1767 - 1838

Black Hawk was a Native American chief of the Sauk Tribe. He was a fierce warrior noted for his struggle against the encroachment of white settlers upon ancestral lands. Black Hawk was born in what is now Rock River, Illinois.



In 1804, the Sauk and Fox tribes agreed to give up their lands east of the Mississippi, but Black Hawk refused to sign the contract maintaining the other chiefs had been given liquor before they signed the documents.



Black Hawk's band of warriors broke away from the other members of the Sauk and Fox tribes and for a time joined the British against the Americans.



Eventually he and his followers were forced to retreat to the reservation established near Ft. Des Moines. His surrender marked the end of Native American held land in the Illinois region.



Black Hawk died on the reservation on October 31,1838.