XX Black Hawk
The Roman faces of Black Hawk and Keokuk were often seen in St. Louis, where the chiefs came to consult Clark in regard to their country.
“Keokuk signed away my lands,” said Black Hawk. He had never been satisfied with that earliest treaty made while Lewis and Clark were absent beyond the mountains.
For thirty years Black Hawk had paid friendly visits to Chouteau and sold him furs. More often he was at Malden consulting his “British Father.” Schooled by Tecumseh, the disloyal Black Hawk was wholly British.
Fort Armstrong had been built at Rock Island for the protection of the border. Those whitewashed walls and that tower perched on a high cliff over the Mississippi reminded the traveller up the Father of Waters seventy years ago of some romantic castle on the Rhine. And it was erected for the same reason that were the castles of the Rhine. Not safe were the traders who went up and down the great river, not safe were the emigrants seeking entrance to Rock River,—for Black Hawk watched the land.
The white settlements had already come up to the edge of Black Hawk’s field.
“No power is vested in me to stop the progress of settlements on ceded lands, and I have no means of inducing the Indians to move but persuasion, which has little weight with those chiefs who have always been under British influence,” said Clark in 1829.
Again and again Clark wrote to the Secretary of War on this subject. The policy of moving the tribes westward stirred the wrath of Black Hawk.
“The Sacs never sold their country!”
But the leader of the “British band” had lost his voice in the council.
“Who is Black Hawk?” asked General Gaines at Rock Island. “Is he a chief? By what right does he speak?”
“My father, you ask who is Black Hawk. I will tell you who I am. I am a Sac. My father was a Sac. I am a warrior. So was my father. Ask those young men who have followed me to battle and they will tell you who Black Hawk is. Provoke our people to war and you will learn who Black Hawk is.”
Haughtily gathering up his robes, the chief and his followers stalked over to Canada for advice. In his absence Keokuk made the final cession to the United States and prepared to move beyond the Mississippi. Back like a whirlwind came the Hawk,—
“Sold the Sac village, sold your country!”
“Keokuk,” he whispered fiercely in his ear, “give mines, give everything, but keep our cornfields and our dead.”
“Cross the Mississippi,” begged Keokuk.
“I will stay by the graves of my fathers,” reiterated the stubborn and romantic Black Hawk.
The Indians left the silver rivers of Illinois, their sugar groves, and bee trees with regret. No wonder the chief’s heart clung to his native village, among dim old woods of oak and walnut, and orchards of plum and crab. For generations there had they tilled their Indian gardens.
From his watchtower on Rock River the old chief scanned the country. Early in the Spring of 1832 he discovered a scattering train of whites moving into the beloved retreat.
“Quick, let us plant once more our cornfields.”
In a body Black Hawk and his British band with their women and children came pulling up Rock River in their canoes. The whites were terrified.
“Black Hawk has invaded Illinois,” was the word sent by Governor Reynolds to Clark at St. Louis. Troops moved out from Jefferson Barracks.
“Go,” said Governor Clark to Felix St. Vrain, his Sac interpreter. “Warn Black Hawk to withdraw across the Mississippi.”
St. Vrain sped away,—to be shot delivering his message. Then followed the war, the flight and chase and battle of Bad Axe, and the capture of Black Hawk. Wabasha’s Sioux fell upon the last fleeing remnant, so that few of Black Hawk’s band were left to tell the tale.
“Farewell, my nation!” the old chief cried. “Black Hawk tried to save you and avenge your wrongs. He drank the blood of some of the whites. He has been taken prisoner and his plans are stopped. He can do no more. He is near his end. His sun is setting and he will rise no more. Farewell to Black Hawk.”
In chains Black Hawk and his prophet, Wabokeskiek, were brought by Jefferson Davis to St. Louis. As his steamboat passed Rock Island, his old home, Black Hawk wept like a child.
“It was our garden,” he said, “such as the white people have near their villages. I spent many happy days on this island. A good spirit dwelt in a cave of rocks where your fort now stands. The noise of the guns has driven him away.”
It hurt Clark to see his old friend dragging a ball and chain at Jefferson Barracks. He seldom went there. But the little Kennerly children carried him presents and kinnikinick for his pipe.
