Black Hawk's Great War Speech

"Head-men, Chiefs, Braves and Warriors of the Sauks: For more than a hundred winters our nation was a powerful, happy and united people.  The Great Spirit gave to us a territory, seven hundred miles in length, along the Mississippi, reaching from Prairie du Chien to the mouth of the Illinois river.  This vast territory was composed of the finest and best land for the home and use of the Indian ever found in this country. The woods and prairies teemed with buffalo, moose, elk, bear and deer, with other game suitable to our enjoyment, while its lakes, rivers, creeks and ponds were alive with the very best kinds of fish, for our food.  The islands in the Mississippi were our gardens, where the Great Spirit caused berries, plums and other fruits to grow in great abundance, while the soil, when cultivated, produced corn, beans, pumpkins and squash of the finest quality and largest quantities.  Our children were never known to cry of hunger, and no stranger, red or white, was permitted to enter our lodges with-out finding food and rest.  Our nation was respected by all who came in contact with it, for we had the ability as well as the courage to defend and maintain our rights of territory, person and property against the world.  Then, indeed, was it an honor to be called a Sauk, for that name was a passport to our people traveling in other territories and among other nations.

But an evil day befel an when we became a divided nation, and with that division our glory deserted us, leaving us with the hearts and heels of the rabbit in place of the courage and strength of the bear.

All this was brought about by the long guns, who now claim all our territory east of the Mississippi, including Saukenuk, our ancient village, where all of an were born, raised, lived, hunted, fished and loved, and near which are our corn lands, which have yielded abundant harvests for an hundred winters, and where sleep the bones of our sacred dead, and around which cluster our fondest recollections of heroism and noble deeds of charity done by our fathers, who were Sauks, not only in name, but in courage and action.  I thank the Great Spirit for making me a Sauk, and the son of a great Sauk chief, and a lineal descendant of Nanamakee, the founder of our nation.

"The Great Spirit is the friend and protector of the Sauks, and has accompanied me as your War Chief upon the war-path against our enemies, and has given me skill to direct and you the courage to achieve a hundred victories over our enemies upon the war-path. &nsp;All this occurred before we became a divided nation.  We then had the courage and strength of the bear, but since the division our hearts and heels are like those of the rabbit and fawn.  We have neither courage or confidence in our leaders or ourselves, and have fallen a prey to internal jealousies and petty strifes until we are no longer worthy of the illustrious name we bear.  In a word, we have become subjects of ridicule and bandinage,—`there goes a cowardly Sauk.  All this has resulted from the white man's accursed fire-water united with our own tribal quarrels and personal jealousies.  The Great Spirit created this country for the use and benefit of his red children, and placed them in full possession of it, and we were happy and contented. Why did he send the palefaces across the great ocean to take it from us? When they landed on our territory they were received as long-absent brothers whom the Great Spirit had returned to us.  Food and rest were freely given them by our fathers, who treated them all the more kindly on account of their weak and helpless condition.  Had our fathers the desire, they could have crushed the intruders out of existence with the same ease we kill the blood-sucking mosquitoes. &nsp;Little did our fathers then think they were taking to their bosoms, and warming them into life and vigor, a lot of torpid, half-frozen and starving vipers, which in a few winters would fix their deadly fangs upon the very bosoms that had nursed and cared for them when they needed help.

"From the day when the palefaces landed upon our shores, they have been robbing us of our inheritance, and slowly, but surely, driving us back, back, back towards the setting sun, burning our villages, destroying our growing crops, ravishing our wives and daughters, beating our pappooses with cruel sticks, and brutally murdering our people upon the most flimsy pretenses and trivial causes. Upon our return to Saukenuk from our winter hunting grounds last spring, we found the palefaces in our lodges, and that they had torn down our fences and were plowing our corn lands and getting ready to plant their corn upon the lands which the Sauks have owned and cultivated for so many winters that our memory cannot go back to them.  Nor is this all. They claim to own our lands and lodges by right of purchase from the cowardly and treacherous Quashquamme, nearly thirty winters ago, and drive us away from our lodges and fields with kicks of their cruel boots, accompanied with vile cursing and beating with sticks.  When returning from an ill-fated day's hunt, wearied and hungry, with my feet stumbling with the weight of sixty-four winters, I was basely charged by two palefaces of killing their hogs, which I indignantly denied because the charge was false, but they told me I lied,and then they took my gun, powder-horn and bullet-pouch from me by violence, and beat me with a hickory stick until the blood ran down my back like drops of falling rain, and my body was so lame and sore for a moon that I could not hunt or fish.  They brought their accursed fire-water to our village, making wolves of our braves and warriors, and then when we protested against the sale and destroyed their bad spirits, they came with a multitude on horseback, compelling us to flee across the Miss-issippi for our lives, and then they burned down our ancient vil-lage and turned their horses into our growing corn.

"They are now running their plows through our graveyards, turning up the bones and ashes of our sacred dead, whose spirits are calling to us from the land of dreams for vengeance on the despoilers.  Will the descendents of Nanamakee and our other illustrious dead stand idly by and suffer this sacrilege to be continued?  Have they lost their strength and courage, and become squaws and pappooses.  The Great Spirit whispers in my ear, no!  Then let us be again united as a nation and at once cross the Mississippi, rekindle our watch-fires upon our ancient watch-tower, and send forth the war-whoop of the again united Sauks, and our cousins, the Masquawkees, Pottawattamies, Ottawas, Chippewas, Winnebagoes and Kickapoos, will unite with us in avenging our wrongs upon the white pioneers of Illinois.  When we recross the Mississippi with a strong army, the British Father will send us not only guns, tomahawks, spears, knives and ammunition in abundance, but be will also send us British soldiers to fight our battles for us.  Then will the deadly arrow and fatal tomahawk hurtle through the air at the hearts and heads of the pale faced invaders, sending their guilty spirits to the white man's place of endless punishment, and should we, while on the war-path, meet the Pauguk, our departing spirits will be led along that path which is strewn with beautiful flowers, laden with the fragrance of patriotism and heroism, which leads to the land of dreams, whence the spirit of our fathers are beckoning us on, to avenge their wrongs."