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The Black Hawk War and Chief Black Hawk
In 1831, the government of Illinois forced the Indians of the Sauk and Fox tribes of the land that is now Chicago, to the other side of the Mississippi River in Iowa. The Sauk and Fox tribes moved immediately but a small group led by chief Black Hawk refused. Chief Black Hawk was born in 1767. He was a Sauk Native American born into a Sauk tribe near what is now Rockford, IL. Eventually the force of the Illinois government was too much, so Black Hawk and his group moved to the other side of the Mississippi River.
The next spring, Chief Black Hawk gathered an army. One year later in 1832, a group led by Chief Black Hawk returned to the land where they were born but now it wasn't just a small army; it was an army of about 700 Sauk and Fox Indians. The Government wanted them to move, but they said, "We want to stay and live on the land that we were born on." The only thing Chief Black Hawk wanted to do was plant corn on the place where he was born. The Government did not agree with this. The Indians did not like this decision, so they fought because there was too much fury between the Indians and the Illinois government.
Illinois soldiers tried to fight, but finally the pressure of the Indians was too much, so they were forced to call in the U.S. Army to fight off the Indians. The U.S. Army was too much for the Indians. Chief Black Hawk tried to retreat but the U.S. army did not back down from the Indians. The U.S. army forced the Indians back to the Mississippi River. This was the last battle in the Black Hawk War. They called it "The Battle of the Axe." At the "Battle of the Axe" hundreds of mothers and children died. Then Chief Black Hawk tried surrendering, but it didn't work. The Army took chief Black Hawk and other Sauk and Fox Indians captive and tortured them with knives, clubs, and guns.
By the time the Black Hawk War ended, 72 soldiers and about 600 Indians had died. The fights between the Indians and the white men and women were finally stopped by this war, which ended 150 years of fighting. At the end of the war, there were few Indian communities left in the state. The Army was too much for them and they lost their land in the fight. A Galena newspaper said there were no more Indians in the state of Illinois. This is a very sad tale in Chicago's history.
Today if the Government hadn't pushed the Indians off their land and over onto the west side of the Mississippi River, what Chicago is now could have been Wisconsin. Back when the Government moved the Indians off of their land, they moved the northern border of the state up 60 miles.
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Chief Black Hawk died in 1838 at the age of 71. Chief Black Hawk was the last Native American to resist the white settlement in Illinois. He was defeated in the Black Hawk War by the U.S. army, and he was not pleased.
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