Background
As a consequence of an 1804 treaty between the Governor of Indiana Territory and a group of Sauk and Fox leaders regarding land settlement, in 1828 the Sauk and Fox tribes vacated their lands in Illinois and moved west of the Mississippi River. However, Sauk Black Hawk and others disputed the treaty, claiming that the full tribal councils had not been consulted, nor did those representing the tribes have authorization to cede land. Angered by the loss of his birthplace, Black Hawk led a number of incursions across the Mississippi River beginning in 1830. Each time, he was persuaded without bloodshed to return west. In April 1832, encouraged by promises of alliance with other tribes and the British, he again moved his so-called "British Band" of around 1,000 warriors and civilians into Illinois. Finding no allies, he attempted to return to Iowa, but events overtook him and led to the Battle of Stillman's Run. A number of other engagements followed, and the state militias of Wisconsin and Illinois were mobilized to hunt down Black Hawk's band. The ensuing conflict became known as the Black Hawk War. On May 19, a group of militia volunteers were ambushed at Buffalo Grove and the same day as the raid at Plum River, May 21, a more famous war event, the Indian Creek massacre, occurred. The Indian Creek event, believed to mostly a peripheral event to the Black Hawk War was followed on by more violence preceding the attack at Spafford Farm.
Read more about this topic: Spafford Farm Massacre
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“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)