It has been said history is told from the viewpoint of the victor.
Editor’s Note: With Illinois celebrating its 200th birthday in 2018, the Daily Ledger is offering a series of stories about the history of the state. Keep watching the Daily Ledger for opportunities for our readers to share in the bicentennial observance.
It has been said history is told from the viewpoint of the victor.
But sometimes the voices of the defeated come back to provide a different perspective.
In his later years, the Sac leader Black Hawk dictated his autobiography to Antoine LeClair, the official interpreter for the Sac and Fox tribes. Coming out in 1833, Black Hawk explained the book was to vindicate his character and present his side of the events which led to and occurred during the so-called Black Hawk War. While some have questioned its authenticity, particularly in later editions when more flowery “Indian” language was apparently inserted, most scholars have accepted the work as valid, an accurate account of the Native American world view and an explanation of the conflict between the Indian and the American as seen through Indian eyes.
There are some discrepancies in the work as to dates and sequences of events, but these can be attributed to Black Hawk’s advanced age. And, as is always the case, an autobiography tells the story to the best advantage of the subject. But, as has been said, before, the work is generally accepted as true and expressing the real thoughts of both Black Hawk and his tribesmen.
One of the obstacles in establishing historical “truth” is that what is true from one person’s perspective is not what another sees. A case in point is modern American politics, with conservatives cheering the dismantling of everything done by the Obama administration as a return to national integrity, while liberals decry Trump’s policies as a regression into outmoded values and systems.
These two viewpoints come from people who share, albeit loosely, a common culture, personally and politically. Imagine the difference between two different viewpoints which are radically opposed to each other.
When it came to treaties, for example, what white Americans believed to be in the words of the agreement and what Native Americans heard were often at odds. But the whites always claimed when Native Americans touched the pen (signed the treaty by making their mark), that made the terms of the agreement as they, the Americans, understood them binding on all parties.
This was particularly true of the Treaty of 1804 which from the American perspective was a cession of land owned by the tribe for payment. From the white point of view, the Indians who signed the treaty were representatives of their tribe and what they agreed to had to be followed by the entire nation. However, from the Native American point of view chiefs or headmen were only to be followed as long as each individual tribesman agreed to follow them. The ability of a chief to speak for the tribe was limited.
There was also the problem of the meaning of the terms of the agreement. Native Americans did not understand the concept of land ownership in the same way white Americans did. Land for them was communal property and was owned by the tribe by right of use and how well it was defended. The money or goods paid was only payment for use of the land rather than a transfer of ownership, which ultimately belonged to the Great Spirit.
The difference was explained somewhat cynically by Black Hawk, who said, “What do we know of the manner of the laws of the white people? They might buy our own bodies for dissection, and we would touch the quill to confirm it, without knowing what we are doing.”
But when it came to the interpretation of the treaties, Americans considered only their viewpoint valid.
Further problems with the treaties came with the fulfillment of obligations detailed in those treaties. The Indians were expected to follow those obligations to the letter, while the Americans stretched the terms to their own advantage when they bothered to honor them at all.
A case in point is the payment of annuities to the tribes for the cession of land. Each tribe was promised a certain amount of money and trade goods for a certain number of years, but claims by trading companies dealing with the Indians for non-payment of debts owed to those companies would be taken out of those annuities before the payment was given to the Indians. As the traders often charged high prices for substandard goods and even defrauded the Indians by the use of whiskey which impaired their judgement, these claims, which were seldom questioned, cut deeply into what the Native Americans received. The result was that the Indians would be forced to go into greater debt to purchase needed goods, such as guns, ammunition and clothing, on credit, which included a large interest charge.
The treaties also allowed the deduction of the cost of any animals or other property stolen by the Indians from whites from the annuities. Once again, these claims were seldom questioned.
Further, the treaties included assurances justice would be done for any Indians falling victim to crimes by whites or for any whites falling victim to crimes committed by Indians. This generally meant that an Indian accused of committing a crime against a white person was subject to the harshest penalties applicable depending on the flimsiest evidence, while whites accused of crimes against Indians faced little to no punishment if they were made to face any charges at all no matter the evidence.
Black Hawk used this as a defense of his loyalty to the British and his enmity toward the Americans. He noted the Americans “made fair promises but never fulfilled them! Whilst the British made but few — but we could always rely on their word.”
