Ep. 336 The Rise and Fall of "Chief" Black Hawk

Dr. Patrick J. Jung, professor of history and cultural anthropology at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, joins us to discuss one of the Midwest's most famous—and most misunderstood—historical figures: Black Hawk. From the real reasons behind the Black Hawk War of 1832 to why his name appears on everything from helicopters to community colleges, Dr. Jung helps set the record straight on a man who wanted to be a farmer, not a warrior.

This conversation explores the complexity of intertribal relations, the acceleration of Upper Midwest settlement, and how history has often painted Black Hawk with the wrong brush. We deeply enjoyed this conversation, and we believe you will as well.

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• Podcast Transcript

  Dr. Patrick Jung (00:00.554)

  I am Dr. Patrick J. Young. I'm a professor of history and cultural anthropology at the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. I'm Mark. I'm Dr. Julie Meacham. I'm Steve Hansen. I'm Jill Bebout.

  can

  Kent Boucher (00:17.634)

  Gravy. My name is Jeremy French. Laura Walter. Carol Hochsbergen, owner of Hoxie Native Seeds. And this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. This is Hal Herring, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Podcast. Skip Sly, Iowa Whitetail. Valerie VanCoten, State Historical Society of Iowa. Dr. Matt Helmer, Iowa State University. My name is Colin. I'm Judd McCullum. I appeared out of the wilderness and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast.

  with the Native Habitat Project.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (00:44.775)

  Welcome to the Prairie Farm Podcast.

  Dr. Young, I see Black Hawk on all sorts of things. see Black Hawk County. I see Black Hawk State Bank. I see Black Hawk College. I see Black Hawk helicopters.

  Blackhawk archery ring. It's like a place. Yeah. Yeah.

  Chicago Blackhawks.

  Chicago Blackhawks, That is a massive usage of that name. Is it all tied back to the same guy?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:24.974)

  Yeah, there were a couple other Blackhawks in American history, but generally, yes. They all tie back to Blackhawk whose name in the Sauk language was Makatamishikiakyak, and it actually meant black sparrowhawk, but in English it was usually just translated as Blackhawk. and he, you know, I often get asked, well, who are the Blackhawk Indians? Well, there weren't any Blackhawk Indians. There was a guy named Blackhawk, and he was a Sauk Indian.

  of the sock tribe.

  Yeah, that is, I've always wondered, know, surely with as much range as that covers. mean, really, when you start talking about like, you know, the Blackhawk helicopters, I mean, now you're talking a global recognition for his name. And I grew up in, I guess you would say the, I don't know if the right term is the

  the shadow of Blackhawks territory there in the Quad City area. So, you know, grew up going to Blackhawk State Park, played countless games of basketball at the gym for Blackhawk Community College. I think my parents banked with Blackhawk State Bank.

  So I've seen his name on everything all my life. And then of course in Iowa, Black Hawk County is, I think is that where it's at least part of Waterloo.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (03:03.255)

  Yeah.

  Yeah, yeah, Blackhawk County. Yeah.

  So it's one of our more populated counties in Iowa. you know, growing up, I knew who he was. You know, of course, we did some some stuff in grade school. We'd go to the park and the museum there in Rock Island and see that. But surely there's got to be more to the story than just what, you know, I knew from those few lessons as a kid. Later on, I read his his I guess it's kind of

  Is it officially categorized as an autobiography? He spoke it,

  It is categorized as an autobiography. He related his life to a newspaper editor in Illinois, guy named Patterson. It was translated from the Sauk language into English. But yeah, many people have studied the autobiography, and generally they all come to the same conclusion. This is when you start corroborating it with other sources.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (04:07.234)

  This is a very accurate rendition of his life. So it's considered the first real work in American literature of American Indian autobiography. wow. Yeah, it's really the first in many ways.

  could write because Native Americans didn't write.

  No, he was he he he well some some Native Americans did by that time. Well,

  culture for like thousands of years right

  Oh, no, no. Yeah, right. The only only the only native people in North America who had writing systems were the Maya, the Aztecs way down in, you know, Central America, Central America. So no, no, no, no American Indian people north of the Rio Grande had writing systems. But by the time you get to 1833, when he's recounting his autobiography, there were certainly American Indians who lived farther to the east and places like Massachusetts.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (05:04.344)

  who had been converted to Christianity a century earlier, taught English, and they were fluent in their own languages and in English, and they had been taught to write. But Blackhawk only spoke the Sauk language. He did not know English, and he didn't know how to write. that was, I don't think there was anybody among the Sauks or the Confederated Musquackies who did. So yeah, this was something that was given through an interpreter and then written down by Patterson.

  Yeah, it's fascinating. And I'd encourage our listeners if, I mean, what would you say, Dr. Young? I think probably an afternoon or I mean, I think it's like a five hour listening. I listened to it a few summers ago while I was working and I was actually working out in the side of its grama field and it was fascinating.

  Yeah, it's not real long. You can probably get it done in a day or two. And it's easy to find. If you just put Black Hawk autobiography into Google, there's plenty of PDF copies of it that come up. And again, it was published first in 1833, but it went through a lot of reprints right into the 20th century. The one that I usually use was a later edition that was edited by a guy named Jackson in 1956.

  Yeah, if any of your listeners want to find the autobiography, they can easily get a free copy online somewhere, just Googling Blackhawk Autobiography. It'll come up. It's real easy to find.

  That's a good tip. Yeah, that's great tip and a great book. I really enjoyed it. So I think another reason, this is just me hypothesizing here, that Blackhawk has so much notoriety is he really traveled quite a bit. mean, he was from the Quad City area, Rock Island area.

  Kent Boucher (07:04.428)

  But he spent time in southern Wisconsin, I mean significant time, significant time in Iowa, which seems obvious enough because he's in the Quad City area. I mean even like he was, if I remember correctly, he spent quite a bit of time, was it along the Des Moines River, the Skunk Rivers? So I mean into our area, Nicholas, the Skunk River is what, maybe five miles from the farm? And South Skunk River.

  Then he even made it all the way up into Michigan, I believe, as well, didn't he, some of the, a few of the battles or something during the Black Hawk War? Was that?

  Well, let me, one, there's a couple, there's a couple of ways we could take this, but first, why is he so well known? The Blackhawk War really takes place between May and August of 1832. And basically, you know, you can draw like this, this, this, this horseshoe shaped, you know, half ring from the Quad Cities in the South, all the way up through Fort Atkinson in Wisconsin, and all the way back to north of Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi.

  And he did that all in one summer because he was being chased by the US Army and every place along what's called, you know, the, the, the Black Hawk trail, know, Ford Atkinson, Beloit, uh, the quad cities, you know, you're going to find Black Hawk something. I mean, you have the Chicago Blackhawks in Chicago. He never even got that far East. So it's just during the summer of 1832, it was big news. I mean, all the newspapers out East.

  We're publishing news about the war. Everybody in America knew who Blackhawk was and keeping track of this war out in the wilds of the Midwest. So that's one thing. He was well traveled in one summer, but he didn't spend a whole lot of time in any one of these places. He was being chased. he'll spend the remain. Of course, he lived in the Quad Cities area around Moline for most of his life.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (09:11.382)

  And then, you know, the last six years of his life or so after he's after the war is over, he lives in Iowa. And of course, the U.S. government is pushing his people farther east. So but he was he was a well-known celebrity by that time. So I can see where any place he was in Iowa, even close to there, people today would want to take some ownership of that. During the War of 1812, he had traveled as far east as Ohio to fight against the United States. really?

  I didn't realize that part of his history.

  Yeah, I go into that a little bit in the early chapters of my first book on the Black Hawk War. So, yeah, so, know, but he went as far west as Kansas in the summers to hunt bison. but that was not unusual for Sauk people. So, during the course of his life, yeah, he was fairly well traveled, I think.

  So the war of 1812 that's against Great Britain again, right? So and Great Britain basically went to you you say Indian American Indians American they went to American Indians and Said hey, will you help us fight against?

  Well, the British and the tribes of the Midwest had parallel goals. They both wanted to keep the United States out of the Midwest. It's probably more accurate to say that you had these two groups of people, the British, who were, of course, really tightly organized, and then the various tribes of the Midwest who were at least had a common goal. They all wanted to keep their lands, and they wanted to keep the US out. So would be better to say that they were

  Dr. Patrick Jung (10:45.046)

  you know

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  Right, but the British we would have had the British, you know been a little bit more a little bit more aggressive after the war of 1812 was over They could have forced the United States to carve out a Native American country that would have stretched from the Quad Cities all the way up to Mackinac Island and included all of Wisconsin Why did Great Britain want to Well mainly because they wanted to get a treaty with the US wrapped up as quickly as they could

  But not one.

  Nicolas Lirio (11:22.283)

  But why why didn't they want him in the Midwest to begin with? What was it?

  Mainly because they wanted a barrier between Canada and the United States. they wanted to basically, of course there was already, the US and Canada already showed a border in the East. They just wanted to sort of keep that border as small as they could. And don't forget, the United States tried three times to conquer Canada. Each time was a failure for different reasons. But the British, I mean, the British were absolutely

  I say paranoid, but very concerned about American conquest of Canada probably right into the 1870s. So yeah, the British wanted to keep the US out of the Midwest because they didn't want the Midwest to become a base by which the US could launch an invasion of Canada, which they tried to do during the War of 1812, it failed. The tribes wanted to keep the US out of the Midwest because that's where their homelands were. And the British would have been very happy to have an Indian barrier state of it was called.

  And that's one of the things that Black Hawk was fighting for during the War of 1812 as a younger man in his 40s.

