British Band - Aftermath

Aftermath

The members of the British Band, and the Fox, Kickapoo, Sauk and Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi that later joined them, suffered unknown numbers of dead during the war. While some died fighting, others were tracked down and killed by Sioux, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, and other native tribes. Still others died of starvation or drowned during the Band's long trek up the Rock River toward the mouth of the Bad Axe. The entire British Band was not wiped out at Bad Axe; some survivors drifted back home to their villages. This was relatively simple for the Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk of the band. Many Sauk and Fox found return to their homes more difficult, and while some returned safely others were held in custody by the army. Prisoners, some taken at the Battle of Bad Axe, and others taken by U.S.-aligned Native American tribes in the following weeks, were taken to Fort Armstrong. About 120 prisoners — men, women, and children, waited until the end of August to be released by General Winfield Scott.

With most of the British Band dead and the rest captured or disbanded, the defeated Black Hawk was held in captivity at Jefferson Barracks with Neapope, White Cloud, and eight other leaders of the British Band. After 8 months, in April 1833 they were taken east, as ordered by then U.S. President Andrew Jackson. The men traveled by steamboat, carriage, and railroad, and met with large crowds wherever they went. Once in Washington, D.C., they met with Jackson and Secretary of War Lewis Cass, though their final destination was prison at Fortress Monroe in Virginia. They stayed only a few weeks at the prison, during which they mostly posed for multiple portraits by different artists. On 5 June 1833, the men were sent west by steamboat on a circuitous route that took them through many large cities. Again, the men were a spectacle everywhere they went, and met with huge crowds of people in cities such as New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Reaction in the west, however, was much different. For instance, in Detroit, a crowd burned and hanged effigies of the prisoners.

Near the end of his captivity in 1833, Black Hawk told his life story to a government interpreter, which was edited by a local reporter and became the first Native American autobiography published in the United States. The Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, Embracing the Traditions of his Nation, Various Wars In Which He Has Been Engaged, and His Account of the Cause and General History of the Black Hawk War of 1832, His Surrender, and Travels Through the United States. Also Life, Death and Burial of the Old Chief, Together with a History of the Black Hawk War was published in 1882 in Oquawka, Illinois, as interpreted by Antoine LeClair and edited by J.B. Patterson.