Chief Black Hawk Research Paper

Dan Oaks

1/17/18

US History

Period B History Fair A war happening in Chicago? In 1832, a war between the United States and Native Americans had happened. The war was led on the Native American side by the Sauk leader Black Hawk (Indian name: Makataimeshekiakiak, "be a large black hawk"). That’s why the war is called The Blackhawk War. The brief conflict was fought for only some brief couple months. The United States government and Native Americans have a long history of miscommunication and unfair agreements. The Blackhawk War was short but bloody, killed a lot of soldiers, and very interesting.

. Chief Black Hawk was born around the year 1767, in Saukenuk, a Sauk village located

This war has an impact on Illinois today. Black Hawk led his people across the Mississippi to resist further white encroachments. It resulted from an argument in 1804, from a treaty signed by a few Sauk’s unauthorized to take such action. Many wars were fought in the past in order to preserve or take land until each side decided that a peace treaty should be in order. Black Hawk just simply wanted peace. The belief in manifest destiny was very strong and the need to conquer more land had grown. His intent was to recapture the land that the United States had attained in the 1804 treaty, without fighting anybody. He refused to leave his living space. Conflict would happen no matter how one looks at it because one side wanted to evolve, and one wanted to stay the same. Blackhawks goal was to reestablish tribal lands along the area of the Rock River. In order to achieve this, he would have to rebel against the government, and that’s what he exactly did. He and many of his tribe members put up a fight to keep their land. Black Hawk even went as far as to join forces with the Britain, who did not have a well establish relationship with the Americans, and kept a good connection with them the name “British Band” during a war in 1812. By 1831, the government began a powerful elimination of the Indians, including Black Hawk's Sauk

Chief Black Hawk was involved in lots of battles during The Blackhawk War. Angered by the loss of the treaty, between 1830 and 1831 Black Hawk led many intrusions across the Mississippi River to Illinois. The Blackhawk War lasted from May to August in 1832. During those months of The Blackhawk War, there was seven different battles. All those seven battles were in the war. Black Hawk and the Americans fought several battles throughout the summer of 1832. Violence broke out on May 14, 1832. The first battle was Battle of Stallman’s run on May 14. The five battles in the middle of the war lasted from May 20 to July 21 with the Battle of Apple River being most significant, because most of the soldiers died during that battle. About fifteen militiamen and five of Black Hawk’s warriors were killed in the Battle of Stallman’s Run. In the Indian Creek Massacre, fifteen whites were badly killed. On June 16, six Sauk warriors and three Illinois soldiers were killed in a battle, near present-day Kent, Illinois at the Battle of Kellogg’s Grove. The battle of Wisconsin Heights was a rough one. Both soldier group walked over twenty miles to battle. They didn’t have any technology, so they used their feet to walk. The Sauk and Fox dead reached as high as 70, where the militiamen had suffered only 7 or 8 casualties. The last battle on July 2 was the Battle of Bad Axe. Over an eight-hour period, soldiers thrashed escaping