  Yeah, interesting. So when he was when he was fighting in that in the War of 1812, there were probably some other significant Native American figures that he would have been you know, any off offhand that would have been associated with that.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (12:49.726)

  Of course it to come so that's what he was the yeah, he was the you know He was the probably the greatest native leader of his age

  So was Chief Blackhawk, was he part of that recruitment effort that Tecumseh and his...

  It was half a generation before Black Hawk, right?

  Okay. And Blackhawk wasn't a chief by the way. We'll get, we can get into that. come so of course, we wanted to unite all the tribes, not just in the Midwest, but also the South into this great confederation that would have defeated the United States and pushed them back across the Appalachian.

  Do you think organized they would have if they had been organized they would have.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (13:30.21)

  Well, that's what Tecumseh tried to do, but it was a bigger task than he bargained for. He did attract quite a number of native people to his standard, and they did fight alongside the British at all sorts of battles in the Midwest, the Battle of the Thames in Ontario. They had conquered Mackinac in Chicago during the early phases of the war.

  Tecumseh was young. He I wouldn't say he came really close. There were a lot of native people who didn't answer his call, but he had he was probably the greatest known American Indian of the when you say Black Hawk was hoping a generation later to be something like the next Tecumseh

  When you say the greatest leader of his age, do you mean he led the most people or he was the most effective in what he was doing? What do mean by

  Well, I guess because he was the most well-known. I mean, every native person from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico knew who Tecumseh was.

  What did they, what did they respect or, or because they didn't have an organized like voting system to put leaders in, what did they respect that people would even follow him?

  Kent Boucher (14:43.392)

  I think it was probably more, was because, let's see, when it comes to Shawnee, And Shawnee was, they were facing all this pressure.

  Right, but they weren't the only, I mean, every native nation, you know, in the South and, you know, south of the Ohio River and north. So, you know, he had tried to recruit this massive Indian confederation for many years, from at least like 1805 up to the War of 1812. And a lot of tribes did fall in and, you know, with him and did fight against the British. But not every tribe did for a lot of different reasons.

  He was trying to create that, I wouldn't even say centralized structure, but a more definite structure where all native people would have had a common, at least a common foreign policy, common goal. it was, the tribes had never been united into one political entity or one military entity. So what he was trying to do was,

  not an easy task. And guy named Gregory Dowd at Notre Dame has written, University of Notre Dame has written the most on just that, the attempt by DeCumseh and some earlier Native leaders to try to unite all the tribes into a single confederation. Yeah, in one sense, DeCumseh was one in a long line of leaders, but he was probably the most well-known just because he had traveled the most

  in both North and South. was just a everybody even white Americans knew had heard the name Tecumseh. So in that sense he was greatest. He was just the most well known. Interesting.

  Kent Boucher (16:31.734)

  So was Blackhawk a direct Blackhawk fighting in the war of 1812? Was that a direct result of Tecumseh's recruitment?

  Well, you know when I first wrote my book back in 2007 I thought so I'm beginning to see now that you know Blackhawk wanted to be his own man But there was you know, there was a general set of ideas in the air that if native people didn't band together in some way Eventually the United States would just take their lands So he fought he he didn't necessarily fight under Tecumseh matter of fact, he doesn't mention Tecumseh I don't think anyone is autobiography

  But certainly he did fight alongside the British. I think he saw himself more as a sock warrior, a sock war leader who was fighting alongside the British along with Shawnees. I don't think he liked the idea of being a follower of Tecumseh. He wanted to be a great leader among his own people.

  Was Pontiac around that same area?

  That was, well, okay, so Pontiac was like a generation before Tecumseh. Okay. Blackhawk was a generation after Tecumseh. But yeah, this is a long line of native leaders who are trying to create these confederations, these alliances to stem the tide of American expansion. that's, you Blackhawk did not intend to start the war that bears his name. Had things gone a little bit differently, there might not have been a Blackhawk war at all.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (18:03.234)

  What he wanted to do was create this powerful confederation of tribes in Illinois and Wisconsin, basically do a big show of force and force the United States government to renegotiate the 1804 treaty. And that's probably something I should talk about next. The United States had purchased all of the sock in the Musquaki lands and the Musquaki were a tribe related to the socks.

  But he had purchased all of their land in a treaty in 1804, a treaty that neither tribe saw as being legitimate.

  Is that the with front Napoleon? Was that the Louisiana Perch?

  This is a little bit after that.

  Okay.

  Kent Boucher (18:45.998)

  This is when a few American leaders

  One in particular.

  They kind of gathered up this loose association of people from the Sauk Nation and from the Squawki Nation and they said, hey, we want to buy this land from you. And they got these people who really didn't have the authority to sign the deal, to sign the deal.

  The authority of

  Dr. Patrick Jung (19:15.278)

  So that was in 1804. It was actually one person, William Henry Harrison, who would later go on to become president for a month. That's what he's most well known for. But as a territorial governor, he was just an aggressive purchaser of American Indian land. And the United States couldn't just take Indian land. It had to be purchased. That was outlined in the Northwest Ordinance. But Harrison would just

  Sorry.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (19:43.214)

  He just negotiated one underhanded treaty after the next negotiating with tribal leaders who weren't authorized to sell land. In the case of the socks and the squawkeys, he negotiated the 1804 treaty without really telling them that they were selling any land. Or if he did telling them it was just little bits of land in Missouri, there was no treaty treaty journal, which was unusual for the time. But that really is where the black Hawk war starts. The socks and their

  their allies, the Muscovikes thought they had been cheated by Harrison and they didn't want to move. And Blackhawk thought in 1832, I can put up a big show of force with the Sox, the Muscovikes, the Potawatomi, the Ho-Chunks, the Kickapoos. And we can tell the federal government, you know, we're not going to move and, we don't want to fight, but if we have to, we will. But we'd much rather just renegotiate these unfair treaties and stay where we are on the east side of the Mississippi.

  So that was his plan. And again, there's all sorts of evidence for that. His autobiography, the fact he had women and children, this was not organized as a war party. So that was his goal. It wasn't the start of war. And he wasn't a chief. Oftentimes, they had what were called war chiefs, but I don't really like that term.

  Is that just an American? I once read a biography on Chief Joseph and a big part of that story was he had a role and I assume this is Americanized, how we break down, everyone's gotta have a leader, that kind of idea. historians have given him the title of camp chief. But he was like the one guy that

  the American commanding officer who was at war with the Nez Perce knew. And so he told the newspaper guy who's following the Nez Perce war, yep, that's Chief Joseph. I know him. He's a smart guy. knows this and that. Well, he became so well known as the primary chief when in reality that wasn't his role at all.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (22:02.016)

  Right, and so there were different types of political offices among the Sauk. But if you look at all the different native tribes and nations here in the Western Great Lakes, they all had somewhat similar methods of political organization. There were civil chiefs. To be a civil chief, you had to be born into a certain clan. For the Musquackies, it was the Bear Clan. For the Sauk, it was primarily the Fish Clan.

  But then there were other offices as well, like a speaker. Whoever could speak well could speak for a chief. Men who had been particularly distinguished in war could be war leaders or war captains. I prefer either one of those two terms to war chief because the nature of the office was different. And they had the right to form war parties whenever they wanted and take war parties out. That was what Black Hawk was. And then they also had a position of band leader.

  which didn't require being a chief either. And that was more for, you know, in winter when they went on, they create these big hunting bands. And that was without going into a lot of detail, that was something that was figured out by one of my great, you know, our historical heroes, Anthony F.C. Wallace in the 1950s. But basically, you know, by the time we get to 1832 among the Sox and to a lesser extent the Mesquaki's, there were those Sox who said,

  This treaty was unfair. We have to fight it and we're following Blackhawk. But then there were others who said, yes, this treaty is unfair, but we're not going to defeat the United States. The United States is not going to back down. We're going to just basically cross the Mississippi, go into Iowa. Even though it's unfair, we're not going to commit suicide by fighting the United States. there's lot of things named after him too.

  was Kia Cuck who had took that. yeah. Sure. so I guess it'd probably be a good time to talk. That's one of my questions I had for you. There was what I perceived after going through Blackhawk's autobiography that there was a real rivalry between and maybe even more so on Blackhawk's end towards Kia Cuck. Like a seething anger there.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (23:59.469)

  Hey, like

  Dr. Patrick Jung (24:25.006)

  Yeah, and it built up over time. So again, this treaty is negotiated in 1804. Everybody agrees it's a bad treaty. The Sox and Musquackis who signed it had been tricked by William Henry Harrison, and they want this treaty gone. But then as you get in, neither of the tribes had to leave right away. They had like 25 years to remove.

  Well, now comes 1829. We're at the 25 year mark and now it's time to leave. Well, there's the faction under Blackhawk and there were actually earlier anti-removal leaders before him. Namuette, Bad Thunder, Iowa as I recall. And then there was the faction under Keogh Cook and some of the other leaders who said, no, we got to remove. can't, we have to leave the east side of the Mississippi. We don't like it. We don't agree with it.

  But there's 8,000 Sox, roughly 3,000 or so Mesquickies, and not the most. There's no way they're going to defeat the United States. It would bring them ruin to do so. But the two tribes, particularly the Sox, had split over the issue of should we remove or should we fight it? Black Hawk wanted to fight. Keogh wanted to move across the Mississippi.

  And yeah, just, it was this rivalry. Neither man was a chief. But they had a lot of charisma. And charisma could really make you a leader among a lot of the native peoples here in the Great Lakes region. Why? What's that?

  Why charisma specifically?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (26:07.31)

  I think that's common in any society. People follow people with charisma.

