Life of Mà-ka-tai-me-she-kià-kiàk, or Black Hawk, An Autobiography

Abstract

From its initial publication in 1833, Black Hawk's autobiography has challenged readers to confront dominant narratives of race and progress, justice and inequality, and US territorial acquisition and Native sovereignty. A Sauk war chief, Black Hawk related the annual cycles of his peoples’ lives from the 1780s in the modern border area of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri, including their several relocations, aspects of their spirituality, society, and economy, their sometimes-violent relations with other Indian peoples as well as with British and Americans. Black Hawk credits the British with being more honest and trustworthy, particularly as the US perpetrated a fraudulent treaty in 1804 in which the Sauks and Foxes were supposed to have ceded much of their lands. While Black Hawk and his people had regular interaction with American traders over the years, the treaty fraud and intermittent violence led some Sauks to follow Black Hawk into siding with the British in the War of 1812 and later to fight the US again in the so-called Black Hawk War in the summer of 1832.Black Hawk's autobiography recounts the causes and course of the 1832 conflict as well as the subsequent tour of Eastern cities that he and his main Sauk advisors were compelled to take as prisoners at the insistence of President Andrew Jackson. As well explored by Michael Loraro, Black Hawk's message to white America was much more than an account of the eponymous war; it offered a broader criticism of the cultural and political context of the conflict and a vision for future peace and friendship. Black Hawk's autobiography both reflected and influenced Romantic literature and emerged as one of the most important and compelling works by a Native American in the nineteenth century, retaining a canonical place to the present day.Loraro's new engagement with Black Hawk's autobiography is a welcome update to Donald Jackson's 1955 edition from the University of Illinois Press. For those who may wonder whether they should upgrade their bookshelf with a new edition of Black Hawk's Life, I assure you that you should. Whereas Jackson's introduction and notes provided solid historical context from relevant primary sources, his book is obviously decades out of date regarding scholarship and includes some cringe-inducing verbiage. Loraro's update includes three main forms of editorial commentary. First, a brief introduction offers a sketch of Life's content, its implications for contemporary readers, and an overview of scholarly analyses. Second, Loraro includes a more developed version of this introduction as a distinct essay, “Resistance, Rebellion, Resignation, and Re-creation: Black Hawk's Life as Negotiation, Transition, and Testimony.” As suggested by the complicated title, the essay delves more thoroughly into literary analysis and modern scholarship, advancing several interesting observations and arguments, culminating in the idea that whereas Black Hawk failed militarily in 1832, he succeeded the following year in publishing a widely read and well-regarded Nativist criticism of American settler colonialism. Black Hawk influenced subsequent critics in the nineteenth century, and Native writers continue to reflect his ideas. Third, Loraro includes explanatory notes throughout Black Hawk's narrative, with clarifications, some primary sources, and references to recent historical and literary scholarship. Finally, Loraro adds to the Native voice element of Black Hawk's Life with inclusion of lines from Meskwaki (Sac and Fox) poet Ray A. Young Bear, “For You, a Handful of the Greatest Gift.”Loraro rightly points out that Black Hawk's Life continues to be considered and analyzed by new generations who bring their own interests and ideas to their reading of this foundational work. Loraro's edition reflects his own background as a literary scholar of frontier writings mostly east of the Mississippi River. He largely takes Black Hawk's authorship at face value with some limited consideration of his nineteenth century editor and mediator, J. B. Patterson. The third player in the production of Black Hawk's Life receives almost no attention, the interpreter Antoine LeClair, a culture broker of French and Indian descent, and the man who rendered Black Hawk's oral testimony and performance into written English. Perhaps a scholar will develop this crucial third element of the narrative's triangular production in a future edition Black Hawk's Life.