the Sacs gathered to listen in attentive silence to the words of their
leader, Black Hawk, who from his rocky rostrum addressed the motionless
groups that strewed the hill sides; motionless under his addresses and
by them aroused to deeds of darkness and crafty daring that made the
name of their chief a synonym with all things terrible.

"Whatever of truth this story may contain we cannot say, and it may be
no one knows. Certain it is, however, that Black Hawk's early history is
intimately linked and interwoven with that of our city, and in justice
to a brave man and a soldier, as well as a 'first settler' and a
citizen, his name and his last resting place should be rescued from the
oblivion that will soon enshroud them."

Another village has been commenced by the whites on the Mississippi
river, at Fort Madison, which is being built up very rapidly. The
country, too, is fast settling up by farmers, and as the Sacs have made
a settlement on the frontier farther west, on our old hunting grounds,
he said he would have to move farther back so as to be near his people;
and on bidding us farewell, said it might be the last time, as he was
growing old, and the distance would be too great from the point at which
he intended to build a house and open a little farm to make a visit on
horseback, and as the Des Moines river is always low in the fall of the
year he could not come in his canoe.

At the close of the summer of 1837 the President of the United States
invited deputations from several tribes Of Indians residing on the Upper
Mississippi to visit him at Washington. Among those who responded to his
invitation were deputations from the Sacs and Foxes and Sioux, who had
been at enmity, and between whom hostilities had been renewed, growing
out of their inhuman treatment of many of the women and children of the
Sacs, after they had made their escape from the battle of Bad Axe, at
the close of the war.

Keokuk, principal chief of the Sacs and Foxes, (by the advice of his
friend, Sagenash, Col. George Davenport, of Rock Island) invited Black
Hawk to join his delegation, which invitation he readily accepted, and
made one of the party; whilst the Sioux were represented by several of
their crafty chiefs. Several counsels were held, the object of which was
to establish peace between the Sacs and Foxes and Sioux, and in order to
perpetuate it, make a purchase of a portion of the country of the Sioux,
which territory should be de