  That's what I thought but yeah, you would point out didn't know if there was something specific that they they valued it more than

  Well, okay, so again, just the nature of the way Native people lived. you could live in any village you wanted as a sock, and there would usually be a village leader. In leaders like Keogh Cook and Blackhawk, what they did is they would always have civil chiefs who were, you know, legitimate civil chiefs in their bands, and that kind of legitimated their own leadership. So I know it sounds odd, you know, why didn't the civil chiefs just

  You know be the leaders because not all of them have this charisma of other men like Black Hawk and Keogh could

  So how did they decide the civil chiefs if they?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (26:56.536)

  Well, those were because you had to be born into a clan that provided civil chiefs, the bear clan among the Basquakis and the fish and the bear clan among the Sox.

  And that was just because 500 years ago they decided that was the

  and it's kind of the same yeah yeah same way in a European yeah who's king

  Yeah, the origins of it, I'm not real sure of the origins, but probably a thousand years before when you had these tribes, probably pre-Columbian times. But either way, you had to have civil chiefs to be a leader, and people just gravitate toward charisma. And the way that these various band leaders among the different tribes would legitimate their own leadership was just to attract civil chiefs who had been born into the chiefly clans.

  As long as they had those civil chiefs and you know legitimate war leaders We have people who are are orators as long as they had all the other you know leadership positions in place People would legitimately extend, you know extend legitimacy to these bands. Yeah

  Nicolas Lirio (28:03.202)

  was the where was the the the sock chief what did they have chief chief

  No, that was the none of these tribes is in the Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi Valley, even into Iowa, they this was a world of autonomous villages, autonomous bands. every, you know, every band, every village was essentially independent. But what kept them together was culture, language, alliances in times of war, to sock villages were never going to fight one.

  And you have to understand, we're talking about groups of people like the Sox who probably between 5,000, maybe 8,000 at the very most later in their history. That's not a lot of people. And you went to one Sox village, well, you can go to another Sox village, but there's people from the first one who are married into the second one. You may live in this Sox village, but your sister married somebody in another Sox village.

  They're bound together by intimate family ties. This is sort of a smaller scale society.

  Was there any sort of geographic tie to the idea of a clan?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (29:19.436)

  Yeah, they had clans.

  What I mean, did clans

  And there were probably, I'd have to look back to see how many sock villages there were and that could change, but there were probably well over a dozen sock villages from St. Louis all the way up to the Quad Cities. right. Sockenuck being the biggest one. But every village would have people who were born into the chiefly clans. People from every clan lived in every village.

  You had to marry outside your clan. So when you went into a native village, whether it was Potawatomi, Sauk, there would be people of different clans. There would probably be people from the chiefly clans who could serve as civil chiefs for that village or that band of people. There was very flexible arrangement. And there were rules, but the rules could be applied in a very flexible manner.

  Does was the clan then passed down by the mom or by the Otherwise, everyone's part of every clan, you know, if you don't.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (30:20.738)

  Yeah, okay.

  yeah, so you inherited your father's clan identity, there were some, like the Iroquois, you inherited your mother's clan identity. So that was a bachelorenal society. So the Sauk and the Musquacki, they spoke the same language, but they were two separate tribes. They had become confederated during the century early, when they were fighting the French. But yeah, you inherited your father's clan identity.

  Black Hawk was a member of the Thunder clan because thunder was considered an animal believe it or not and Keele cook was a member of the Fox clan and the the fish yeah, the fish clan Primarily provided all the chiefs under the sock clan and the sock tribe

  Do you, I assume you've heard maybe of Taylor Keene, Dr. Taylor Keene, he's out of University of Omaha.

  No, no, no, Creighton.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (31:17.112)

  Crayton.

  And he, he's an Indian American and he, if I remember correctly, his mom was Omaha and his dad with Sue. But the problem is in the Omaha, you get your identity from your dad and the Cherokee, you get your identity from a mom. he was born, you know, identity less than one of them adopted him, I believe.

  Cherokee.

  Cherokee

  Dr. Patrick Jung (31:38.702)

  Right, and even in Blackhawks Day, I mean, there were lot of mixed marriages. mean, there were Ho-Chunks who were intermarried with the Sox, Sox who were married to Musquackis. Tribal identity was probably not quite as important as we tend to think it was. It was there, but clan identity was probably just as important. And again, it was, yeah, so you could go into a sock village and

  You know, you might meet a man who's married to a Ho-Chunk woman, and the Ho-Chunk language was as different from the Sauk language as English is from Mandarin Chinese. I yeah, they're radically different language families. But their lifestyle was the same. Woodland, know, agriculture, growing corn.

  But if you boiled it down to one glue for their cultures, would it be language or is there something else you think?

  Probably family connections. Again, when you think of a clan, it's really, to kind of give a real simple definition, it's like maybe a group of extended families who can trace their lineage back to a common ancestor 10 to 12 generations earlier. Again, these are small societies whose populations are in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands when you get into the Santee Sioux of Minnesota.

  or the Dakotas they prefer to be called. So I mean it's really these intimate family ties. These are small scale societies. In a village everybody knows everybody. You know people in the other village who you're related to who've – from your own family who's married into that village. So it was really sort of these intimate family ties and the clans are really just sort of something beyond an extended family when you think about it.

  Kent Boucher (33:32.522)

  Before we get into, you know, deeper into the war, a criticism I've heard before about Blackhawk is, man, he sure was a violent guy, you know, even before the, even without considering his war connections, just with, I think there might be some mention of it in his autobiography of times when he got into little skirmishes with,

  people outside of his clan or outside of his nation. And I think it's important to call it out because a criticism I often hear about, I mean, there's no question that even in the case of this Treaty of 1804, the way that conflict has happened between United States government and

  indigenous Americans has been messy and at its worst horrific. And a way that I think we justify, meaning those of us on the side of the American government who have benefited from the American government and the Western expansion across North America, kind of almost a justification is, yeah, I know we did, you

  There were those atrocities that we did, but they were doing it to each other before. And so I think it's almost offered as an excuse that to cover up our sins, we talk about someone else's sins.

  Yeah, okay, and I find a lot of those arguments to be really spurious and borderline offensive. First of all, know, in native societies in the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi Valley, every man was a warrior. Okay, there was no such thing as not being a warrior, and you were raised to be a warrior. And American Indian warfare was very different than European warfare. It was much more individual.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (35:39.214)

  You know, it would be basically two war parties going at each other in a lot of one-on-one combat. And the idea was to defeat your enemy by killing them, all right? And once you killed them, you took their scalp as a sign that you had done that. And if you killed a man, he wanted you to take his scalp. Why? Because he had invested, he had lost his honor. But he could pass his honor to you, the better man, with the gift of his scalp.

  That's why many American Indian men wore scalp locks. I even go into that in the book. So these are warrior societies, but they have a very different idea of warfare. A young man is only going to become prominent in his society by proving himself to be a warrior. And there's a lot of opportunities to fight. So when Black Hawk was a teenager, the Sauk were fighting for hunting grounds against the Osage, who lived farther to the west.

  And to some degree, there's a truth in the fact that yes, American Indian nations fought each other frequently. No doubt about it. But it looks messier and more violent only because it was much more individual. It was much more small scale, though. And it wasn't quite as frequent. I it wasn't like European battles where thousands could die.

  Okay.

  Kent Boucher (37:05.196)

  crusades. Right.

  Indian war parties, if they thought they were losing, they would break off. There was no shame. If you think you're going to lose, then leave. But part of it was just it was a warrior culture and Europe was not. But Black Hawk, was he violent? No, he was a warrior. Right, exactly. Right.

  Okay.

  be fit within their culture. Okay, interesting. was he a particularly good warrior?

  Oh yeah, he killed and scalped his first osage enemy at the age of 15. know, most young men probably didn't do that till they were in their 20s. So he was, you know, being a full warrior, very young. Yeah, well, yeah. And then he was, of course, made a war leader so he could lead large war parties. He excelled at that.

  Nicolas Lirio (37:43.97)

  Like a true freaking nature.

  Nicolas Lirio (37:51.855)

  What's a war party size? What's like a large wa-

  That depends, okay. Again, and all this is in my book, so not that I'm trying to hawk my book too much. It depends. If the whole tribe went into war, war parties could be in the thousands. Yeah. Well, during the 1600s, the Iroquois, they launched this, what they call the national war, to defeat their enemies. There were war parties that stretched two miles long.

  There were Iroquois war parties from New York that fought all the way to the Mississippi that were gone for two years. But in Blackhawks Day, there really weren't any big national wars where whole tribes went to war. It was usually a lot of small scale. A warrior or a war leader could create their own war party just to go out in exact revenge, for young men to go out and prove themselves. You could always just leave Saucanoek, the Quad Cities.

  go into what's today Minnesota, look for the Sioux, they're always your enemies. You're always fighting. yeah, so I mean, maybe a Sioux war party attacked your village two years ago, killed somebody. You want revenge, you can go take it. But the small-scale war parties were probably anywhere from 20 to 50 men.

  What was the process of allowing young men to be included in those war parties?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (39:20.47)

  Okay, well this is one of the things that kind of leads to the Black Hawk War. Black Hawk had no intention of starting a war. He wants to just do a show of force. The problem is he's in his 60s by that time. He's got a bunch of young warriors who are in their 20s who are chomping at the bit to show that they're warriors. So what was your question again?

  Well, you know, there's like the rite of passage as they're not taking 12 year olds to the battle because they die right away and then they never get a scalp later.

