“Many things happened. Old Wàsh-e-own, one of the Pottawatomies, was shot dead by a war chief. I gave Wàsh-e-own’s relations two horses and my rifles to keep the peace. A party of soldiers built a fort at Prairie du Chien. They were friendly to us, but the British came and took the fort. We joined them; we followed the boats and shot fire-arrows, and the sails of one boat were burned, and we took it.
“We found, in the boats we had taken, barrels of whiskey: this was bad medicine. We knocked in the heads of the barrels, and emptied out the bad medicine. We found bottles and packages, which we flung into the river as bad medicine too. We found guns and clothes, which I divided with my braves. The Americans built a fort; I went towards it with my braves. I had a dream, in which the Great Spirit told me to go down the bluff to a creek, and to look in a hollow tree cut down, and there I should see a snake; close by would be the enemy unarmed. I went to the creek, peeped into the tree, saw the snake, and found the enemy. One man of them was killed, after that we returned home: peace was made between the British and Americans, and we were to bury the tomahawk too.
“We went to the great American chief at St. Louis, and smoked the pipe of peace. The chief said our great American father was angry with us, and accused us of crimes. We said this was a lie; for our great father had deceived us, and forced us into a war. They were angry at what we said; but we smoked the pipe of peace again, and I first touched the goose quill; but I did not know that, in doing so, I gave away my village. Had I known it, I would never have touched the goose quill.
“The American whites built a fort on Rock Island; this made us sorry, for it was our garden, like what the white people have near their big villages. It supplied us with plums, apples and nuts, with strawberries and blackberries. Many happy days had I spent on Rock Island. A good spirit had the care of it; he lived under the rock, in a cave. He was white, and his wings were ten times bigger than swan’s wings: when the white men came there, he went away.
“We had corn and beans and pumpkins and squashes. We were the possessors of the valley of the Mississippi, full seven hundred miles from the Ouisconsin to the Portage des Sioux, near the mouth of the Missouri. If another prophet had come to us in those days, and said, ‘The white man will drive you from these hunting grounds, and from this village, and Rock Island, and not let you visit the graves of your fathers,’ we should have said, ‘Why should you tell us a lie?’
“It was good to go to the graves of our fathers. The mother went there to weep over her child: the brave went there to paint the post where lay his father. There was no place in sorrow like that where the bones of our forefathers lay. There the Great Spirit took pity on us. In our village, we were as happy as a buffalo on the plains; but now we are more like the hungry and howling wolf in the prairie.
“As the whites came nearer to us, we became more unhappy. They gave our people strong liquor, and I could not keep them from drinking it. My eldest son and my youngest daughter died. I gave away all I had; blackened my face for two years, lived alone with my family, to humble myself before the Great Spirit. I had only a piece of buffalo robe to cover me.
“White men came and took part of our lodges; and Kee-o-kuk told me I had better go West, as he had done. I said I could not forsake my village; the prophet told me I was right. I thought then that Kee-o-kuk was no brave, but a coward, to give up what the Great Spirit had given us.
“The white men grew more and more; brought whiskey among us, cheated us out of our guns, our horses and our traps, and ploughed up our grounds. They treated us cruelly; and, while they robbed us, said that we robbed them. They made right look like wrong, and wrong like right. I tried hard to get right, but could not. The white man wanted my village, and back I must go. Sixteen thousand dollars every twelve moons are to be given to the Pottawatomies for a little strip of land, while one thousand dollars only was set down for our land signed away, worth twenty times as much. White man is too great a cheat for red man.
“A great chief, with many soldiers, came to drive us away. I went to the prophet, who told me not to be afraid. They only wanted to frighten us, and get our land without paying for it. I had a talk with the great chief. He said if I would go, well. If I would not, he would drive me. ‘Who is Black Hawk?’ said he. ‘I am a Sac,’ said I; ‘my forefather was a Sac; and all the nation call me a Sac.’ But he said I should go.