“The Osages had done us great wrong, so we were determined to destroy them. I set off, in the third moon, at the head of five hundred Sacs and Foxes, and one hundred Ioways. We fell upon forty lodges. I made two of their squaws prisoners, but all the rest of the people in the lodges we killed. Black Hawk killed seven men himself. In a battle with the Cherokees, I killed thirteen of their bravest with my own hand.
“One of our people killed a pale-face American, and he was put in prison; so we sent to St. Louis, to pay for the killed man, and to cover the blood. Did the pale faces do well? No, they did not; they set our man free, but when he began to run they shot him down; and they gave strong drink to our four people, and told them to give up the best part of our hunting ground for a thousand dollars every twelve moons. What right had they to give our men strong drink, and then cheat them? None.
“American white faces came, with a great, big gun, to build a fort, and said it was to trade with us. They treated the Indians ill: we went against the fort. I dug a hole in the ground with my knife, so that I could hide myself with some grass. I shot with my rifle and cut the cord of their flag, so that they could not pull it up to fly in the air; and we fired the fort, but they put out the fire.
“One of our people killed a white, and was taken. He was to die, but asked leave to go and see his squaw and children. They let him go, but he ran back through the prairies next day, in time to be shot down. He did not say he would come back, and then stay; he was an Indian, and not a white man. I hunted and fished for his squaw and children when he was dead.
“Why was it that the Great Spirit did not keep the white men where he put them? Why did he let them come among my people with their fire-drink, sickness, and guns? It had been better for red men to be by themselves.
“We went to a great English brave, Colonel Dixon, at Green Bay: there were many Pottawatomies, Kickapoos, Ottowas, and Winnebagoes there. The great brave gave us pipes, tobacco, new guns, powder, and clothes. I held a talk with him in his tent; he took my hand. ‘General Black Hawk,’ said he, and he put a medal round my neck, ‘you must now hold us fast by the hand; you will have the command of all the braves to join our own braves at Detroit.’ I was sorry, because I wanted to go to Mississippi. But he said, ‘No; you are too brave to kill women and children: you must kill braves.’
“We had a feast, and I led away five hundred braves to join the British. Sometimes we won, and sometimes we lost. The Indians were killing the prisoners, but Black Hawk stopped them. He is a coward who kills a brave that has no arms and cannot fight. I did not like so often to be beaten in battle, and to get no plunder. I left the British, with twenty of my braves, to go home, and see after my wife and children.
“I found an old friend of mine sitting on a mat in sorrow: he had come to be alone, and to make himself little before the Great Spirit: he had fasted long, he was hardly alive; his son had been taken prisoner, and shot and stabbed to death. I put my pipe to my friend’s mouth; he smoked a little. I took his hand, and said ‘Black Hawk would revenge his son’s death.’ A storm came on; I wrapped my old friend in my blanket. The storm gave over; I made a fire. It was too late; my friend was dead. I stopped with him the remainder of the night; and then my people came, and we buried him on the peak of the bluff.
“I explained to my people the way the white men fight. Instead of stealing on each other, quietly and by surprise, to kill their enemies and save their own people, they all fight in the sunlight, like braves; not caring how many of their people fall. They then feast and drink as if nothing had happened, and write on paper that they have won, whether they have won or been beaten. And they do not write truth, for they only put down a part of the people they have lost. They would do to paddle a canoe, but not to steer it. They fight like braves, but they are not fit to be chiefs, and to lead war parties.
“I found my wife well, and my children, and would have been quiet in my lodge; for, while I was away, Kee-o-kuk had been made a chief: but I had to revenge the death of the son of my old friend. I told my friend so when he was dying. Why should Black Hawk speak a lie? I took with me thirty braves, and went to Fort Madison; but the American pale faces had gone. I was glad, but still followed them down the Mississippi. I went on their trail. I shot the chief of the party with whom we fought. We returned home, bringing two scalps. Black Hawk had done what he said.