Black Hawk (chief)

Black Hawk
An illustration of Black Hawk, from History of the Indian Tribes of North America
Born	Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak 1767 Saukenuk, Illinois
Died	October 3, 1838 (aged 70–71) Davis County, Iowa
Monuments	Black Hawk Statue, Black Hawk State Historic Site
Nationality	Sauk
Other names	Black Sparrow Hawk
Occupation	War captain; band leader
Known for	Black Hawk War

Black Hawk, born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, (1767 – October 3, 1838) was a band leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the Midwest of the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man, and a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

During the War of 1812, Black Hawk had fought on the side of the British against the U.S., hoping to push white American settlers away from Sauk territory. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors, known as the British Band, against European-American settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War. After the war, he was captured by U.S. forces and taken to the eastern U.S. He and other war leaders were taken on tour of several cities.

Shortly before being released from custody, Black Hawk told his story to an interpreter; aided also by a newspaper reporter, he published Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, Embracing the Traditions of his Nation... in 1833 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first Native American autobiography to be published in the U.S., his book became an immediate bestseller and has gone through several editions. Black Hawk died in 1838 (at age 70 or 71) in what is now southeastern Iowa. He has been honored by an enduring legacy: his book, many eponyms, and other tributes.

Black Hawk, or Black Sparrow Hawk (Sauk Ma-kat-tai-me-she-kia-kiak [Mahkate:wi-meši-ke:hke:hkwa], "be a large black hawk") was born in 1767 in the village of Saukenuk on the Rock River (present-day Rock Island, Illinois). Black Hawk's father Pyesa was the tribal medicine man of the Sauk people. The Sauk used the village in the summer for raising corn and as a burial site. During the winter, they moved across the Mississippi to present-day Iowa for winter hunts and fur trapping.