resident Indians of Tama’s town, located a few miles above on the river.

The Burlington Hawk-Eye, of a late date, in reference to this council house, says:

“A little distance above the water works, and further around the turn of the bluff is a natural amphitheater, formed by the action of the little stream that for ages has dripped and gurgled down its deep and narrow channel to the river. It is a straight, clear cut opening in the hill side, slightly rising till at a distance of seventy-five or one hundred yards from the face of the bluff it terminates as suddenly and sharply as do the steeply sloping sides.

“Well back in this grassy retreat, upon a little projection of earth that elevates it above the surrounding surface, lies a huge granite boulder. In connection with the surroundings it gives to the place the appearance of a work of man, everything is so admirably arranged for a council chamber. Here, it is rumored by tradition, the dusky warriors of the Sacs gathered to listen in attentive silence to the words of their leader, Black Hawk, who from his rocky rostrum addressed the motionless groups that strewed the hill sides; motionless under his addresses and by them aroused to deeds of darkness and crafty daring that made the name of their chief a synonym with all things terrible.

“Whatever of truth this story may contain we cannot say, and it may be no one knows. Certain it is, however, that Black Hawk’s early history is intimately linked and interwoven with that of our city, and in justice to a brave man and a soldier, as well as a ‘first settler’ and a citizen, his name and his last resting place should be rescued from the oblivion that will soon enshroud them.”

Another village has been commenced by the whites on the Mississippi river, at Fort Madison, which is being built up very rapidly. The country, too, is fast settling up by farmers, and as the Sacs have made a settlement on the frontier farther west, on our old hunting grounds, he said he would have to move farther back so as to be near his people; and on bidding us farewell, said it might be the last time, as he was growing old, and the distance would be too great from the point at which he intended to build a house and open a little farm to make a visit on horseback, and as the Des Moines river is always low in the fall of the year he could not come in his canoe.

At the close of the summer of 1837 the President of the United States invited deputations from several tribes of Indians residing on the Upper Mississippi to visit him at Washington. Among those who responded to his invitation were deputations from the Sacs and Foxes and Sioux, who had been at enmity, and between whom hostilities had been renewed, growing out of their inhuman treatment of many of the women and children of the Sacs, after they had made their escape from the battle of Bad Axe, at the close of the war.

Keokuk, principal chief of the Sacs and Foxes, (by the advice of his friend, Sagenash, Col. George Davenport, of Rock Island) invited Black Hawk to join his delegation, which invitation he readily accepted, and made one of the party; whilst the Sioux were represented by several of their crafty chiefs. Several counsels were held, the object of which was to establish peace between the Sacs and Foxes and Sioux, and in order