dress the dead, enquiring how they
fare, and who, or whether any one performs for them the kind offices of
mother, sister or wife; together with many other enquiries which a
frantic imagination may happen to suggest. This being one of the most
important religious duties, is scrupulously observed by all the better
class of this people."[4]

The whites who established themselves at this place, in violation of the
laws of congress, and the provisions of the treaty of 1804, committed
various aggressions upon the Indians, such as destroying their corn,
killing their domestic animals, and whipping the women and children.
They carried with them, as articles of traffic, whiskey and other
intoxicating liquors, and by distributing them in the tribe, made
drunkenness and scenes of debauchery common. Black Hawk and the other
chiefs of the band, remonstrated against these encroachments, and
especially in regard to the introduction of spirituous liquors among
their people: and, upon one occasion, when a white man continued,
openly, to sell whiskey to them, the old chief, taking with him one or
two companions, went to his house, rolled out the barrel of whiskey,
broke in the head, and emptied its contents upon the ground, in presence
of the owner. This was done, as he alleges, from the fear that some of
the white persons would be killed by his people when in a state of
intoxication. Thus things wore on until 1827. During that winter, while
the Indians were making their periodical hunt, some of the whites, in
the hope of expediting their removal to the west side of the
Mississippi, set on fire, in one day, about forty of their lodges, a
number of which were entirely consumed. When the Indians returned in the
spring and demanded satisfaction for the destruction of their property,
they were met by new insults and outrages.

In the summer of 1829, Black Hawk happened to meet, at Rock island, with
the late governor Coles, of whom he had heard as a great chief of
Illinois, in company with "another chief" as he calls him--Judge Hall.
Having failed in his appeals to the Indian agents, for redress of the
grievances of his people, he determined to apply to these two chiefs, on
the subject, and accordingly waited upon them for that purpose.

He spoke of the indignity perpetrated upon himself, (his having been
beaten with sticks by the whites,) with the feeling that a respectable
person among us would have shown under such circumstances; and po