Under The Sauk
The Sauk nation occupied this site as their principal village, a well-drained area suitable for growing corn, about 1750. The tribe's villagers were successful not only in agriculture but also in catching fur-bearing animals, spending the winters in winter camps down and across the Mississippi collecting furs. The Sauk hunters skinned their catches and sold the peltry to fur traders from the Great Lakes. From 1763 on, these traders were mostly British, and from the 1780s on, most of them were employees or contractors of the Canada-based North West Company. In the spring, the Sauks gathered in sugar camps for maple sugaring before returning to the village (left empty since the fall) to plant crops and bury their dead.
The Saukenuk people's social and economic ties with British Canada not only led to success for its people but kept the hope of British military assistance alive among the Sauk. Some of the Indians would travel each year to British forts on far-away Lake Superior and near Detroit for trading and gift-giving.
The disputed 1804 St. Louis Treaty between Quashquame and William Henry Harrison led to the transfer of Illinois lands to the U.S. Government, including Saukenuk. This treaty was deemed invalid by the Sauk who continued to live at the village.
By 1826, an estimated 4,800 Sauk lived in and around Saukenuk. It was the largest single settlement in the new U.S. state of Illinois. This is how Black Hawk described Saukenuk:
| “ | Our village was situated on the north side of Rock river, at the foot of its rapids, and on the point of land between Rock river and the Mississippi. . . . The land around our village, uncultivated, was covered with blue-grass, which made excellent pasture for our horses. Several fine springs broke out of the bluff, near by, from which we were supplied with good water. The rapids of Rock river furnished us with an abundance of excellent fish, and the land, being good, never failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes. We always had plenty - our children never cried with hunger, nor our people were never in want. Here our village had stood for more than a hundred years. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Black Hawk State Historic Site