BLACK HAWK WAR - MEXICAN WAR -
AND WAR FOR THE UNION
(Transcribed by Sharon Wick)

IN the year 1767, there was born in the Sauk village an Indian boy, destined to be a great leader of his people.  Tracuta Wahicatah was the name given him, but the whites in after years called him Black Hawk.  As he grew to maturity, he gave evidence of superior talents.  He proved himself brave in battle, and sagacious and eloquent in the councils of his tribe.  Inferior no doubt he was to the  great Shawnee warrior, Tecumseh, or to the Pequot chief, Philip, but his portrait reveals the passion of deep lines of character.  His forehead is broad and high, his jaws massive and mouth firm.  He was ambitious of a warrior's fame; but he was always merciful to the weak and to the women and children of the pale faced-foe who fell into his hands.  In 1810 and 1811 Black Hawk and comrades were "nursing their wrath to keep it warm," against the whites.  A party of Sacs, by invitation, went to see the prophet at Tippecanoe.  They returned more angry against the Americans.  A party of Winnebegoes had massacred some whites, which excited for murder the Sac band headed by Black Hawk.  A part of his band and some Winnebagoes attacked Fort Madison in 1811, but were repulsed.  Black Hawk headed the Sacs in this attack.

     In 1812 emissaries from the British arrived at Rock Island with goods, and secured Black Hawk with fie hundred warriors to go with Col. Dixon to Canada.  When they reached Green Bay there were assembled there bands of the Ottowas, Pottawatomies, Winnebegoes, and Kickapoos, under the command of Col. Dixon.  Black Hawk and band participated in the battles of River Raisin, the Lower Sandusky, and other places, but getting dissatisfied with the hard fighting and small amount of spoils, he and twenty comrades, left for the Sauk village at Rock Island, where he remained for many years at peace, with the exception of a small battle on the Quiver river settlement in Missouri, in the present limits of St. Charles county, where one white man and an Indian were killed.