By the treaty of Paris, Sept. 3, 1783, Great Britain covenanted to surrender certain western forts which were of great strategic importance to the Americans in protecting the frontier from Indian incursions and also in dealing with such as were disposed to treat honorably with the Government. The compact was solemnly made and signed, but, disgruntled from the loss of her colonies, the British government sent secret instructions to its garrisons to retain these forts, and in consequence not one of them was surrendered. Nor was this the only violation by the British of their engagements. Agents were set to work over our vast frontier to foment insubordination among the Indians against American domination. These Indians were supplied with provisions and arms and incited openly to war against the whites and drive them back east of the mountains, and year after year they continued until the sickening horrors of the stake and scalping knife were sweeping the feeble settlements of the West from end to end.
France and Spain, both with colonial possessions to the west, while gratified to see England stripped of her possessions, were suspected of aiding the design of the British to restrict American settlements to the shores of the Atlantic. Spain claimed exclusive ownership of the Mississippi and commerce upon her waters by Americans was prohibited. The “dark and bloody ground” of Kentucky, long the scene of carnage, was made the first scene of British intrigue, where the atrocities of the Indians were the most frightful in history. The tribes of Ohio and Indiana, which were in the league, penetrated the settlements of the whites, deluging the land with the blood of innocent women and children.
The Government, hopelessly involved with debt and graver questions of state, could offer the struggling settlers no relief, and thus alone they were forced to stand in hourly fear of butchery. They grew to look for no help save in their own resources, and yearly meeting with defiance, a pioneer community of militant husbandmen gradually grew and moved westward; instinctively taught to rush to arms upon the breaking of a twig or the rustle of a leaf in defense of their defenseless loved ones in the cabin. When, therefore, Black Hawk lent a willing ear to the British agent, accepted his presents and performed his murderous behests, which he did, he should have expected the awful consequences of defeat and annihilation which followed his years of hypocrisy, and accepted the Government’s final requital with gratitude, or at least Indian stolidity, instead of snarling at his fate and constantly bewailing the elevation of others over him who had loyally stood by the Americans and their Government in perilous times. He invited destruction and was destroyed. The attention of the student is directed to this phase of Black Hawk’s character as it develops in these pages down to his defeat, August 2d, 1832.
The Sacs were originally British Indians, domiciled near Montreal. By constant quarrels and wars with their neighbors their tribes, once numerous and powerful, were reduced to a remnant and finally driven from the country altogether. They settled in Wisconsin, where they met the Foxes, similarly driven from Canada, and the two tribes immediately combined, ever after being considered as a confederated nation. They again grew powerful and arrogant and became involved in wars with their neighbors. At the time of the last French and English war they took sides with the English and received from that source presents for many years. This British sympathy was born in Black Hawk, and continued with him, growing in intensity as the Americans expanded and defeated the English, until it became positive hatred[[12]]. When, therefore, he repeats the statement that he heard bad accounts of the Americans in 1803, and then asserts that all his differences with the Americans date from the signing of the treaty of 1804, he states that which cannot be received with confidence. Prior to 1803 he never had found himself in contact with the Americans to an extent worthy of note, and no cause, real or imaginary, had been given him for a difference, yet on leaving the Spanish father, mentioned in the last chapter, he catches a rumor, adopts a prejudice and dictates for his autobiography the following ill-natured words, false to begin with and as malignant as he was generally found to be in speaking or writing of the Americans: “I inquired the cause and was informed that the Americans were coming to take possession of the town and country, and that we should lose our Spanish father. This news made myself and band sad, because we had always heard bad accounts of the Americans from Indians who had lived near them.”
KE-O-KUK.
PA-SHE-PA-HO.