There were guests at the house of Clark,—Maximilian, Prince of Wied, and his artist,—when early in April of 1833 a deputation of Sacs and Foxes headed by Keokuk came down in long double canoes to intercede for Black Hawk, and with them, haggard and worn from long wanderings, came Singing Bird, the wife of Black Hawk.
With scientific interest Maximilian looked at them, dressed in red, white, and green blankets, with shaven heads except a tuft behind, long and straight and black with a braided deer’s tail at the end. They were typical savages with prominent noses and eagle plumes, wampum shells like tassels in their ears, and lances of sword-blades fastened to poles in their hands.
“This is a great Chief from over the Big Water, come to see you,” said Clark introducing the Prince.
“Hah!” said the Indians, giving the Prince the right hand of friendship and scanning him steadily.
Bodmer, the artist, brought out his palette. Keokuk in green blanket, with a medal on his heart and a long calumet ornamented with eagle feathers in his hand, was ready to pose.
“Hah!” laughed the Indians as stroke by stroke they saw their chief stand forth on canvas, even to the brass necklace and bracelets on throat and wrists. “Great Medicine!”
“I have chartered the Warrior to go down to Jefferson Barracks,” said Clark.
Striking their hands to their mouths, the Indians gave the war whoop, and stepped on board the “big fire canoe.” Intent, each animated, fiery, dark-brown eye watched the engine hissing and roaring down to the Barracks.
“If you will keep a watchful eye on Black Hawk I will intercede for him,” said Clark.
“I will watch him,” promised Keokuk.
Clark left them for a moment, and then led in a little old man of seventy years, with gray hair, light yellow face, and a curved Roman nose.
It was an affecting sight when Keokuk stepped forward to embrace Black Hawk. Keokuk, subtle, dignified, in splendid array of deer-skin and bear-claws, grasped the hand of his fallen rival. Poor dethroned old Black Hawk! In a plain suit of buckskin and a string of wampum in his ears, he stood alone, fanning himself with the tail of a black hawk.
Keokuk tried to get him released. Often had he visited Clark on that errand, but no,—Black Hawk was summoned to Washington and went. Antoine Le Claire, son of old Antoine, was his interpreter.
Released, presently, he made a triumphal tour home, applauded by thousands along the route, even as Lafayette had been a few years before. Not so the Roman conquerors treated their captives! But Black Hawk came home to Keokuk to die.
The defeat of Black Hawk opened Iowa to settlement, and a day later prairie schooners overran the Black Hawk Purchase.
On the staff of General Atkinson when he marched out of Jefferson Barracks for the Black Hawk War, was Meriwether Lewis Clark, now a graduate of West Point, and his cousin Robert Anderson, grandson of Clark’s sister Eliza.
In the hurry and the heat of the march one day, Lieutenant Clark, riding from the rear back to the General, became enclosed by the troops of cavalry and had to ride slowly. By his side on a small horse he noticed a long-legged, dark-skinned soldier, with black hair hanging in clusters around his neck, a volunteer private. Admiringly the private gazed at Clark’s fine new uniform and splendidly accoutred horse, a noble animal provided by his father at St. Louis.
Young Clark spoke to the soldier of awkward and unprepossessing appearance, whose witticisms and gift for stories kept his comrades in a state of merriment. He proved very inquisitive.
“The son of Governor Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition, did you say?”
“Yes.”
“And related to all those great people?”
“Yes,” with a laugh.
They chatted until the ranks began to thin.
“I must ride on,” but feeling an interest in the lank, long-haired soldier, Lieutenant Clark turned again,—
“Where are you from and to what troop do you belong?”
“I am an Illinois volunteer.”
“Well, now, tell me your name, and I will bid you good bye.”
“My name is Abraham Lincoln, and I have not a relation in the world.”
The next time they met, Meriwether Lewis Clark was marching through the streets of Washington City with other prisoners in Lee’s surrendered army. And the President on the White House steps was Abraham Lincoln. The cousin of Meriwether Lewis Clark, Robert Anderson, hero of Fort Sumter, stood by Lincoln’s side, with tears in his eyes.
Weeks before, when the land was ringing with his valour, the President had congratulated him and asked, “Do you remember me?”
“No, I never met you before.”
“Yes,” answered the President, “you are the officer that swore me in as a volunteer private in the Black Hawk War.”
The next day the assassin’s bullet laid low the martyred Lincoln; none mourned him more than Meriwether Lewis Clark, for in that President he had known a friend.