Toward the Black Hawk War: The Sauk and Fox Indians and the War of 1812

Abstract

THE MICHIGAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 38:1 (Spring 2012): 27-52©2012 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved. Toward the Black Hawk War: The Sauk and Fox Indians and the War of 1812 by Patrick J. Jung The War of 1812 has been called America’s “forgotten conflict,” and it is easy to see why. Compared with other wars, the battles were generally small and involved lesser numbers of troops. The United States possessed a tiny military establishment on the eve of the war, and the citizen militias that policy makers hoped would bolster the ranks of the regulars were often more of a hindrance than a viable fighting force. In the Old Northwest, the United States faced British forces that were similar in composition. Additionally, the British, unlike the Americans, also employed Indian auxiliaries. This often proved decisive, for by the war’s end the British and their Indian allies retained their iron grip over an area that stretched from Mackinac Island to the Mississippi River. These historical events have been well documented;1 however, an issue 1 The principal works concerning the military history of the War of 1812, including in the Old Northwest, are Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); J. Mackay Hitsman, The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History (Toronto, On.: University of Toronto Press, 1965); Reginald Horsman, The War of 1812 (New York: Knopf, 1969); Robert S. Quimby, The U.S. Army in the War of 1812: An Operational and Command Study, 2 vols. (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997); Alec R. Gilpin, The War of 1812 in the Old Northwest (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958); Philip P. Mason, ed., After Tippecanoe: Some Aspects of the War of 1812 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1963); and Reginald Horsman, “Wisconsin and the War of 1812,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 46 (Autumn 1962): 3-15. For works that examine the role of Indians in the war, see George F. G. Stanley, “The Indians in the War of 1812,” Canadian Historical Review 31 (June 1950): 145-65; and Reginald Horsman, “The Role of the Indian in the War,” in After Tippecanoe, ed. Mason, 60-77. For works that examine Britain’s relationship with the Indians during the postwar era, see J. Mackay Hitsman, Safeguarding Canada, 1763-1871 (Toronto, On.: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 110-29; and S. F. Wise and Robert C. Brown, Canada Views the United States: Nineteenth-Century Political Attitudes (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967). For a historiographical assessment of works on the War of 1812, see Donald R. Hickey, “The War of 1812: Still a Forgotten Conflict?” Journal of Military History 65 (July 2001): 741-69. 28 The Michigan Historical Review Sauk and Fox Treaty and Tribal Locations, 1804 [Source: Map by author.] that has been ignored is how Indian participation in the War of 1812 influenced further resistance by Native communities in the postwar era. From at least the 1790s onward, the Sauk and to a lesser degree the Fox developed a set of anti-American attitudes that ensured their participation on the side of the British during the War of 1812. Moreover, the war reinforced these attitudes and provided both tribes (particularly the Sauk) with a template for future acts of resistance. Indeed, the Sauk war leader Black Hawk hoped to replicate the successes the tribes had enjoyed during the War of 1812 by establishing an alliance with the British and creating a pan-Indian alliance throughout the 1832 Black Hawk War. Sauk and Fox Indians and the War of 1812 29 At the dawn of the nineteenth century the Sauk and Fox tribes resided in the upper Mississippi Valley; the Sauk had a population of about 5,300, whereas the Fox had about 1,600 members. The two tribes developed a close alliance; in fact, outside observers often considered them a single tribe. Nevertheless, although they frequently coordinated their policies concerning their relations with other Indian communities and Euro-American powers such as France, Britain, and Spain, the two tribes sometimes pursued separate courses of action as well. Similar to other Indian...