The Black Hawk War

Learn about the legendary leader of the Sauk and Fox Nation who said, "Rock River was beautiful country. I loved my towns, my cornfields, and the home of my people. 

I fought for them."

-Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark

 "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. Fearing the Sauk, Illinois settlers promptly organized a militia.... The Black Hawk War had begun." https://rb.gy/28v4q

"Most of their [Sauk & Fox] land was east of the Mississippi River, extending from the Wisconsin River in the north to the Illinois River in the south. But they also settled some villages west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri River. It was these lands that Black Hawk and some of the other Sauks and Foxes continued to view as their homelands as late as 1832." -James E. Lewis, Jr. from https://rb.gy/8ov1r