Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/123



Black Hawk and several other chiefs repudiated this treaty and claimed that the chiefs making it had no authority to dispose of this immense tract of land, including the site of the principal and oldest village of the Sac nation. The chiefs were sent to St. Louis to secure the release of a prominent member of their tribe and Black Hawk always asserted that they had no right to thus dispose of their choicest lands. When it was claimed that he had subsequently ratified the treaty of 1804 with his own signature he asserted that he had been deceived, and did not intend to dispose of their lands. There can be no doubt that the whites violated the terms of the treaty which stipulated that the Sacs should remain in undisturbed possession of the lands until they were surveyed and sold to white settlers.

In 1808 adventurers began to enter the Indian country attracted by reports of rich mines of lead, and frequent collisions occurred between them and the Indians. In order to protect the whites a fort was built, which was named in honor of the President. The building of this fort without their consent, in undisputed Indian territory on the west side of the Mississippi River, was a clear violation of the treaty and could only be regarded as an act of hostility. The Indians resented its occupation as a violation of the treaty of 1804 and young Black Hawk led a party of Sac and Fox warriors in an assault upon it, which was repulsed by the garrison. When the war of 1812 against Great Britain began, the Sacs and Foxes were sent into Missouri to be out of reach of British influence. But they soon crossed the river and became allies of the English army. In 1813 a stockade was built near the present town of Bellevue, in Jackson County, Iowa, in order to hold the country from the hostile Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes.

In 1814 Major Zachary Taylor was sent with a detachment of 334 soldiers up the Mississippi River by boats, with orders to destroy the corn fields of the Sacs and