  Black Hawk was 15. I don't know how, I guess it would probably depend on your father and uncles when they thought you were ready to go out and they were gonna go attack the Sioux. But a lot of it was just small scale raids and it was a lot of tit for tat because the Sioux would raid a sock village, kill a few people, take the horses. Well now you gotta revenge yourself against the Sioux. So a group of young men would decide,

  we're going to go out and get revenge because I knew the people who were killed and it might be a year later, two years later, might be a week later. So most of it was just these small scale war parties of maybe 20 to 50 men just going out and looking for horses to raid, villages to hit, quick in and out, kill a few people of the enemies, bring the scalps back and get renowned. that Blackhawk had, you know,

  he had something like 500 sock and muskwaki and kickapoo warriors when he crossed the Mississippi in 1832. He told them, we're going to put on a show of force. Well, they were chomping at the bit to kill something. And white militia men were no better. Abraham Lincoln was 23. He was a militia commander. He told his men, we're going to let powder and meat lead, as he said. We're going to go out there and kill us some Indians. So

  Dr. Patrick Jung (41:14.382)

  The whole war starts in May of 1832 when you have a chance encounter between some of Blackhawks warriors and a group of Illinois militia and they're both just chomping at the bit to kill each other. And the militia did shoot first. So Blackhawks, he was a warrior and as part of a warrior culture, he was no more violent or less violent. Not only do think the word violent is a good one to use.

  Yeah, I want to get back to Abraham Lincoln. Sure, sure, sure. But but my my non expert perception on this was so it sounds like there was there something in that treaty of 1804 that you have 25 years in 25 years we're coming for this ground that you just sold us. It seemed like in that those last moments before as that was taking place.

  Blackhawk would would kind of You know go along with it and then he would he would like pull back and he'd be and he would come back to to Sokka no right Rock Island area and then he would kind of get driven off and then and then it almost It almost seemed like the the federal government was like we're finally getting this guy out of here, but then he would show

  Well, the reason for that, and that was, again, you go back to Native culture, and this was common throughout all the tribes of the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi, they would have their permanent village sites, and they would occupy those usually from spring to autumn, and that's where they grew their corn. But then in the winters, they would leave for different hunting grounds, and whole villages would just depopulate, and they would create winter hunting bands. And again, guys with the most charisma,

  who could get the most people to their standard. We're gonna go hunt in Kansas for the summer and get some bison. We're gonna go hunt down in the Ozarks, in the Missouri-Arkansas border. They didn't use those words, but I'm sure. We're gonna go hunt up in the, out in the Sioux lands, and if we run into the Sioux, we'll get revenge on earlier killings. So yeah, he would leave for months at a time.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (43:29.614)

  but that was because he and his people were going on their winter humps. The whole village. So yeah, and I can't imagine American Indian agents didn't know that. But yeah, for 1830, 1831, he came back and they forced him across the Mississippi in 1831 by the threat of militia just running rampant into Sloughinook and destroying it. But I think that's what you're referring to.

  normal

  Kent Boucher (43:58.318)

  Okay. It just seemed that he had an incredible, and I don't want to assume that other Native Americans didn't, but it seemed like he had this incredible attachment to where he was from. it really seemed he was much less willing to just resign to the treaty like Kiika kind of did.

  It just seemed like it was such an important place to him. it because it was such a good place to live? Was it because his ancestry is buried there?

  Yeah, it was a combination of all that, yes. He had been born there. Several generations of Sauk had lived there. And again, the Sauk had not lived there for centuries, maybe a century. A century before that, mean, if you go to Sauk City in Prairie du Sac in Wisconsin, that's where they had been. But they had been there a century, and a century is a long time. So he's got several generations of his ancestors there.

  Okay, so

  Dr. Patrick Jung (45:06.414)

  It was great for farming and the sock were farmers. They grew corn. And I think in his mind, it was just the principle of the thing. This treaty wasn't fair. We were not told the contents of it and Harrison lied to us. And I think for Blackhawk, it was just principle. That, and I just think he thought he could pull off this, just stare down the United States with this powerful Indian confederation without firing a shot. The federal government will say, okay,

  Let's renegotiate. I think he really believes he could do that.

  And you think that was a little delusional on his part?

  Yeah, it was delusional for several reasons. There was no reason for the federal government to back down. They hadn't backed down to any other Indian Confederacy. There had been an Indian Confederation in Ohio in the 1790s. They didn't back down to that and they conquered Ohio. They didn't back down to Tecumseh. And even though Tecumseh had some brilliant wins, ultimately the British kind of sold out the native people after the War of 1812.

  So the federal government, it wasn't the first time it had to deal with confederated Indian tribes who were trying to prevent removal.

  Kent Boucher (46:21.678)

  Well, and they'd only been building strength. fact, you know, America as a country had only been building strength in the 20 years between the war of 1812 and.

  Yeah, and the army was small. It only like 6,000 men. But the way that the US fought was you have a small, full-time regular army establishment, and in times of war you just call up large numbers of militia. They may not fight well, but you got a lot of them. you just have to give them some land when the war is over.

  I if Blackhawk, did he ever, I know he went East in the later days of his life, but do you think if he ever went to the East coast and saw the build out of the U S he would have realized how much, how futile it was. Cause he was mostly just seeing settle.

  Yeah, I think, he probably, but again, I don't know how much that would have changed what he did in 1832. again, he crosses the Mississippi not with war parties. Yeah, there's warriors with him, but he's got women. He's got children. He's got elderly people. This is a legitimate tribal band, you know, and he's trying to make a statement. We have a right to be here on the east side of the Mississippi. This treaty was.

  was not negotiated in good faith. He didn't want to start a war. I think he might have thought twice even about this, you know, show of force idea, given the fact that, you know, there was a risk that it could turn into a war and it did. But he was really just completely struck by how big the United States was, how populous it was. I mean, there were cities the size of Philadelphia with 30,000 people, you know, between the Sauk and the Muscogee together.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (48:08.014)

  there wasn't 30,000 people. So he was completely, he might have thought twice about what he did in 1832. He probably still would have tried to resist removal and fight the treaty, but he might have chose a different set of tactics.

  So when he crosses back was he was he down near I think if I remember correctly it's out present-day, maybe Burlington, Iowa

  Well, honestly, after he was forced from Saucanoek in 1831, I'm not exactly sure where he was. think it was a little bit, it's Burlington south of Fort Madison, right? He was in that area there with his band, trying to keep them together. Where exactly in Iowa he was, you know, between, you know, during the fall of 1831 and spring of 1832, I'm not exactly sure.

  It's north of Fort Mason.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (49:01.774)

  But yeah, in that general area. Then he crosses in April of 1832. And he doesn't go right back to Sokranuk. He goes north of it to the village of another native leader, the Winnebago prophet.

  So then.

  Kent Boucher (49:18.232)

  Basically profits down. Yeah.

  Prophet's son. the Winnebago prophet, was... American Indian prophets were fairly common at the time. The Shawnee prophet. Right. And they took traditional native beliefs and sort of mixed them with Christian beliefs. They saw themselves sort of in the tradition of Old Testament prophets, despite the fact that prophetic traditions were really not part of native culture.

  Well, to comes his brother.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (49:50.41)

  They were sort of, yeah, that was something that was integrated in from the time of Pontiac. That was a relatively new idea. It had been sort of a cultural innovation for Native people. But either way, you can see he's trying to play it safe. He told the federal government in 1831, OK, you forced me back across the Mississippi. I'll never go back to Sokka Nook. He crosses back anyway the next year, but he doesn't go to Sokka Nook.

  He goes to another Indian leader's village, and that's still on unsold Indian land. You can see he's trying to show the federal government that, know, I'm honored with my agreement I made with you, but I'm going to reserve my right to stay on the east side of the Mississippi with my people, and I want to negotiate that.

  He's to get along.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (50:45.388)

  So he was really hoping, and he hoped that all the other tribes would just flock to his standard. There'd be thousands of native warriors ready to fight unless the federal government decided to renegotiate this treaty and a lot of other bad treaties too.

  So when he crosses back, and these are the last moments of the rising action to the war, was he successful in getting other tribes and clans to join him?

  No, not really. probably, during the war itself, there were probably 50 Ho-Chunk who followed him, 50 Potawatomies. The problem is, well, first of all, he was really dejected after he was forced across the river in 1831. I mean, here he was trying to put on this show of force and it was a smart move. He said, you know, I can wait and let the militia kill all these women and children I got, or I can just move back across the river and save their lives. It was a

  really good move, but he was humiliated. And he had been forced to sign, you know, essentially a treaty that said, I won't go back to Saucanuck. So he was looking for, he was dejected, he was humiliated. The real villain, if you want to say that, was a young Sauk civil chief named Napop, whose name meant the broth. And he just kind of fed all these lies to Blackhawk. He said, look, if you go back across to the Mississippi, all the other tribes will

  you know, will flock to your standard. The British in Canada, they'll send arms and support and money to support you and help you. This plan of yours will work. Well, he let himself be lied to, but he was in kind of a state of mind where, you know, somebody was telling him what he wanted to hear, even though it was based largely on lies. The Winnebago prophet didn't play as much of a role with Black Hawk as, the Shawnee prophet did.

  Kent Boucher (52:33.272)

  Yeah.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (52:42.496)

  generation earlier. So his head was kind of filled with these delusions that all these other tribes would support him, but that was largely lies that were fed to him by this young civil chief. And as it's clear that the Pah-the-wah-dee means the ho-chunks, none of these tribes are going to rush to his standard, he starts to think about going back across the Mississippi. that's just about the time that Illinois militia battalion made contact with his warriors, initiating the first battle in May of 1830.

