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The
Black Hawk site was first occupied by Indians as long as 12,000 years ago, and
it was continuously inhabited through the Hopewell period, ca. 100 BC to AD
250. Villagers lived within the bounds of the present historic site, and they
built burial mounds along the bluffs above the river. Unfortunately, the mounds
have been destroyed. |
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nearly a century beginning about 1730 the Sauk and Mesquakie (Fox) Indians made
their home here. Saukenuk, the capitol of the Sauk Nation and one of the largest
Indian centers in North America, stood adjacent to the site. The Sauk and the
Mesquakie farmed the land along the river and relied upon the fur trade for
their livelihood. At the height of their power they controlled parts of Illinois,
Wisconsin, Missouri and most of Iowa. |
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Saukenuk
was the site of the westernmost battle of the Revolutionary War. Americans destroyed
the village in 1780 because some of the Sauk had given military support to the
British. In 1804 several chiefs ceded all their tribal lands east of the Mississippi
River plus land in present-day Missouri - 51 million acres in all - to the United
States government. The Sauk warrior Black Hawk (he was not a chief) headed the
pro-British faction that refused to recognize the cession as legal. During the
War of 1812, the pro-British Indians remained at Saukenuk, defeating the Americans
in two Mississippi River battles - Campbell's Island and Credit Island. |
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In the late 1820s white
settlers began to move into the area. By 1831 the Sauk and Mesquakie had been
forced across the Mississippi, relinquishing their claim with the promise
that they would not return. The warrior Black Hawk, in 1832, led 1,500 followers
back into Illinois in an attempt to regain their cornfields. Following several
sharp skirmishes, Black Hawk and his followers - men, women and children -
were chased into the wilderness of southern Wisconsin and decisively defeated
at the Battle of Bad Axe on August 2, 1832.
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