Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women

by Edwin L. Sabin

They still were not certain just what land they had signed away. That made the council and people angry. Black-hawk called the chiefs fools. They had no right to sell the land without the consent of the council. After this, the "Missouri band" of the Sacs kept by themselves, in disgrace.

It was too late to do anything more about the treaty. The United States had it. An Indian gets only one chance—and Head Chief Pashepaho himself had put his mark on the paper. The United States has two chances: the first, on the ground; the second, when the paper is sent to Washington.

Later it was found that Pashepaho and the others had signed away all the Sac and Fox lands east of the Mississippi River! That was how the treaty might be made to read. The payment for many millions of acres was $2,234.54 down, in goods, and $1,000 a year, in other goods.

But there was one pleasing clause. As long as the United States held the land, the Sacs and Foxes might live and hunt there. Any white men who tried to come in were to be arrested and put off.

At any rate, although Black-hawk raged and said that the treaty was a false treaty, it stood. The United States officials who had signed it were men of honest names, and considered that they had acted fairly. But Black-hawk never admitted that.

The United States was to erect a trading post, up the Mississippi, for the convenience of the Sacs and Foxes. In 1808 soldiers appeared above the mouth of the Des Moines River, on the west side of the Mississippi, in southeastern Iowa, and began to build.

This turned out to be not a trading post but a fort, named Fort Belle Vue, and afterward, Fort Madison.

The Sacs and Foxes, and their allies, the Potawatomis and Winnebagos, planned to destroy it, and made attacks.

Black-hawk was sore at the Americans. He listened to the words of Tecumseh and the Prophet, accepted the presents of the British agents who came to see him, and with two hundred warriors marched to help the British in the War of 1812. The British traders had been more generous with the Indians than the American traders. Now the British father at the Lakes saluted him as "General Black-hawk."

Only Black-hawk's band went. All the other Sacs and Foxes paid attention to the talk of Keokuk, the Watchful Fox, who was the Sac peace chief.