  Okay, so how many warriors did when when Black Hawk was at his greatest strength at the start of the war right? How many warriors in total did he have?

  He probably had 1,100 total people, mostly Sox, but also Kickapoos, some Potawatomies, and some Squawkies, and of those 1,100, probably 500 warriors, all of whom were mounted. I mean, everybody had a horse in the Black Hawk War, for the most part. So 500 mounted warriors. And he was hoping to track the mounted warriors among the Potawatomies.

  The native peoples who lived around here, they had horses, but they didn't use them like the plains Indians did. They could use them in war to just move faster. So 1,100 total followers, 500 of them warriors.

  And was that a formidable force compared to what the federal government was willing to send?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (54:09.302)

  Because I mean you had these tiny little garrisons. I mean, you know in the entire Midwest there you know, there were fewer than you know, a thousand soldiers Okay, they were stretched between you know Rock Island near you know, know the Quad Cities Minneapolis, St. Paul, know Chicago Green Bay. This is you know, yeah, so it was a formidable force to be sure

  And so then that's kind of where Abraham Lincoln entered the story, right? He's part of the militia. He's still a young guy in the 1830s.

  Is there a call to arms for the United States?

  Right, when Black Hawk crosses the Mississippi, again, for the first month there's no fighting. He's not attacking anybody. He's trying to recruit Indians, other Indians to his standard. It's not going well, but that's his goal. He's not attacking white settlements. He's even having dinner with some white settlers and just being very cordial. mean, it's the first month, nothing happens. But the commanding general who's going to be the

  the commanding general Henry Atkinson. He's encouraging the governor of Illinois to call out the militia. He's just

  Nicolas Lirio (55:21.486)

  because he sees this big force of of wandering around.

  Right. Right. Yeah. Atkinson was not, he was, he was not exactly America's best and brightest. Not by a long shot. He had never, he had never been in combat before the black hawk. never. Yeah. He he had basically got where he was by basically not making anybody angry and just, you know, keeping it. Yeah. Basically he was a good administrator. You know, he was a good desk, good desktop general.

  with your leader.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (55:54.442)

  But he, he, he, he kind of needed, he wrote a lot of letters to the governor and to other people. Yeah. He, he spread this sort of needless panic. and the governor was a guy named John Reynolds, who was also, you know, you know, he was eager to get all the Indians out of the state. And there was, you know, despite the fact Black Hawk hadn't done anything yet, hadn't initiated any combat.

  General.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (56:21.294)

  You know, it was it created sort of a panic particularly in the state of Illinois

  You think they were trying to over blow it as well just to provide the, I guess for lack of better term, excuse for action? Like, look at this, this is terrible.

  Yeah, was certainly the case of the governor of Illinois, John Reynolds. He was eager to get all the native people out of Illinois as soon as he could. Atkinson was a federal army officer. I don't think he was necessarily, when the Indians were removed, that he didn't have any real, you know, sentiments about how soon or how quickly they should be removed.

  But John Reynolds certainly did. He was the governor of Illinois and the vast majority of white militia who were going to fight this war come from Illinois. You only had about 600 total federal US Army troops fighting in the Black Hawk War. But there was something like 4,000 militia and the vast majority of them came from Illinois. And Lincoln was one

  So was it just, was it blatant racism or were there some skirmishes still going on around Illinois that was kind of a, a thorn in Reynolds size?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (57:34.1)

  racism. One of the things about early 19th century America is when you talked with people say in New York or Philadelphia, they talked about the Indian as a noble savage, as sort of these free lovers of nature and everything. As you went west, white Americans' opinions of the Indians became more negative. And by the time you get to like

  know, frontier Illinois, frontier Wisconsin, frontier Iowa, white people see Indians as vermin. Remove them or we're going to exterminate them. So yeah, there was a definite element of racism. Reynolds was eager as hell to get all of the native people out

  Was it they were just afraid of them they couldn't

  Well, and, know, again, we go back to the Northwest Ordinance, the United States government before it could sell land to white people, had to buy it from the Indians by fair means or foul. OK. And again, I mean, it was the United States didn't really necessarily just, you know, in most cases, take land from the native people. It purchased it. But it did so in using, you know, sort of underhanded negotiations.

  using heavy pressure, but that box had to be checked off. So the sooner you can convince all these tribes to sell their land and move west across from Mississippi, the sooner you can open that up for white settlers.

  Nicolas Lirio (59:07.075)

  Yeah.

  So what's interesting about this timeline in American history is as Nicholas brought up earlier, the Louisiana Purchase had taken place back in 1803, roughly, right? And Lewis and Clark, very quickly after that purchase was done, they were sent on their expedition. And so America had already penetrated

  all of the West, mean, in a more linear way, they haven't explored everything, of course, but they'd made it to the Pacific. What's interesting to me about that is that, kind of what we're talking about here with Reynolds and the pioneer view of Native Americans, did this Black Hawk War kind of almost symbolize

  the last hurdle for Western expansion to get to the Mississippi River to then open the door, of course, down the road then over to the west of the Mississippi River. It just seems odd that there was already this activity going on in the west, but even still here relatively close to everything back east, you still have this stronghold of the Sockum.

  Mesquaki and Ho-Chunk and everyone else up into Wisconsin. I mean, what did the landscape look like, I guess, as far as development for the United States and what it was becoming? was, is that an accurate understanding of this Black Hawk War as being kind of the last bump to get to the Mississippi?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:00:57.614)

  Yeah, that's fairly accurate. First of all, before the War of 1812, the federal government had virtually no presence in the upper Midwest. It gained it after the War of American Revolution, but between the American Revolution and the War of 1812, you had a small garrison at Chicago, another one at

  Fort Madison that was about as far north as federal power extended after the war of 1812 You have a flood of settlement west of the Appalachians and it's coming in down the National Road, which goes from Maryland all the way

  Is that just because the British had people no longer feared the British as much if they have? I mean, it just seems weird that why wasn't that? Why, you know, just was there a new treaty sign that opened that land up after the war of 1812? This new flood of, of pioneering that.

  Well, first of all, before the War of 1812, William Henry Harrison had bought up tons of land in Indiana. Again, so I mean, in the years immediately preceding the War of 1812, Harrison just went on a binge of buying Indian land and submitted all the treaties to Congress. And again, so he had purchased millions of acres in Indiana.

  from the Miamis and the Shawnees. He had purchased millions of acres in southern Illinois from the various tribes who lived there. So on the eve of the War of 1812, the first thing that if you're gonna settle land, it's gotta be bought from the Indians. It's gotta be surveyed after that. And then you have to buy it from the general land office. So I mean, before the War of 1812, I mean, the US had already kind of primed the pump.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:02:53.966)

  you know, all the land that needed, that was gonna be settled in the lower Midwest, say between the Ohio River and Lake Michigan, that had just relatively recently been purchased. So after the War of 1812, the native people have been defeated. You know, all this land has opened up, the national roads has been built. The Ohio River, of course, is another highway. So the southern tier of the Midwest gets settled first after the War of 1812.

  But all the conditions were met. The native people have been defeated, but all their land's been purchased. It's been surveyed. General land offices open up land offices there. the next phase is to everything north of there. Sweet north. Yeah, sweet north. And that was a process that there was really not a timeline for it. In fact, in the 1820s, they were thinking of making Wisconsin an Indian reservation, kind of like Indian territory of

  North

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:03:52.182)

  of Oklahoma and moving all the remains of the Eastern tribes to Wisconsin, making it like a big Indian territory, kind of like the way Oklahoma once was. But after the Blackhawk War, the United States kind of accelerates its plans. It's got a lot of leverage over these tribes. And again, only like 50 Ho-Chunk and 50 Potawatomi had actually assisted Blackhawk. Hundreds of Potawatomies and hundreds of Ho-Chunk had actually fought for the United States.

  In part because they wanted to hold off. They were hoping they could just right I mean, there's a whole raft of new land session treaties after the Black Hawk War And the United States basically told a lot of the tribes well you supported Black Hawk and that was that was a bald-faced lie I mean, you know, there were hundreds of of Ho-Chunk who was basically worked for the United States hundreds of Potawatomi's and they were did it to basically curry favor and hope that they could

  Forced all being removed after the Black Hawk war. So again, that was probably a long-winded no

  painting the picture for how the Midwest is the way

  Okay, right. yeah, in 1832, I mean, I guess on the eve of the war, the southern tier of the Midwest is being settled. And that's largely, you know, the land cession treaties were before the War of 1812. The war is over, and you got these two highways into the lower Midwest. The Black Hawk War is going to have something of a similar effect on the upper Midwest. And that includes Iowa. Big chunks of Iowa, you know, there's

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:05:29.28)

  a lot of the land in Iowa is going to be purchased right along the Mississippi and that begins the settlement of Iowa.

  Was Blackhawk the last big American Indian resistance in the Midwest?

  Yeah, for the most part. mean, it depends if you want to include like, you know, there was the Sioux uprising of 1863. If you want to consider everything that, you know, being west of the Mississippi, being part of the plains and the prairies. I guess, everything in the Midwest to the, you know, between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. Yeah, that was the last, you know, the last real native resistance.

  Of course, but when you get west of the Mississippi, you're have the Spirit Lake Massacre, which I think you're probably see. There's going to be the Sioux Uprising of 1863. But yeah, I guess you

  about Iowa.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:06:26.998)

  East of the Mississippi, this was the last big push.

