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Mesquakie kamp

   The Fox and the Sauk were so closely associated that these two distinct tribes are usually considered to have been a single tribe. Although joined in very close alliance after 1734, the Fox and the Sauk maintained separate traditions and chiefs. This was very apparent when Fox and Sauk chiefs at the insistence of the United States were forced to sign the same treaty. However, the signatures always appear in distinct two groupings, one for the Fox and the other for the Sauk. Both tribes have been described as extremely individualistic and warlike, although the "warlike" might come as a surprise to the whites in Iowa who have lived in peace next to the Fox for the last 130 years. Both the Fox and the Sauk had a strong sense of tribal identity and were never reluctant to chose their own path. The French found both tribes independent and very difficult to control.

   Otherwise, in most other ways, the Fox and Sauk closely resembled the other Algonquin tribes in the Great Lakes. Descent was traced through their patrilineal clans: Bear, Beaver, Deer, Fish, Fox, Ocean, Potato, Snow, Thunder, and Wolf. Politically, the Fox and Sauk had more central organization than with other Algonquin which probably was a reflection of the many wars they had fought. The tribal councils of their chiefs wielded considerable authority. Fox and Sauk chiefs fell into three categories: civil, war, and ceremonial. Only the position of civil chief was hereditary - the others determined by demonstrated ability or spiritual power. Agriculture provided most of their diet: corn, beans, squash, and tobacco, and the women were considered the owners of their fields. One important difference between the Fox and Sauk and neighboring tribes was they usually maintained large villages during the winter. Otherwise their housing was typical for the region. Large communal buffalo hunts, especially after they acquired horses in the 1760s, were conducted in the fall and provided much of their meat during winter, but like other Great Lakes Algonquin, when the Fox or Sauk wanted to hold a real feast for an honored guest, the main course was dog meat from which the expression "putting on the dog" has come.

   It should be noted that the Fox were the only Algonquin tribe to fight a war with the French (actually, two wars). The French enjoyed good relations with every other Algonquin tribe in the Great Lakes (including the Sauk), but the Fox were antagonistic from the moment of their first meeting with the French. It seems likely that the Fox had taken the brunt of the fighting in Michigan with French trading partners during the 1630s and 40s and were well-aware where the steel weapons used against them had come from. Famous Sauk chiefs were Keokuk, Wapello, and Black Hawk.

Taimah fox chief

Keokuk Fox Chief, 1837

Blackhawk chief

   Taimah ("Thunder") (1790-1830) gained some notoriety on the frontier as a man who saved the Indian agent at Prairie du Chien from an attempted murder by an Indian. He straddled both cultures and was known among the Fox not only for his political leadership but also for his shamanistic powers, especially his reputed ability to cure the physically ill.

   Keokuk has an Iowa city named after him and is the only Native American ever honored with a bronze bust in the U.S. Capitol. His likeness has also appeared on American currency. He was born about 1783 and died in 1848. He did not fight against the White, but followed a different tactic to give his people peace and stay their leader : while his enemy within the tribe, Black Hawk, was fighting the White, he did ingratiate with the US Generals. For the followers of Black Hawk he was a traitor, but a great part of the Sauk and Fox did follow him. With the help of the army he reached his goal in 1813 : the Sauk and Fox did elect him for their chief. His good connections to the US Generals preserved his people from war and starvation, but in 1840 they had to leave their homeland and had to go to Iowa. Finally he and his tribe had to go to a reservation in Kansas. There he did in 1848 as a wealthy man, but despised by many people in his tribe.

   Black Hawk, who's full name was Black Sparrow Hawk, was born in 1767, at Saukenauk an area three to five miles north of where the Rock River in Illinois meets the Mississippi River located near present day Rock Island, Illinois. In his native tongue, his name was Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak. Contrary to popular belief, Black Hawk was never a chief. He was a warrior and a recognized leader among the Sauk and Mesquakie (Fox) nations, but he never achieved the rank of chief. Black Hawk was married to a woman named Singing Bird. Together they had two daughters and three sons. Among Black Hawk's descendants was legendary athlete Jim Thorpe. Thorpe was Black Hawk's great-grandson.

