The next day the pursuing troops arrived on the heights above the river bench, the Warrior again opened its attack, and thus, caught between two galling fires, the little army of savages soon melted away. But fifty remained alive on the spot to be taken prisoners. Some three hundred weaklings had reached the Iowa shore through the hail of iron and lead. Of these three hundred helpless, half-starved, unarmed noncombatants, over a half were slaughtered by a party of Sioux, under Wabashaw, who had been sent out by our government to waylay them. So that out of the band of a thousand Indians who had crossed the Mississippi over into Illinois in April, not more than a hundred and fifty, all told, lived to tell the tragic story of the Black Hawk War, a tale that stains the American name with dishonor.
The rest can soon be told. The Winnebago guerrillas, who had played fast and loose during the campaign, delivered to the whites at Fort Crawford the unfortunate Black Hawk, who had fled from the Bad Ax to the Dells of the Wisconsin River, to seek an asylum with his false friends. The proud old man, shorn of all his strength, was presented to the President at Washington, imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, forced to sign articles of perpetual peace, and then turned over for safe keeping to the Sac chief, Keokuk, his hated rival. He died on a small reservation in Iowa, in 1838. But he was not even then at peace, for his bones were stolen by an Illinois physician, for exhibition purposes, and finally were accidentally consumed by fire in 1853.
Black Hawk, with all the limitations of his race, had in his character a strength and manliness of fiber that were most remarkable, and displayed throughout his brief campaign a positive genius for military evolutions. He may be safely ranked as one of the most interesting specimens of the North American savage to be met with in history. He was an indiscreet man. His troubles were brought about by a lack of mental balance, aided largely by unfortunate circumstances. His was a highly romantic temperament. He was carried away by mere sentiment, and allowed himself to be deceived by tricksters. But he was honest, and was more honorable than many of his conquerors were. He was, above all things, a patriot. The year before his death, in a speech to a party of whites who were making a holiday hero of him, he thus forcibly defended his motives: "Rock River was a beautiful country. I liked my town, my cornfields, and the home of my people. I fought for them." No poet could have penned for him a more touching epitaph.
THE STORY OF CHEQUAMEGON BAY
Chequamegon Bay, of Lake Superior, has had a long and an interesting history. Nearly two and a half centuries ago, in the early winter months of 1659, two adventurous French traders, Radisson and Groseilliers, built a little palisade here, to protect the stock of goods which they exchanged with the Indians for furs. This was on the southwestern shore of the bay, a few miles west of the present city of Ashland, and in the neighborhood of Whittlesey's Creek.
These men did not tarry long at Chequamegon Bay. For the most part, they merely kept their stock of goods hid in a cache there, while for some ten months they traveled through the woods, far and wide, in search of trade with the dusky natives. But they made the region known to Frenchmen in the settlements at Quebec and Montreal, as a favorite meeting-place for many tribes of Indians who came to the bay to fish.
The first Jesuit mission on Lake Superior was conducted by Father René Ménard, at Keweenaw Bay; but he lost his life in the forest in 1661. In 1665 the Jesuits determined to reopen their mission on the great lake, and for that purpose sent Father Claude Allouez. Having heard of the advantages of Chequamegon Bay, Allouez proceeded thither, and erected his little chapel in an Indian village upon the mainland, not far from Radisson's old palisade, and possibly at the mouth of Vanderventer's Creek. He called his mission La Pointe.
Conversions were few at La Pointe, and Allouez soon longed for a broader field. He was relieved in 1669 by Father Jacques Marquette, a young and earnest priest. But it was not long before the Sioux of Minnesota quarreled with the Indians of Chequamegon Bay; and the latter, with Marquette, were driven eastward as far as Mackinac.