  Yeah, was, yeah. after that, I mean, it's going to be 20 years of more land session treaties, but the United States had, it had leverage. of course, once you get, mean, within a few years, mean, native peoples, mean, their tribes number in the thousands and you've got 10, 20, 30,000 white settlers coming in in the course of a year. They were just overwhelmed by pure demographics. And that was the case in

  I imagine land clearing and city building was happening almost.

  So yeah, I guess if I wanted to listen to just one thing, the War of 1812 really kind of launches the settlement of the southern Midwest. And that fills up rather quickly. The upper Midwest, that was still sort of largely not settled yet. There was still native land. But after the Black Hawk War, the United States just goes on a rampage and buys up as much Indian land as it can. And that includes in Minnesota.

  virtually all of Wisconsin, the last bits of native land in northern Illinois, and of course the first real land sessions in eastern Iowa.

  Kent Boucher (01:07:41.314)

  So did the Blackhawk War, it sounds like it almost provided the political motivation to get all those deals done.

  Well, yeah, and of course, during the war itself, as I say, the war was reported in all the big Eastern newspapers. So everybody knows who Blackhawk is in New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, everywhere. And of course, people are hearing about this country and how rich it is. There's more information that's available. And now you're hearing about this spate of treaties in 1832, 1833.

  All this new land is being opened up. Rich land, great for farming, wheat and for corn. So yeah, it's just, you know, and there wasn't an internet and there wasn't social media back then, but there were newspapers and magazines.

  Yeah, their infrastructure build out to even fill the southern half of the Midwest within the couple decades that they did. Right. Boggles my mind with no internet, no cars, no nothing, just a will of humans to congregate on a land.

  That was One of the things that always amazed me is like in 1832, before the time of the Black Rock War, if you wrote a letter from say Green Bay or Rock Island and you sent it to somebody in Washington, it would be there in two weeks. mean, the world was a lot better connected than we tend to think it is. People just walked a lot, they rode horses a lot, they just, yeah, the US was actually...

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:09:16.206)

  getting really well connected. I know it sounds like, well, if you lived in Philadelphia, this was like a wilderness that was a lifetime away. No, it was two weeks, depending how the Erie Canal had opened up.

  lifetime.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:09:30.894)

  Who of the, you might not know this. who of the American original, maybe founding fathers, maybe the generation after that said like, yo, infrastructure, let's put as much effort as we can in infrastructure. really? Yeah. Okay. What was that like? Cause that to me, I mean, we benefit so greatly on the fact that we

  Well, that would have been Henry Clay.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:09:59.63)

  pushed infrastructure so hard. Now it drove a whole people group out of their land. Right. It's a huge bummer that, yeah, it's not my favorite thing to think about. Sometimes Kent like brings it up. like, isn't this so terrible? I'm like, Kent, that makes me sad.

  So after the War of 1812, one of the things the War of 1812 showed was how poor transportation was out west. But after the War of 1812, the National Road is built. Again, that goes from Maryland all the way to Illinois. And a road that was sometimes just on relatively flat stretches of land, stakes and piles of stones put in, but sometimes it was actually road. They built the Erie Canal. That's going to connect the East Coast with the Great Lakes.

  Yeah, that's just, those are just the two big examples. The, you know, in the 1830s, they built the military roads from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien. There were all sorts of infrastructure projects. And Henry Clay was one of the, he would be the leader of what would become the Whig Party. He and other Whigs were just adamant about building roads and canals. And so all that post-war of 1812 infrastructure, it was...

  Either built or in the process of being built and blackhawk didn't really quite understand how easy it was for the united states to assemble You know large numbers of men

  Well, he was seeing the, he was seeing the least powerful part of the United States at the time and thought, you know, maybe we could, we could take these and didn't realize they could in two weeks, they could ship a whole or, you know, within a month or so.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:11:33.102)

  And keep in mind, again, Black Hawk didn't want to fight. That's what he was trying to avoid. And if he did have to fight, he wanted every other tribe behind him. And of course, that wasn't happening. Once he's forced to fight, of these, basically, an accidental encounter in May that the Battle of Stillman's run, he's fighting just long enough to basically get back across to Mississippi. He defined winning as...

  Okay, once the war starts, it's a whole different dynamic. Everything changes when the first blood is spilled. Blackhawk's biggest aim is to basically outrun Atkinson and the US Army, get back across the Mississippi, and go back to the Saucon-Misquaki people, and hope the United States doesn't follow him. So he was kind of backed into a corner. He's fighting his way back home. That's the real story of the Blackhawk War. He was trying to

  fight his way back to home.

  So what was the action of Stillman's run? And was that near Stillman Valley?

  Yeah, Stillman Valley, Illinois. Black Hawk was meeting with Potawatomi to try to basically make them part of this big confederation. They weren't interested. They said, no, this is just going to result in a war that is going to be destruction. Yeah, so they weren't interested. But he had 40 warriors with him, and they had a chance encounter with a group of Illinois militia under a guy named Stillman. It was like,

  Kent Boucher (01:12:51.788)

  Mind if I pull your mic a little closer to you?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:13:05.102)

  40 warriors against 250 Illinois militia. the warriors all had combat experience. They had been in combat before the Illinois militia. They were all drunk, the Illinois militia. Really? Well, yeah, they were all issued like three quarts of whiskey. Americans drank six times more alcohol then than they do now. Loved me. Yeah, well, there was just lot of alcohol.

  Basically medicine back

  Kent Boucher (01:13:30.018)

  Pro-bish.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:13:33.9)

  So anyway, these were a bunch of drunk militiamen who had never been in combat. So it was pretty easy to just put the panic and they ran. But after that battle, I mean, you only have two other real battles after that. The Battle of Wisconsin Heights in July and the Battle of Bad Axe two weeks after that. But essentially, Blackhawking's people are just being hounded by the US Army.

  You know, there's this like, there's, don't know if it's, you know, this fictional image. imagine a lot of it was real, but that, native Americans were swift as the wind and, could navigate better and, and knew the terrain better. And so why wasn't he able to outrun?

  Here's the big reason. Yeah, Native people were, okay? And that's why the US Army hired out Native people to get them where they needed to go. There were 700 Ho-Chunk and Potawatomies and Monominies, and that was by my count, there were probably even more, but there were over 700 Native warriors who fought on the side of the US under Henry Atkinson as guides, as scouts.

  So they kind of almost got pinched then because they made their way to Stillman Valley, ran into conflict, tried to turn around. Well, now as they're turning around, they got these native forces north of them.

  As auxiliaries,

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:14:59.348)

  Yeah, mean I would say that Blackhawks men they've probably fought just as much with other native people during the Blackhawk War So yeah, well, maybe they fought a lot with them So I mean, yeah, yeah native people were real good at with the terrain and fleet they did everything you said But that's the US Army who knew that that's why in the 19th century the US Army depended a lot on native auxiliaries to fight other native people

  Wow.

  And that's Blackhawk, mean, Atkinson had no scouts. Yeah, Blackhawk probably could have gotten away with it. know, looped up north, find a nice path back to, you know, to the Mississippi. he had to, you know, Blackhawk, this was not his country either. He had to have Ho-Chunk guides. There were Ho-Chunk, I mean, the Ho-Chunk were really split on the war. Some were willing to support work with Blackhawk. In some cases, they were just forced by Atkinson to serve as scouts.

  And of course they didn't want to say no because they wanted to retain their lands too.

  foresaw what was coming.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:16:06.382)

  Very practical thing. How in the world did they cross the Mississippi? it just, did it have to be frozen or?

  No, they use canoes.

  okay. And they got their horses on those canoes and just went on across. That just seems so.

  That was before locks and dams too, so I imagine the river was a fair bit more shallow.

  Yeah, and yeah, I'm not exactly sure how they got the horses across. Now that I think of it, I never even thought of that. how they got the horses across, I don't know. But they did. And yeah, there were some relatively shallow parts, narrow parts, you could... Rapid areas. Yeah, the horses could have swum across. But yeah, they got all the horses across. And they had canoes for... They used canoes for traveling on the water. When Black Hawk moved up the Rock River,

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:16:57.454)

  You know, he had most of the women and children in the canoes and the elderly people and then he had all his warriors mounted kind of on the sides as kind of like flank guards for the

  So did he finally when he made it to, because he did make it back across the Mississippi, right? Or did he end up signing another treaty?

  I mean at the end of the war? at the end. Well, the very end of the war, by this time his people are starving. He started with 1,100. By this time he's down to about 500. And it's not just deaths. I mean, there were a lot of deaths, but a lot of his people were abandoning him after the Battle of Wisconsin Heights, which was really the turning point to the war in July. He's losing people. A lot of times some of his followers would...

  to hide out in a Ho-Chunk village if there was one nearby. They would run up to northern Wisconsin if they knew people among the Ojibwas. mean, his whole band was disintegrating. of the 500 people who tried to cross the Mississippi in August, maybe about half of them made it, and they were hunted down by the Sioux. The US hired out the Sioux to hunt them down, and another 70 were killed.

  That was after.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:18:18.068)

  The war right I was yeah, that was after this is like that really yeah So I mean the the Sioux were more than willing to go after their enemies and I think they captured like 70 They killed like, you know, something like a dozen. I mean, yeah native people were fighting other native people Pretty effectively during this war

  So was, mean, Black Hawk War sounds a lot nicer than Black Hawk debacle, because it really seems like that's what it kind of turned into.

  Yeah, and I there was a another historian who you know she didn't like using the term Black Hawk War Because essentially that's what she said. It's a debacle the problem is we've been using the term for going on 200 years now and you know Yeah, yeah, so I mean it was a conflict I guess you could call it something else, but you're not that

  That's crazy to think of.

  Kent Boucher (01:19:10.328)

  He's basically he was he had to basically he was on the retreat.

