Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Miningoperations—wildcatters,mostly—proliferatedbutebbedwhentheminersbegan
to fear the Natives more and more. The ire and paranoia of the federal government, which
had assumed carte blanche in the region, was piqued in 1832, when a militant band of Fox-
Sauk Indians refused to recognize treaties, including the one that had forcibly moved them
out of the southern part of Wisconsin.
Their leader was Black Sparrow Hawk, better known as Black Hawk, a warrior not so
much pro-British as fiercely anti-American. With blind faith in the British, obdurate pride,
and urging from other Indian tribes (who would later double-cross him), Black Hawk initi-
ated a quixotic stand against the United States, which culminated in tragic battles staged in
Wisconsin.
Black Hawk and his group of about 1,000 recalcitrant natives, dubbed “the British
Band,” balked at U.S. demands that the tribe relocate across the Mississippi. Insisting that
they were exempt because Black Hawk had been blacklisted from treaty negotiations, in
April 1832 the band began moving up the Rock River to what they deemed their rightful
lands. Other tribes had promised support along the way, in both provisions and firepower.
Instead, Black Hawk found his erstwhile exhorters—the Potawatomi, Sioux, and Winne-
bago—turningonhim.Worse,newsofBlackHawk'sactionswassweepingtheregionwith
grotesque frontier embellishment, and the U.S. military, private militias, and frontiersmen
under their control were all itching for a fight.
His people lacking provisions (one reason for the band's initial decampment was a lack
of corn in the area after the settlers squeezed in) and soon tiring, Black Hawk wisely real-
ized his folly and in May sent a truce contingent. Jumpy soldiers under Major Isaiah Still-
man instead overreacted andattacked. Black Hawknaturally counterattacked and,although
seriously outnumbered, his warriors chased the whites away—an event that became known
as Stillman's Run. Nevertheless, the fuse was lit.
ThebandthencrossedintoWisconsinnearLakeKoshkonongandbeganaslow,difficult
journey west, back toward the Mississippi River. Two commanders led their forces in pur-
suit of the hapless Indians, engaging in a war of attrition along the way. They cornered
Black Hawk and fought the quick but furious Battle of Wisconsin Heights along the Wis-
consin River. The tribe escaped in the darkness, with the soldiers pursuing hungrily. One
large group of mostly women, children, and old men tried to float down the Wisconsin to-
ward the Mississippi but were intercepted by soldiers and Indians; most were drowned or
killed.
WhatfollowedisperhapsthemosttragicchapterinWisconsinhistory,theBattleofBad
Axe, an episode that garnered shocked national attention and made Black Hawk as well