Indeed, the entire concept of morality seemed to be at odds between Native Americans and whites.
White Americans always claimed that Indians were savages who could not be trusted, treacherous and false in their negotiations.
But white morality was just as baffling to Black Hawk, who pointed out what he considered a major difference between Native Americans and whites.
“We can only judge of what is proper and right by our standards of right and wrong, which differ greatly from the whites, if I have been correctly informed. The whites may do bad all their lives, and then, if they are sorry for it when about to die, all is well! But with us it is different: we must continue throughout our lies to do what we conceived to be good.”
This was especially true in the matter of warfare. To white Americans, the Indian way of fighting was cowardly and deceitful. But to the Native Americans, the white way of waging war was ludicrous.
“Instead of stealing upon each other, and taking every advantage to kill the enemy and save their own people, as we do, they march out, in open daylight, and fight regardless of the number of warriors they may lose! After the battle is over, they retire to feast and drink wine, as if nothing had happened; after which they make a statement in writing of what they have done — each party claiming the victory! and neither giving an account of half the number that have been killed on their own side…Our maxim is ‘to kill the enemy and save our own men.’”
For Black Hawk, warfare was imminently practical. While courage in battle was considered a virtue for Native Americans, rashness and foolhardiness were not. What whites perceived as treacherous ambush, Indians considered prudent and reasonable.
Black Hawk also put his finger on something many critics of official casualty lists have often used — the declaration of victory whether or not a victory was gained and the inflation of the number of the enemy killed while the deflation of one’s own casualties.
To the Native American, to be successful in war meant one thing — inflicting as much damage on the enemy as possible while keeping as many of your own men safe as you could.
But the major difference in the viewpoint of the Indian and the Americans was the question of legitimacy.
The American viewpoint, from the earliest colonists to the settlers pushing to the Mississippi and beyond, was the right for white ownership of the country was indisputable. God Himself had elected the white race, chiefly the European white race and especially those who spoke English, to come to the New World to establish a New Canaan, a Promised Land which would be the embodiment of all God’s plans for humanity displayed in a prosperous nation offering freedom and opportunity to all (whites).
But to the Indian, the coming of the white man was a calamity which shook him to the very core.
“Why did the Great Spirit ever send the whites to this island, to drive us from our homes, and introduce among us poisonous liquors, disease and death?” Black Hawk asked.
To whites, the answer was simple. The Indians were being displaced because they did not follow the true religion, because they lived in idleness instead of industry, because they did not make good use of the land they were on and because of their own aggressive attacks against other Indians. After all, it is reasoned, the Sac village Saukenuk and the land surrounding it which Black Hawk had fought to claim as his own had once belonged to the Illini Confederacy until the Sac drove them out.
But the whites most Native Americans encountered, particularly at the beginning of their contact with Europeans, were not always the noble, pious settlers of our history books. The first whites with which the Indians dealt were fortune seekers, willing to do anything to make their fortunes. Looking on Native Americans as exploitable resources, much as trees simply to be cut down and rivers which needed to be dammed and animals to be killed for their skins, they had no scruples of playing tribes or individuals against each other. Many had no more compunction about killing an Indian than they had about killing a wolf or a coyote, and one of the most important trade goods they used to barter with the Native Americans was liquor, which allowed them to take advantage of Indian drunkenness and to cry for protection when, under the influence, an Indian committed an “outrage” against a white person.
Even the white assigned to protect the Native Americans were not always conscientious in their treatment of their clients. The agent for the Sac and Fox tribes was one of the major buyers of land in Saukenuk, paying a pittance for property and selling it for an inflated sum while advising Black Hawk’s group to leave and calling for military force when they stayed.
This sort of unsatisfactory contact with whites led to retaliation by Native Americans and, much of the time, the victims were white settlers who were simply trying to make a new start and were innocent of crimes against the Indians. And, of course, when they were attacked, the white settlers attributed their hardships to the Indians, not to the whites who helped foment the violence.
It is interesting to note the same argument many Americans are making against immigrants today mirrors that made by Black Hawk and other Native American spokespersons. Perhaps if Black Hawk were to comment on American fears of people coming from the outside to take over the country, he would quote the old proverb, “What goes around comes around.”
All quotations in this article comes from “Black Hawk: An Autobiography,” edited by Donald Jackson.