  From Stillman Valley, he was basically right

  Okay, right. yeah, the first battle is in May at Stillman's Run. But he basically has to flee north to escape Atkinson's military forces. He's got women, children, and old people, not just warriors. So they're gonna hide out at Lake Coshkenong around the area of Fort Atkinson because the Ho-Chunk who lived there were heavily intermarried with the Sock and they were friendly with the Sock.

  That's when all the fighting was taking place.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:19:50.094)

  About 50 of them were willing to actually fight with Black Hawk. Most of them weren't willing to go that far because they saw that as risky, but they're willing to let him hide out at Lake Hoshkenong. And he's going to be there till from May to July. He sends his warriors out on these small raids to try to throw Atkinson off, hoping that Atkinson will go toward the Mississippi and try to find them there.

  But again, both sides were using scouts, Potawatomi's and Ho-Chunks. So, Atkinson figured out exactly where he was. So he puts together a new army, starts marching up the Rock River in July, Black Hawk just goes farther north toward, know, Horicon Marsh and Hustesford, Wisconsin. He tries to make a fast break for it, but he's discovered and then part of, Dodge, I keep saying Dodge.

  Part of Atkinson's army under Dodge just relentlessly follows him. And in late July, they catch up with Blackhawks people along the Wisconsin River at a place called Wisconsin Heights. And the casualties weren't too bad there. Blackhawk lost like 70 warriors, but got all those people across. But by that time, they're running out of food. They've been moving pretty constantly. Again, they got women, children, old people.

  the march from the Wisconsin River westward to the Mississippi over the next two weeks from late July to early August. That was hellish. And people were dying every day. But yeah, he went from 1,100 to 500. Probably about 500 people died and probably maybe 100 or 150 people just fled and they found refuge in other native villages and hid out until it was...

  The coast was clear and they could go back to the Sock and Fox country.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:21:43.47)

  What you said earlier that of the 500 people who tried to cross the Mississippi right at the end, only 250 made it. Right. Why?

  Right at

  Okay, well, because first of all, were, know, Atkinson's army finally catches up to Blackhawk. He's got like 900, maybe a thousand people, and he's got a bunch of half-starved, desperate people with women, children, old people who are trying desperately to get across the Mississippi. Well, it was like shooting fish in a barrel for the militia. They just, you know, they had them outnumbered, outgunned, and you know.

  They got them pinned up against the Mississippi River. One of Atkinson's subcommanders or subordinates was Henry Dodge, and he worked with the local military garrison. They hired out a steamboat with a cannon on the front. So even if you got into the river, they're raking the river with cannon fire. And if you made it through all that, which was going to be hard, and you got across the Mississippi,

  Um, eventually, you know, the Sue were hired to, know, to, basically hunt down the ones who made it across. So, mean, I've done all the math and looked at all the sources, probably 500 of Blackhawk followers made it to the Mississippi. And just because they were pending with the, you know, the army here and armed, you know, steamboat here and the Sue on the other side, maybe half of them made it across 250. And over the course of the next couple of weeks.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:23:16.428)

  maybe 200 of them would actually stagger back into the lands of the Sock of the Musquaki in Iowa.

  So at that point in Blackhawk's life, he was one of the 200 to make it back,

  Well, he was, no, he was actually captured. he was. never, yeah, he didn't make it across the Mississippi at all. He was captured and he was taken and changed down to St. Louis and put into the military prison at Jefferson Barracks, which is the main army barracks. Him and all of the ring, I shouldn't say ring leaders, all the civil chiefs and war leaders and his sons. It was like, I think upwards of 15.

  of the key leaders of his band. And he spent the autumn and winter of 1831, 1832, 1833 in prison in St. Louis under General Atkinson's supervision. Atkinson didn't quite know what to do with them. But finally the War Department said, well, send him west. He's got to see how big

  this country is, he doesn't do something like this again. So he was given the grand tour in spring of 1833. They picked him on a steamboat up the Ohio River. He then got on a railway car, one of the first railways that got him into Maryland. He ended up being a prisoner for a short time at another fort, Fort Monroe. And then he was given a tour of Norfolk Naval Yard. He saw Philadelphia.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:24:58.914)

  He went to New York City, big crowds of people. He went to shows. He saw a hot air balloon. But he saw lots and lots of Americans. He saw big, big warships at Norfolk. He realized that, he didn't mean to make war, but he was willing to fight one. And he did have to fight one. He wasn't willing to take risks like that again for the rest of his life. He was awed by just how many white Americans there

  So at end of his life, where did he live out the rest of his day?

  Well, so he, you know, and he returned to the Sauk, the Sauk, you homelands, which were now in Iowa in August of 1833. mean, almost a year after he had been captured, he had been in essentially, you know, Atkinson's prisoner for a year. he met, where he ended up living, I'm not exactly sure. was, was, you know, short answer, no. But he was put under the, the, the,

  Whereabouts in Iowa that would be.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:26:05.386)

  under the, could figure it out, but I just don't have it with me right now. But by that time, the federal government had made Keogh the Supreme Chief of the Sox and the Muscovikes. And again, he didn't come from a chiefly clan, but the US did that all the time. If it could find a friendly chief, yep, it was real convenient. They did the same thing with the Menomonees up near Green Bay. They made Oshkosh.

  Okay.

  Kent Boucher (01:26:25.046)

  It was convenient for them.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:26:32.024)

  the Supreme Chief, was easier dealing with one guy, especially one guy who was pro-American, it would do what you wanted him to do. So Blackhawk was unceremoniously told, you will live under Keogh Cook, you'll do what he says. And Keogh Cook, the Sox sold all their lands in not just Illinois, but also that strip in Iowa. And of course, all that money that they got went to Keogh Cook. So he had money, he had...

  He had just all the, he held all the strings. And even though a lot of people said, well, he wasn't born a chief, he can't be a chief, the US made him one and gave him all the tools so he could kind of consolidate his hold over the two tribes.

  So then that's where.

  Yeah, and again, that would have been, you know, it was not right along the Mississippi because by that time that land had already been sold. was probably, I'd have to look that up to see where the new Sauk villages were the next year. But it was, you know, still in Eastern Iowa, just maybe a hundred miles or 50 miles from the Mississippi River. Sure.

  So with with black art going back was he received by his clan? mean I could imagine them either honoring him for Leading them and fighting or being very upset that he led a bunch of them to die

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:27:51.79)

  Well, there were those. There were people who said, you know, this was a really bad idea and, you know, you know, we should never have listened to you. But there were always, you know, socks and some squawkeys who, I mean, he was famous. mean, he was famous by this time all over America. Right. Yeah. And even among his own people. But there was always a group of really sort of stridely anti-American socks who were, who would stay attached to him.

  Well, he still is to this day.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:28:21.398)

  And even after he died, there was this sort of clique, this faction among the Sox that was adamant about retaining Sox tradition, adamant about not giving, retaining Sox culture, not letting it be polluted by the incoming white American culture. And even after the Sox were removed to Oklahoma, even into the 20th century, there was this faction.

  of really sort of hardcore sock traditionalists who could trace their lineage all the way back to Blackhawk's followers a century before.

  Interesting. We've actually, so the Fox and Sauk tribe of... Miss Squawk? Of the Mississippi, I believe is what it's called. Something like...

  Well, yeah, in Oklahoma. The way that it is now, first of all, after the war, many of the Musquackies decided, we're not leaving Iowa, we're staying here. And we're breaking our confederation with the Sox. So those are the ones in Tama, Iowa. Okay, interesting. But there were some Musquackies who did go with the Sox down to Oklahoma. And today they're the Sox and Fox tribe. That's their other name, the Fox. They call themselves Musquackie, but...

  other people call them the Fox. And the Sockenfox tribe of Oklahoma is in Oklahoma. And again, there's always been a faction among the Sockenfox of Oklahoma that can kind of trace their lineage and their ideology back to Blackhawk. Interesting.

  Kent Boucher (01:29:54.87)

  Yeah, where's Blackhawk buried?

  Okay, so he was he died I want to say 1838 I wanted to make sure I get all my dates right he died in 1838 and he was buried the traditional sock banner for the life for the rest of his life after the war he wore a blue army frock coat to show that he was a defeated warrior as a sign of respect that I've defeated I've promised to stay at peace and so he wore this blue army officer's frock coat he was buried in that

  And they would build, the sock would build their graves above ground. They would build like a small, long cabin and they would turn the body into this above ground grave. And you would just let the body naturally decompose. Well, there was a white settler who looted the grave and took his bones out and he boiled all the flesh off of them. I'm not making this up. He boiled all the flesh off of the bones and he was going to take the bones on a tour of the East.

  as a circus exhibit, it's such a carnival sideshow. Yeah, I'm not making this up. Yeah, so it was. And of course, Blackhawks' relatives were horrified at this. They complained to the Iowa Territorial Governor, who was also horrified. And the Iowa Territorial Governor actually got the bones back. And until Blackhawks' family was ready to claim them,

  he put them in the building that was the first state historical society. And that burned down, I think in 1855 and Blackhawk's bones burned with it. So I think that was, I think that was in Burlington. yeah. So yeah, it was, yeah, it was, yeah. He's going to basically, I mean, yeah, just take his bones on a tour.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:31:33.932)

  Goodness!

  Kent Boucher (01:31:43.954)

  Well, didn't Lincoln's body get stolen from his original grave as well? I'm pretty sure that happened. His grave was looted or something, I think. And now there's Lincoln's tomb there in Springfield, Illinois. nose on the Lincoln statue. So yeah, it's all worn down. So I just have a couple questions left as we wrap up here.

