2-12 Crawfish River - Leaving the Sinnissippi

April 12, 2014

Crawfish River, near Aztalan Historic Site

Lake Mills, WI

"The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the blood of our ancestors."

- Chief Plenty Coups, Crow

“The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all.

We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated.

We shall not forget this."

- Quote from the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians

Why must hatred drive men to acts of such abhorrent cruelty?  What insane lust for vengeance and blood – what perverted sense of entitlement – would cause thousands of men on horseback to relentlessly pursue a starving band of people, intent on killing and mutilating every man, woman and child they find?

Was it the attack at Buffalo Grove?  Was it for the killing of Felix St Vrain in Kellogg’s Grove?  Was it some sort of ‘justice’ for the killing of the white settlers at Indian Creek, and for the capture of the Hall Girls, Sylvia and Rachel, which was enacted almost entirely by Potawatomi Indians in a skirmish almost entirely unrelated to your fight and flight?

Was it not enough to have killed the three Indians under the white flag of surrender at Sycamore Creek?  Was it not enough that the Sauk people had been driven, starving, from the ceded territory of their homeland, while the warriors, elders, women, children and infants dropped dead and littered the path of the pursuit?  Was it not enough that eleven warriors were killed and scalped at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend?  Was it not enough that these people, whose homes had been stolen by treacherous and nefarious dealings by the U.S. government, were utterly broken and dispirited, but rather they must be annihilated?

Crawfish River
Near Aztalan
Lake Mills, Wisconsin

The conflict is long over.  Even now, as I write, I must take time to purge myself of my anger, as I did standing near these waters.  Anger leads to more fighting, and I am writing this blog in an effort to bring awareness and peace.  In their flight from the falls at Hustisford, the Sauk fugitives fled south and west along the west edge of their beloved Rock River, being guided by Black Wolf and other sympathetic Ho-Chunk, and eventually broke west across the swampy and unforgiving countryside until they reached what is today called the Crawfish River.  The Crawfish, unlike the Rock River into which it flows near Jefferson, is less clear, and was known in early days as the west branch, or ‘mud branch’ of the Rock River.  It was at a place very near where the town of Aztalan exists today where the fugitive band crossed the Crawfish River.  Even at this crossing, if they had been able to take to canoes and travel down the river, they would have been carried to their homeland.  Black Wolf certainly knew the river, and Black Hawk would have been told, if indeed he was not familiar with the place himself.

I stood over the river, the rains soaking my jacket, on the bridge on Highway B.  I offered a prayer to the river, and gave a food and tobacco offering. It was enough.

It was at this place where the band truly gave up all hope of tomorrow, living only for today.  Passing only a couple miles north of the famous mound structures that give Aztalan its name, they crossed the Crawfish River, forever leaving behind their beloved Sinnissippi.

Makataimeshekiakiak – you have left the homeland of your people, and still you are hunted.  Many who followed you have escaped as you had hoped, joining other tribes in small groups, or finding their own way among the forests.  But many are still with you, and they are now hunted with a vengeance beyond reason.  You have done much to secure the safety of your tribe, but you were misled, and there was no aid, and no provision for you.  You have been found by the very trail of your hunger, and many who followed you now walk the trails of the next world.  Even some of those follow with you.  They help to guide you, and they try to protect you on your flight.  Now you are forced to leave behind the river you have always called your home.  A great wrong was done to your people.  This place is symbolic of that wrong.  At this place I sent a prayer to the waters, sending my mind down the river all the way to your home, where I began my journey. I prayed that the waters would bring the food I offered to your spirits.  I prayed to the river, knowing that I would be able to meet that prayer on the other end of my journey when I return to Saukenuk.  Ah-ho.

Return to Table of Contents

(Key Terms: Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, Black Sparrow Hawk, Black Hawk, 1767, Saukenuk, Pyesa, Rock Island, Black Hawk’s Watch Tower, Black Hawk State Historic Site, Hauberg Museum, Sauk, Sac, Meskwaki, Fox, Rock River, Sinnissippi River, Mississippi River, War of 1812, British Band, Great Britain, Treaty of 1804, Treaties, Ceded Land, William Henry Harrison, Quashquame, Keokuk, Fort Armstrong, Samuel Whiteside, Black Hawk War of 1832, Black Hawk Conflict, Scalp, Great Sauk Trail, Black Hawk Trail, Prophetstown, Wabokieshiek, White Cloud, The Winnebago Prophet, Ne-o-po-pe, Dixon’s Ferry, Isaiah Stillman, The Battle of Stillman’s Run, Old Man’s Creek, Sycamore Creek, Abraham Lincoln, Chief Shabbona, Felix St. Vrain, Lake Koshkonong, Fort Koshkonong, Fort Atkinson, Henry Atkinson, Andrew Jackson, Lewis Cass, Winfield Scott, Chief Black Wolf, Henry Dodge, James Henry, White Crow, Rock River Rapids, The Four Lakes, Battle of Wisconsin Heights, Benjamin Franklin Smith, Wisconsin River, Kickapoo River, Soldier’s Grove, Steamboat Warrior, Steamship Warrior, Fort Crawford, Battle of Bad Axe, Bad Axe Massacre, Joseph M. Street, Antoine LeClaire, Native American, Indian, Michigan Territory, Indiana Territory, Louisiana Territory, Osage, Souix, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Ho-Chunk)