acres on the peninsula
between the Rock and the Mississippi. Black Hawk said it was eight
hundred acres, but the measurement of the cornfields shows that the area
was nearly four times that. Of this the Foxes, who were much the smaller
and weaker tribe, farmed five hundred acres; they also occupied
considerable land on the opposite side of the Mississippi, where the
city of Davenport now stands. These lands were all fenced with posts and
rails, the latter being held in place by bark withes. The barrier was
sufficient to keep the ponies out of the corn, but their lately acquired
razor-back hogs gave them more trouble. The work of preparing a field
for their planting involved much labor. The women heaped the ground into
hills nearly three feet high, and the corn was planted in the top for
many successive years without renewing the hills. Accordingly a field
was much more easily prepared on the mellow bottom lands than on the
tough prairie sod. They raised three kinds of corn: a sweet corn for
roasting ears, a hard variety for hominy and a softer for meal. They
also cultivated beans, squashes, pumpkins, artichokes and some tobacco.
The Sauks at one time sold three thousand bushels of corn to the
government officials at Fort Crawford for their horses. The Winnebagoes
at Lake Koshkonong sold four thousand bushels of corn to General
Atkinson when he was pursuing Black Hawk in 1832. The hundreds of acres
of corn hills still visible about the latter lake show how extensively
that region was inhabited and farmed by the Indians.

Aside from the devastating wars which the tribe carried on with their
new enemies west of the great river, whereby their numbers were steadily
reduced, no serious shadow fell upon their life at and about Rock Island
till the year 1804. A French trader had established himself a few miles
below on the Mississippi. The young braves and squaws delighted in
visiting his place and were always sure of a dance in the evening. One
night in that year an Indian killed one of the habitues of the place,
the provocation being unbearable. A few weeks after demand was made that
he be given up, and he was at once surrendered and taken to Saint Louis.

Soon after, his relative, Quashquamme, one of the sub-chiefs of the
tribe, and four or five other Sauks went to Saint Louis to work for his
release. A bargain was made to the effect that a tract of land including
parts of Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois, comprising f