For this reason the soldiers were brought out on parade; and when, prompt to the hour named, Red Bird and Wekau, accompanied by a party of their friends, came marching into camp, clad in ceremonial dress, and singing their death songs, they were received with military honors. The native ceremony of surrender was highly impressive. Red Bird conducted himself with a dignity which won the admiration of all. Wekau, on the contrary, was an indifferent looking fellow, and commanded little respect.
Red Bird made but one request, that, although sentenced to death, he should not be placed in chains. This was granted; and while, during his subsequent imprisonment at Prairie du Chien, he had frequent opportunities to escape, he declined to take advantage of them. A few months later he fell an easy victim to an epidemic then raging in the village, thus relieving the government from embarrassment, for it was felt that he was altogether too good an Indian to hang; indeed, his execution might have brought on a general border war.
The murderers of Methode were also apprehended and given a death sentence; but upon the Winnebagoes promising to relinquish forever their hold upon the lead mines of southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois, President Adams pardoned all the prisoners then living. The following year (1828), a fort was erected at the Fox-Wisconsin portage, near the scene of Red Bird's surrender; being in the heart of that tribe's territory, it was called Fort Winnebago. Thereafter the Winnebagoes were kept in entire subjection. Indeed, the three forts, Howard at Green Bay, Winnebago at Portage, and Crawford at Prairie du Chien, now gave the United States, for the first time, firm grasp upon the whole of what is now Wisconsin.
THE BLACK HAWK WAR
In November, 1804, the Sac and Fox Indians, in return for a paltry annuity of a thousand dollars, ceded to the United States fifty million acres of land in eastern Missouri, northwestern Illinois, and southwestern Wisconsin. There was an unfortunate clause in this compact, which quite unexpectedly became one of the chief causes of the Black Hawk War of 1832; instead of obliging the Indians at once to vacate the ceded territory, it was stipulated that, "as long as the lands which are now ceded to the United States remain their property, the Indians belonging to said tribes shall enjoy the privilege of living and hunting on them."
Within the limits of the cession was the chief seat of Sac power, a village lying on the north side of Rock River, three miles above its mouth. It was picturesquely situated on fertile ground, contained the principal cemetery of the tribe, and was inhabited by about five hundred families, being one of the largest Indian towns on the continent.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the principal character in this village was Black Hawk, who was born here in 1767. Black Hawk was neither an hereditary nor an elected chief, but was, by common consent, the village headman. He was a restless, ambitious, handsome savage; was possessed of some of the qualities of successful leadership, was much of a demagogue, and aroused the passions of his people by appeals to their prejudices and superstitions. It is probable that he was never, in the exercise of this policy, dishonest in his motives. A too confiding disposition was ever leading his judgment astray; he was readily duped by those who, white or red, were interested in deceiving him. The effect of his daily communication with the Americans was often to shock rudely his high sense of honor; while the studied courtesy accorded him upon his annual begging visit to the British military agent at Malden, in Canada, contrasted strangely, in his eyes, with his experiences with many of the inhabitants on the Illinois border.
