Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/124



Foxes and burn their villages on the Rock River. The Indians were located on both sides of the Mississippi in the vicinity of Rock Island and Davenport. They rallied from all points to the attack. A detachment of British soldiers from Prairie du Chien joined them and the battle lasted three hours. The Indians led by Black Hawk fought with great courage to save their homes and Taylor was driven back with heavy loss and compelled to retreat. Black Hawk had become an ally of the British upon a promise that they would aid him to drive the Americans out of the valley which he claimed and refused to abandon. But when the war closed and the British were unable to aid him farther, he returned to his old home on Rock River and found that Keokuk had become a chief of the party friendly to the Americans.

In 1815 a large council of Sacs and Foxes assembled near the mouth of the Missouri River at which the treaty of 1804 was ratified, but Black Hawk refused his assent to it and withheld his signature, as did many of the minor Fox chiefs. They would not consent to the barter of their country and ultimate removal from it. Black Hawk made no resistance to the erection of Fort Armstrong in 1816 as a portion of his tribe under Keokuk had determined to give up their lands on the east side of the river and move to the Iowa side. Settlers now began to come in under the protection of the soldiers and open farms in the Rock River Valley and vicinity. But the old war chief, Black Hawk, with about 500 followers, held his village and lands on Rock River.

In 1824 the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States all lands lying between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers south of the north line of Missouri, excepting a small portion lying at the junction of these rivers afterward known as the “half-breed tract,” which they reserved for the families of the whites who had married Indian wives. In 1825 an agreement was reached in council held at Prairie du Chien fixing the southern boundary