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Black Hawk
Saukenuk, United States
Archival Overview
Sauk war chief who led the British Band in the Black Hawk War of 1832 to reclaim ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi River.
Biographical Record
Black Hawk was born at Saukenuk (present-day Rock Island, Illinois) and earned great renown as a fearless warrior and respected tribal diplomat. He fiercely contested the fraudulent 1804 treaty that ceded Sauk territory to the United States without tribal consent.
In 1832, Black Hawk led over a thousand Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo men, women, and children across the Mississippi to plant crops in their ancestral home, sparking the Black Hawk War. Captured after the Battle of Bad Axe, he published the first Native American autobiography in 1833.
Key Life Milestones
Return to Saukenuk
Led the British Band back across the Mississippi River in armed assertion of ancestral sovereignty.
Publication of Life of Black Hawk
Dictated his seminal life story, providing the first major Indigenous literary testament in America.
Memorial Guestbook & Tributes
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Final Resting Place
Perpetual MemorialRock Island, United States