V. H. Lucas.
Answer.—By a treaty made with certain chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes at St. Louis in 1804, the Indians ceded all their lands in Illinois to the United States for the paltry annuity of $1,000 and goods to the value of $2,234.50. In a treaty made in 1822, covering various matters, a clause was introduced confirming the cession of 1804. Still the government did not demand actual possession of these lands. In 1830, Keokuk, Black Hawk’s rival, negotiated a treaty in which the government recognized him as the head chief of the Sacs and Foxes, and in which he clearly ceded all the lands in question. Black Hawk, who had always opposed any cession of territory to the whites, was not present at this convention, and he and his followers, constituting a minority of the tribe, but really representing the portion most concerned, the actual occupants of the great village at Rock Island, protested against the validity of this and the previous cessions. Black Hawk declared that the treaty of 1804 was made by only four chiefs, that they signed it under the influence of liquor, and had never been authorized by the tribe to cede lands. It was not so easy to explain away the clause in the treaty of 1822, but he characterized it also as a fraud, signed without full understanding of its intent. As to the convention of 1830, he denied the authority of Keokuk’s band to deed away the lands east of the Mississippi.
Returning in April, 1831, from the winter’s hunt in the North, Black Hawk’s band found that their chief’s former friend, an Indian fur-trader at Rock Island, had purchased of the government the ground on which this ancient village stood, in the forks of the Mississippi and Rock River, and with his associate speculators were preparing to cultivate the Indian field of some 700 acres adjoining the village. It seems marvelous that Black Hawk could so far restrain his people as to persuade them to submit to a compromise by which they yielded possession of half this field for the season to the speculators. But the latter were not satisfied, and both parties soon grew irritated. Governor Reynolds, of this State, was asked to interfere. Soon after the militia were called out. On the 7th of June General Gaines, of the regular army, commanding at Fort Armstrong, on Rock Island, summoned the Indians to a council, when he commanded them to leave the east side of the Mississippi. Black Hawk refused; but as the State militia, to the number of about 1,600, under command of General Joseph Duncan, drew near, he saw that his few hundred warriors would be overwhelmed, and on June 24, during the night, the Indians deserted their village, which the Americans a few days later utterly destroyed. On June 30, Black Hawk and his party signed a treaty by which for the first time he individually joined in the relinquishment of the lands in dispute. The next winter found him and his band in a destitute, starving condition, owing to their being driven from their cornfields at a season when it was too late to plant elsewhere. In the spring, in defiance of the treaty, he and 368 warriors with their families, crossed the Mississippi and passed up Rock River, to plant corn, as they said, in the Winnebago country, in Southern Wisconsin. General Atkinson, in command of the regular troops at Fort Armstrong, warned them to return. Governor Reynolds again called out the militia, and placed them under command of General Samuel Whiteside. Nothing serious occurred until the 14th of May, when the rash conduct of a party of 275 volunteers under Major Stillman provoked a fight with some sixty of Black Hawk’s warriors, near the mouth of the Kishwaukee a few miles south of Rockford. The whites were panicstricken and fled with the loss of eleven men. So slow had been the movement of the militia that already their time of enlistment had nearly expired, and, not liking this taste of Indian war, they became mutinous, and had to be discharged. General Atkinson could do little with his mere handful of regular troops, so he intrenched his company at Dixon and remained there, while Black Hawk’s followers, re-enforced by a few Winnebago, Ottawa and Pottawatomie braves, roamed over the country committing outrages on defenceless settlers, a number of whom were killed. Affairs grew serious. Governor Reynolds called for 2,000 militia. In July the regulars and militia, all under the chief command of General Atkinson, drove Black Hawk up Rock River and across to the Wisconsin River, where General James D. Henry, the chief hero of this war, in command of a brigade of Illinois militia, overtook him at Wisconsin Heights, and inflicted the first serious punishment the Indians had suffered. Over fifty warriors were killed, and the entire body of them was badly demoralized. Escaping across the Wisconsin with great loss, they fled, leaving their dead and dying, and abandoned articles along their trail. The whole army followed in hot pursuit, and on Aug. 2, General Henry again struck their main force and drove them into the Mississippi at the mouth of the Bad Axe. Here the regulars and the rest of the army joining in, soon cut them to pieces. General Winfield Scott took command five days later, on Aug. 7, 1831, and not long afterwards negotiated a treaty of peace. Black Hawk and two of his sons, with several of his principal warriors, were held as hostages for a time. After detention at Fortress Monroe until June 5 of the next year, he was released. During his captivity he was taken to all the principal cities, where his fate elicited a good deal of sympathy. After his return he lived peaceably with his tribe in Iowa until his death, Oct. 3, 1838, in the 70th year of his age. He was buried at Iowaville, Iowa.
THE BERMUDAS.
Geneseo, Ill.
Please give a concise history of the Bermuda Islands.
Mrs. M. H. Pierce.
Answer.—The Bermudas were discovered successively by Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard, in 1522; Henry May, an Englishman, in 1593: and Sir George Somers in 1609; the discovery in each case being due to the shipwreck of the discoverer. Sir George established the first settlement shortly before his death. In 1612 these islands were granted to 120 persons, an offshoot of the Virginia Company, sixty of whom, led by Henry More, and followed by fugitives from the civil war in England, commenced the cultivation of the soil, which soon yielded rich crops of tobacco. Later the salt lagoons furnished the chief article of commerce. The government consists of a Governor, appointed by the crown, and a privy council of nine members, appointed by the Governor. The House of Assembly is composed of thirty-six members, elected by the people. The acts are revised from time to time, being passed for a limited period.