  Yeah, I've been there. That's pretty cool. I touched it when I there too.

  Yeah, so.

  Kent Boucher (01:32:15.517)

  What's something that in your research of Blackhawk that you just see so commonly missed by historians on Blackhawk that you think is important to understand about it?

  Well, probably the thing that I see missed the most, and again, the year that my book came out, my first Black Hawk War book, there had been another one the year before, and there was another one, and that was by Kerry Trask. I actually became really good friends with him afterwards. Yeah, he's a really good guy. And then there was another one by John Hall, who's a professor at UW-Madison. I guess the one thing that other historians just never really, they never really talked about what was,

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:32:58.786)

  Blackhawk's goal. They talk about him crossing the Mississippi and I think they, but they never say, well, what's he trying to do? And what I really tried to do when I wrote about Blackhawk was even though that's not always clear in his autobiography, I think, you know, there's enough other threads of evidence. He talked to other, he talked to, you know, army officers and Indian agents after the war, his words were recorded in some of those sources.

  It was clear that he wasn't out to start a war. He didn't want to start a war. What he wanted to do was renegotiate a bad treaty. And he figured the best way to do that was to show a show of force. Right, some leverage and peace through strength, essentially. I think that's missed a lot by other historians. And it depends, when you say other historians, there's everything from other academics who've

  leverage.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:33:55.212)

  I think research is at least as well as I have. And then you have a lot of amateur historians who their research can be incomplete, let's put it that way. Maybe they read a few books, but yeah, there's a lot of urban legends about the Black Hawk War. But that's the one thing I think most people miss. What was his initial objective? I think that needs to be important.

  I read a few books and that's

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:34:22.338)

  He wasn't a bloodthirsty. That's completely changed how I viewed the war thing. Right, yeah. yeah, this was a warrior society, this was a group, they all were, but his intention was not to make war. And I'm sure that 100%, I think other historians need to really emphasize that. Then I just hear all sorts of goofy urban legends that, my grandpa told me one time during deer hunting season,

  that Black Hawk passed by here. Do you think that's true? No, because you live in like, you know, Shawano, Wisconsin, and that's like 200 miles north of where Black Hawk was even, where the Black Hawk War even happened, you know? So there's all these urban legends out there,

  Yeah, yeah, that's a great piece. Okay, two questions left. There's one question you could ask Blackhawk. What would it be?

  Ooh, I never actually thought of that myself, but I guess I am so concerned. I would say Blackhawk, tell me what you wanted to accomplish when you crossed the Mississippi in April of 1832. I mean, yes, I think I am right. you know, just the sources seem to point he wanted to put on this show of strength. He just kind of hems and haws at it in his autobiography. It comes through in other sources.

  But I'd want him to say, yeah, Patrick, that's exactly what I was going to do. You hit the nail on the head. I'm sorry I wasn't clear about that in my autobiography.

  Nicolas Lirio (01:35:54.414)

  Sorry, I made your job so hard.

  What?

  Sorry you made my job so hard, but thanks for defending me against naysayers who wanted to paint me as a bloodthirsty Indian savage. So I would ask them just, hey, am I, I know I'm 100 % right, but.

  Terrified, yeah. So that would be the question. That's what I would ask them. How did you imagine this all playing out? When you crossed the river in 1832 in April, what did you imagine happening? None of it happened. We know that. Your autobiography is pretty clear that it really went to hell. But I would ask them just to be sure. What was your goal?

  Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great question. And then the final question, what's the lasting other than just being a really famous, you know, important, charismatic, native leader? What's the lasting impact of Blackhawk on the Midwest?

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:36:53.868)

  Okay, well the big one, and again, Kerry Trask and I, Kerry wrote a book that came out a year before mine did. We both agree that the Upper Midwest, it probably would have been settled eventually, but I think that process might have taken another 10 or 20 years. think once the war is over, the federal government has leverage. It certainly has leverage over the Sox and the Muscovikes.

  And again, basically, they go to Keogh and they say, look, we'll make you a chief, but you have to give us Eastern Iowa. No, you didn't go to war. Most of the Sox and the Squawkes didn't go to war, but we need some compensation for Black Hawk and the damage he caused. And then of course, the Potawatomi's and the Ho-Chunk were told the same thing. Most of them fought for the U.S., but the federal government framed it as, well, some of your people fought for Black Hawk and you owe us an indemnity.

  And it just led to this whole new raft of treaties, land session treaties, that might not have been negotiated for another 10, even 20 years. And again, all the hoopla in PR, it was the engine that kind of led to the settling of the Upper Midwest.

  You think there's a pretty good chance Wisconsin becomes a large Native American landscape if

  No, that was kind of proposed in the 1820s by then Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. But I think once the Erie Canal was opened, one of the reasons they had talked about Wisconsin as a potential Indian territory under federal supervision was it wasn't easy getting here. But then once the Erie Canal was opened up. Got a little greedy. I think that plan was already dying before the Black Hawk War happened.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:38:51.064)

  But you know, the Erie Canal, that was the really, that was the northern highway that got a lot of people into, you know, upper Michigan and Wisconsin and, you know, the like.

  Yeah, it's just.

  So yeah, was really the spark, the catalyst that got the settlement of the Upper Midwest going. It probably would have happened. I don't think the Indian Territory thing would have happened after the Erie Canal opened. But it might have taken longer. It might have been a much slower process.

  I have one last question. think some listeners are probably dying to know. It's just a simple one. Did Lincoln ever acknowledge Black Hawk ever? Did he ever reference him or did they ever meet? I imagine they probably didn't meet.

  No, you're right. No, they didn't meet. But yeah, he talked about his service in the Black Hawk War a little bit when he, you know, when he was, when he was, you know, after it was over, he had been elected, you know, he had actually served in three different, you know, units during the Black Hawk War. The first one he was elected company commander, and he was only 23. He always said that was even beyond becoming a president. That was the thing that he had always been most proud of.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:40:04.59)

  They put the confidence in this young 23-year-old to lead a company of men into battle. And he made reference of it a couple times when he was in Congress. He said he was a hero of the Black Hawk War, and even though he never saw one hostile Indian, he had bloody battles with the mosquitoes. So yeah, he referenced it, but not as much as you would think. One of the things I've told a few people

  If you ever had a militia commission like that back in the 19th century, like you served as a captain for a few weeks during the Blackhawk War, you had the right to be called Captain Lincoln for the rest of your life. And that's where you get Colonel Sanders and all these other people who had these honorary military titles. He could have been called Captain Lincoln all the but, but he said, no, I didn't really do anything. just kind of.

  stomped around Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin, never seeing a hostile Indian, never shooting my weapon in anger. So he talked about it. And he was still proud of the fact he was elected captain. But it wasn't like something that was constantly on his mind.

  So yeah, yeah. Well, fascinating. Just just I'm so glad we did this. Okay, I feel like an important part of of really much of my life to this point has been, you know, like I said at the beginning, kind of in the shadow of of black. mean, I was just thinking now even drive up

  Okay.

  Dr. Patrick Jung (01:41:36.782)

  And most of these places that have Blackhawk anything, Blackhawk was there for a relatively short time. again, he was famous in his day, and his fame never really faded. It's always been there. So even places that just had this sort of ephemeral contact with him, yeah, they keep playing it up. Ford Atkinson is one of those places. He was only there a few weeks.

  It's because his name his name is just so epic

  Yeah, well, yeah, he I mean, again, it's like a lot of, you know, people who become famous in a relatively short amount of time. He was famous in 1832. He was, you know, his his fame never really faded, especially here in the Midwest. The Black Hawk was the last big Indian war in the upper Midwest. That's something else we had talked about that. So, I mean, his name just never faded from from memory. I've been there.

  Yeah, yeah. It's such important, you know, you might be listening into this and say, I thought this was a agriculture and conservation podcast. Well, you haven't been listening long enough because we've done a lot of history as well. I just think it's so important to to tell these stories because they explain why we are what we are today, why this this land that we're on is so worth taking care of. and it fills our mind with the information that

  It's.

  Kent Boucher (01:43:03.98)

  that makes us see the value. And I love that Blackhawk loved the area where I grew up and that he valued it to the point that he put a lot on the line to try and be as close to it as he could. And I think I gained more respect for that even by learning so much more about the story than I knew before our conversation today.

  Thank you very much, Dr. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in.

  There we go, you have a book. What is the book?

  It's very if you want it I wrote this Several many years ago. I'm hoping that the second edition will come out when the two understand the verse he comes up But it's just called the Black Hawk War of 1832 by Patrick Young My name is spelled J UNG not why UNG so if you want to you can buy it at the University of Oklahoma You know website or you can get it on Amazon

  I also wrote a book on the Battle of Wisconsin Heights with, if you just put my last name, Young in Wisconsin Heights into Google, you'll find it. But I think if you want to just get a good overview of the Black Hawk War, I wrote my first book, The Black Hawk War of 1832, just to cover all the different facets of it, all the major battles, all the diplomacy, all the native culture that feeds into this. So it's available on Amazon.

  Kent Boucher (01:44:35.052)

  Yeah, that's great. And we can share a link in the show. Sure. Click on to go straight to the University of Oklahoma. Sure. Well, thank you very much. you to our listeners. Until next time, everyone just keep following along with the podcast. We have some more really interesting history type podcast coming up. got a Mark Twain podcast coming up soon and some more Prairie podcasts and

  Thank you

  Kent Boucher (01:45:01.998)

  course those tied to food and how we get it. we believe these history episodes are very important because they change our minds and conservation happens one mind at a time.