Europeans and Americans had considered the Sauks and Foxes a single tribe for about a century before the Black Hawk War. But the Sauks (also known as Sacs, both of which are corruptions of Osakiwugis) and the Foxes (who called themselves Mesquakies, but were called by the French Renards which was later translated into english as "Fox") were separate tribes. They acted together on most issues, spoke similar languages, and intermarried. Still, they viewed themselves as two people.

Two centuries before the Black Hawk War, the two tribes had lived north of Lake Erie. A series of wars with the powerful Iroquois confederacy had driven them, along with many other Algonquian-speaking tribes, west of the Great Lakes in the mid-seventeenth century. The two tribes built new villages and cleared new farms near Green Bay on Lake Michigan. They began trading corn and other foodstuffs to French fur traders. And they developed economic, social, and political relationships with their new neighbors, both other new immigrants such as the Potawatomies and longtime residents of the area such as the Winnebagoes.

In 1711, the Foxes attacked the French fort and trading post at Detroit. The ensuing "Fox Wars" lasted for more than twenty years and involved most of the other tribes in the western Great Lakes at one time or another. Some years, Sauk warriors joined the Foxes in their raids on the French; other years, the Sauks aided the French against the Foxes. By the early 1730s, however, the Sauks and Foxes had begun to intermarry both in the villages around Green Bay and in newer villages along the St. Joseph's River on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. During these years, raids by other Native American groups killed most of the Foxes and many Sauks.

The two tribes sought refuge together on new lands further west along the Mississippi River. Most of their land was east of the river, extending from the Wisconsin River in the north to the Illinois River in the south. But they also settled some villages west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri River. It was these lands that Black Hawk and some of the other Sauks and Foxes continued to view as their homelands as late as 1832.

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What was the Social structure of Sauk Society?

In the mid-eighteenth century, the Sauks established their principal village at Saukenuk. It was in one of Saukenuk's large bark lodges that Black Hawk was born in 1767. And it was in Saukenuk that he lived much of his life.

Located on the north bank of the Rock just upriver from the Mississippi, Saukenuk was a social, spiritual, and economic center for the Sauks. Fertile land surrounded hundred or so lodges which provided homes for most of the several thousand Sauks for much of the year. The tribes considered Saukenuk as sacred ground. It was surrounded by fertile land. The Sauks' fields, which extended two miles north of the village, produced rich harvests of corn, beans, squash, and pumpkins. An abundance of fish could be found in the two rivers.

Plentiful deer and other game inhabited the surrounding forests and grasslands and buffalo in the prairies across the Mississippi. Two rich deposits of lead nearby provided another economic activity for the Sauks. Saukenuk's location at the intersection of two major waterways made it the center of the Sauks' trading network. Whether the traders came to them or they went to the traders, the rivers made possible relatively easy transportation of their furs and lead and the Europeans' guns, powder, cloth, and metal goods.

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What was the Political structure of Sauk Society?

Saukenuk, and the main Fox village three miles upriver, were political centers as well. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Saukenuk provided the main meeting-place for the Sauks' tribal government. This government included civil chiefs and war chiefs who presided over a tribal council, which represented the twelve clans that made up the Sauk nation. The government did not pass laws; it applied traditional customs and rules to situations that emerged either within the tribe or with outsiders. It allotted hunting grounds, decided on land sales, and sent out war parties. Separate leaders for hunting and raiding bands set out from Saukenuk and the other villages each year.

The political system of the Sauks strove to balance communal and individual needs and wants. Only in special circumstances could the tribal, village, or band governments compel someone to do something. But the force of tradition, custom, and community opinion generally maintained order.

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What was his role in their society?
Who opposed him among his own people?

Among the Sauk and Fox, formal political power was not the only route to influence and significance. Neither Black Hawk nor his main rival, Keokuk, were civil chiefs, for example. Their influence initially grew from military accomplishments--Black Hawk's against various native enemies in the 1780s and 1790s and Keokuk's against the Americans during the War of 1812. Their past successes leading raids against other tribes or defending Sauk and Fox villages insured that they would be consulted in time of crisis and would command some support if they called upon Sauk and Fox warriors to join them in new raids. Traditionally, however, such men could not speak in council or represent the nation in formal meetings with outsiders.

The older Black Hawk generally accepted these traditional limits. Even as events built toward war in the spring of 1832, he still viewed himself as acting under the guidance of some of the younger civil chiefs. Keokuk, in contrast, increasingly exercised the powers of a civil chief. His growing influence arose largely from the fact that American officials, recognizing that he was disposed to peaceful accommodation, treated him as a chief. They showered him with gifts that he could redistribute among his people. They insisted upon consulting with him. And they treated him as if he was in a position to make decisions for his people. Favored by the powerful Americans, Keokuk gained the favor of his own people.

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