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Black Hawk/Ma-ka-tae-mish-kia-kiak
(1767-1838)
Chief
of the Sac (Sauk) Native Americans.
His Native American name was Ma-ka-tae-mish-kia-kiak.
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Black
Hawk disputed an agreement made between members of
his tribe and the United States government over the
sale of the tribe's lands in Illinois. He claimed
that members of the tribe had been given liquor before
they signed the documents. In 1832 Black Hawk was
defeated in what became known as the Black
Hawk War. This 1833 painting by John Jarvis portrays
the celebrated Sac chief and his son.
Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American
History and Art, Tulsa |
In
1804 the Sac and Fox agreed, for an
annuity of $1000, to cede to the United States their lands
east of the Mississippi River. Black Hawk promptly repudiated
this agreement, declaring that the whites had persuaded
the Native Americans to sign it after making the Native
Americans drunk.
In
the War of 1812 Black Hawk fought with the British against
the United States. The cession of the disputed territory
was again arranged by treaties signed in 1815 and 1816,
and in 1823 most of the Sac and Fox settled west of the
Mississippi.
When
white settlers began to occupy the vacated lands, Black
Hawk once more refused to recognize the agreement.
The
Native Americans were, moreover, suffering from hunger in
their new, less fertile lands, and so in April 1832 they
returned to the disputed territory to plant crops. The white
settlers shot a peaceful emissary sent by Black Hawk and
thus began the so-called Black
Hawk War (see Indian Wars).
The
Native Americans were defeated near the Wisconsin River
on July 21, 1832, and they were defeated again in the Bad
Axe Massacre on August 3; Black Hawk surrendered on August
27.
The
Sac and Fox were settled soon afterward on a reservation
near Fort Des Moines, Iowa, where Black Hawk died. His bones
were eventually exhumed and put on display in an Iowa museum,
where they were destroyed by fire in 1853. He wrote The
Autobiography of Black Hawk (1833).
"Black
Hawk," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com
© 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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