   In the early 1800s the Sauk and Fox Indians lived along the Mississippi River from northwestern Illinois to southwestern Wisconsin. Black Hawk fought on the side of the British in the War of 1812. Black Hawk had done his best to force American settlers off the western frontier.

   In 1830, seeking to make way for settlers moving into Illinois, the United States required the Sauk to move and accept new lands in present-day Iowa. There they struggled to prepare enough acreage for their crops. The winter of 1831-1832 was extremely difficult. In April 1832, Black Hawk led about one thousand Sauk and Fox people back to northern Illinois. Black Hawk hoped to forge a military alliance with the Winnebago and other tribes. They intended to plant corn on their ancestral farmland where they had been forcibly removed to the year before. Fearing the Sauk, Illinois settlers promptly organized a militia.

   Observing the military forces organizing against him, Black Hawk reconsidered his actions and decided to surrender. Yet an undisciplined militia ignored a peace flag and attacked the Sauk. The Indian warriors promptly returned fire. The militia retreated in a panic, many forgetting their firearms. The Sauk collected the weapons and retreated northward along the Rock River into Wisconsin. The Black Hawk War had just begun.

   Traveling with small children and elderly members of the tribe, the Sauk and Fox were unable to move as rapidly as the soldiers. In an effort to distract the Americans, Sauk warriors raided frontier farms and villages. On July 21, 1832, soldiers led by Henry Dodge caught up with Black Hawk's band near the Wisconsin River, outside of present-day Sauk City. Although greatly outnumbered, Sauk warriors turned the attack on American troops, allowing the Indian women and children to flee across the Wisconsin River. The next morning, the American troops discovered that the Sauk warriors had vanished, having quietly forded the river in darkness. Most members of the starving band had fled west, hoping to find sanctuary among tribes beyond the Mississippi River.

   On August 2, U.S. soldiers attacked the Sauk and Fox as they attempted to ford the Mississippi River, near what is now Victory in Vernon County. Ignoring a truce flag, the troops aboard a river steamboat fired cannons and rifles, killing hundreds, including many children. For the next eight hours the volunteer militias used axes, guns, cannon, and clubs to cut down the Indian warriors while women and children who succeeded in swimming the river were slaughtered on the other side. Around 90% of Black Hawk's people were slaughtered and the Mississippi ran red with their blood. Many of those who made it across the river were slain by the Eastern Sioux, allies of the Americans in 1832. Only 150 of the one thousand members of Black Hawk's band survived the events of the summer of 1832. Survivors rejoined the Sauk and Fox who had remained in Iowa.

   The war lasted just 15 weeks, ending on August 1, 1832, at the Battle of Bad Axe Wisconsin. Black Hawk surrendered to officials at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien. The defeated warrior was imprisoned and sent east to meet with President Andrew Jackson and other government officials. Black Hawk himself, captured and imprisoned, was paraded around the U.S. in chains; after he died his skeleton was displayed in the governor's mansion in Iowa, like a trophy. Black Hawk died on October 3, 1838, of a respiratory illness. He was buried sitting up inside a small mausoleum of logs but his grave was robbed soon afterward. His remains were later deposited in a museum in Burlington, Iowa. The museum and its contents were destroyed by fire in 1855.

Chief Pushetonequa of the Mesquakie tribe

   In 1867 the Fox and Sauk in Kansas signed their last treaty with the United States ceding their lands in Kansas in exchange for a 750,000 acre reservation created for them in central Oklahoma from lands the government had taken from the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole for siding with the Confederacy. The treaty permitted the Sac and Fox of Missouri to join them if they wished. There were only 700 left when they left Kansas in 1869. Twenty years later in 1889, they accepted allotment. The excess lands from their reservation were be sold to the government and opened to settlement in 1891 resulting in a land rush by whites. Corruption and fraud cost them most of the lands they were allowed to keep. All that remains today is 1000 acres of tribal lands near Stroud, Oklahoma. Descendents of the bands of Black Hawk and Keokuk, the 2,200 members of the Sac and Fox Tribe of Indians were reorganized under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act in 1936.