An intimate knowledge of Black Hawk is denied us. The little known of him prior to 1832 is derived from less than a dozen sources, the most important being his autobiography;[[5]] the others, nearly all military, are to be found in treaties and the records of the war department. A few settlers only knew him, because settlers about his haunts in those days were exceedingly scarce. And so it has come to pass that his character has been universally judged by the contact with him during the last five or six years of his long life, while he was in a sense a captive, brooding over his fallen estate, while the drapery of an eternal evening was fast falling about him. At such an age, shorn of power, chafing under restrictions, disgruntled at the supremacy of his ancient enemy Keokuk, who had answered for his good behavior, the old man’s ambitions crushed, he was naturally a distressing object, evoking that pity which so universally appeals to an American and is so surely allowed to cover a multitude of sins. Those few last years have been thus carelessly permitted to become the monument to the man, and those who drove him from power have been harshly judged or jocularly denominated “carpet soldiers,” as much as to say the pioneers had never suffered hardships nor endured wrongs. Justice to those whose wives and children had been butchered, whose fathers and brothers had been burned at the stake, demands that all the truth be told and the reason given why those settlers, infuriated at the loss of two successive crops from Black Hawk’s perfidy, finally drove his band into the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Bad Axe and almost annihilated it.
It has been written that he possessed a mind of unusual strength, but slow and plodding, with little genius and few talents to manage a great enterprise in war.[[6]] The influence to sustain such a paradox, as well as kindred irregularities and disorders of the man’s mind, may be attributed to the fact that he was a confirmed hypochondriac, morbidly regarding as frivolous everything save war. He was discontented and reckless, envious of others with greater influence or name, and in meeting questions in or out of the council with such men as Keokuk he was churlish to a degree unless his individual will ruled. While it must candidly be owned that the whites have been guilty of the most revolting injustices to other Indians, notably Shabona, the same cannot be pleaded for Black Hawk. He was found making and breaking engagements and treaties[[7]] the greater part of his very long life, and then, when retribution was imminent, he hoisted flags of truce down to August 2d, 1832, when his power for further mischief was forever crushed.
The reputation which he has established in Indian annals comes not from any sacrifice he made for his people, for never in his life did he make one. Neither comes it from his struggles for an oppressed race, for he never conceived a solitary scheme for its amelioration. He had never a lofty aspiration for his nation. His every venture was made for personal aggrandizement or popularity. Tecumseh dreamed of a great confederation; not to become a leader. Cornstalk, Logan and Pontiac were ambitious for their people, but Black Hawk never. Black Hawk said of Keokuk that the latter was a groveling sycophant, but Keokuk was the most powerful orator of his race, and, penetrating the inevitable destiny of the whites, he conformed to it and used his great genius to gain for his people the greatest good. While Black Hawk was stolidly plotting for war, Keokuk was planning to secure for his people good homes and larger annuities, and these he secured, to their very great benefit. Black Hawk’s prominence comes from notoriety alone.
In his various conflicts with the whites he was invariably the aggressor. The unfortunate affair which resulted in the death of his so-called adopted son cannot be, by any conceivable logic, tortured into an exception, as we shall presently see. After the treaty of 1804 he and his band were permitted to remain unmolested upon the ceded lands year after year and decade after decade, a license rarely allowed and, as it proved, a thoroughly mistaken policy. He received his yearly annuities and retained the lands for which the annuities were given, literally eating his cake and keeping it. His passions were many, but the consuming passion of his life was hatred of the Americans, a hatred without cause and as unjustifiable and unreasonable as man’s baser passions are always found to be. Yet this may not be surprising, fed as he was by his devouring gloom and restless, war-like spirit. The mantle of charity has many a time before and since covered graver faults; so let it be with Black Hawk’s, for it is said of him that in his domestic life he was a kind husband and father, and in his transactions with his people he was upright and honest,[[8]] if he was not ambitious for their elevation.
Black Hawk was not a chief of the Sac nation.[[9]] He was simply a brave. His father was the tribal medicine man, and whatever standing Black Hawk may have secured was derived from his personal bravery and daring as a warrior, which have never been questioned. Possessed, as we have seen, of a martial spirit, he was ever ready and eager to lead war parties of young companions to battle, and one or two engagements alone were sufficient firmly to establish him in that leadership which bravery fitted him to hold over his followers in war.
At fifteen, having distinguished himself by wounding an enemy, he was permitted to paint and wear feathers and join the rank of the Braves.[[10]] About the year 1783 he united in an expedition against the Osages and had the fortune to kill and scalp one of the enemy, for which youthful act of valor he was for the first time permitted to mingle in the scalp-dance. As one exploit followed another his desire for blood became insatiable, and from his own account, the number of the enemy slain by him staggers credulity.
A short time after the ’83 tragedy–“a few moons,” as he puts it–Black Hawk was leader of a party of seven which attacked a band of one hundred Osages, killed one of their number and retreated without loss, Black Hawk taking the credit for this fatality to his personal valor. His taste for war, coupled with his prowess, attracted notice from others, and very presently he was found marching at the head of one hundred and eighty braves against the Osage village on the Missouri. Finding it deserted, the greater number of his young followers became dissatisfied, abandoned the enterprise and returned home, but Black Hawk continued, and, with but five followers, came upon the Osages, killed and scalped one man and a boy and then returned home. In consequence of this mutiny he has told us he was not again able to raise sufficient force to move against the Osages until his nineteenth year, during which interim, it was claimed, the Osages committed many outrages on his nation.
In 1786 his restless spirit had planned another attack of a retaliatory nature against the Osages. Setting out with two hundred followers, he met a party of the enemy about equal in strength, which for a time stubbornly resisted Black Hawk’s attack, but, unable to maintain an unequal contest with the fierce Sac fighters, the Osages were finally routed and the band almost annihilated. One hundred of them were killed outright and the remnant which remained was left to be scalped while helplessly wounded, or driven from the country, while, on the other hand, Black Hawk’s loss was but nineteen men. Six of the enemy were killed by Black Hawk–five men and one squaw–and in alluding to this he adds these words: “I had the good fortune to take all their scalps.” In recording his glorious enterprise his interpreter doubtless insisted that the murder of a female by a great warrior was not creditable, for, once the enormity of his offense is cited, he pleads in extenuation that the squaw was accidentally killed; yet he scalped her.
The severe cost to the Osages of this battle brought about a treaty of peace between the belligerents which lasted for a considerable period, as peaceful times between Indian nations seem then to have been reckoned.
The stormiest periods of Black Hawk’s life were all born of tranquil times, and this interval of peace served to incubate a plan of campaign against his ancient and inveterate enemy, the Cherokees, which was to be fraught with consequences more serious than all his former campaigns together.