Sect 2: Following Black Hawk's Trail

Following Makataimeshekiakiak: The Journey of a Lifetime


Their spirits live among us still.

People who are drawn to this blog, or who listen to me share my story in person, nearly always ask the question, “Why are you doing this?” Another question is, “Why is this so important to you?”

Let me begin by saying that I, like many people of the world, believe in the survival of the Spirit after the end of physical existence.  Life after death, except that ‘death’ is perhaps the wrong word for it.  Many of the world’s major religions support this view, and there is ample evidence to support the theory.

Furthermore, I believe in the idea that the events of the living, be they positive or negative, good or evil, leave an impression on the surrounding environment, like a residue, an energy, or an echo.  I also believe that it is possible for some living individuals to perceive this lingering residual energy.

Last, I believe that the spirits of those beyond this physical life are able to interact with some people and objects in this physical world, and are often present at locations meaningful to their own lives.

I will make no effort to support these positions, or describe the many things I have seen, heard, experienced and even felt or smelled, which led me to these beliefs.  Instead, I will explain how they, in combination with the events of my life, have led me to my quest.

In the early 1980’s, I moved to the Cross Plains area in south-central Wisconsin, a gorgeous area of high forested hills and meandering streams on the edge of Wisconsin’s famous unglaciated region.  Over time, I became convinced that some terrible event had occurred in the general area at some point in the past.  It felt like a battle where many Indians had died. At this point, let me share that I was never interested in history, and knew nothing about what may or may not have occurred.  I was just overcome with feelings of great sadness and loss, and it left me uneasy in a way that is hard to explain.

In fact, this was a feeling I had experienced many times in my life, particularly when I was at or near the Wisconsin River in the area of Sauk City or the Baraboo Bluffs.  I have always been drawn to this region of Wisconsin, but whatever drew me there remained elusive.  I used to have repeated dreams where I would find myself at a particular stretch of the Wisconsin River just north of Sauk City and fly unaided along the waterway looking for something but never finding it.  I spent many years in this state of uneasy equilibrium with little hope of advancing to any sort of resolution.

In 2003, my husband and I moved to our current home in the Wausau, Wisconsin area. His interest in genealogy revitalized my own interest in learning more about the little-known Indian ancestor in my own tree. After considerable research, I discovered that the branch of my family from which I derive my Native American heritage, lived in the same general region as Cross Plains, establishing homesteads in Roxbury and other surrounding areas.  I made several trips to cemeteries, filling in branches on my family tree, and I spoke to my extended family to learn what they knew. While family verbal history identified my Native American grandmother, and DNA testing of my brother and myself proved its validity, I have not yet been able to locate any documents with her Native American name or tribal affiliation.

Seeking another path to my great, great grandmother’s identity, I visited the American Indian Resource Center (AIRC) in Wausau to see if they could assist me somehow with tracking her.  Though they were unable to help me, I nonetheless unexpectedly started gaining traction in my personal life’s quest.  I shared my experiences with some people at AIRC, and eagerly listened whenever they were willing to share their beliefs and help me learn the proper ways of my ancestors.  I was raised Catholic, educated in a Catholic school system, and lived in a predominately Catholic environment.  Even so, my personal spiritual beliefs had been seasoned by my life’s experiences, and I found that much of what I had come to believe in life matched what I have come to know as ‘Indian’ spirituality.  The more I learned about Native American beliefs, the more at home I felt with myself.

Eventually, I asked the leader of AIRC if he was aware of any battles that had been fought in the Cross Plains area, where many people had died.  I asked if he knew of any Indian wars fought there.  He knew of many such battles, but nothing specific to Cross Plains.  He encouraged me to keep seeking information and guidance from all sources, including my Spirit Guides.

Two years later, a chance discussion with my friend, Joni, led to a discovery that would change my life.  I described to her a lifetime of recurring images and feelings I had experienced of a terrible battle where many Indians were massacred, which had some connection to the general area around Cross Plains, WI.  She responded that my story sounded a lot like The Battle of Wisconsin Heights, and that I should look it up.  Later that day she sent me a hyperlink to the Wisconsin State Historical Society website, and specifically to some newspaper clippings about the Battle of Wisconsin Heights.

I remember spending most of the rest of that Sunday reading about this famous battle, and learning for the first time a small part of Black Hawk's story.  I read more and more about the battle, the Black Hawk War, and Black Hawk himself.  I remember feeling a sense of recognition.  I remember nodding my head ‘yes’ over and over again as I pulled direction and meaning from the pages of the internet.  The confirmations kept coming, and I was infused with excitement, feeling that finally some of the loose threads in my life were starting to come together. The next day I read a story that would change my life.

I found an online copy of a newspaper article from November 12, 1919, describing a newspaperman’s attempt to locate the battle site.  Near the end of page 2, I read the words, “The land is now owned by M. and George Hornung.”  I was sitting within two feet of documents from my recent genealogy research, and I yanked them out to confirm that my great, great grandfather was George Hornung from Roxbury, WI.  With the article written in 1919, some 87 years after the battle itself, it made sense that the land may have been in the family for some time and inherited from prior generations.  I was suddenly deeply concerned that this battle had taken place on land that had been farmed by my great, great, great grandfather.

It took countless weeks of research, and visits to various libraries and state archives, but I was able to determine that at the time of the battle in 1832, the land, in then-named Michigan Territory had not been platted, and was not owned by any single person, but rather it was 'officially' owned by the United States Government.  It wasn’t until the late 1830s that land in the territory began to be sold, and in 1846 a German immigrant by the name of Kaspar Hornung; my great, great, great grandfather; was the first white man to settle on and farm the land upon which the Battle of Wisconsin Heights had taken place.  His family joined him in 1854, and the land was held in the family for several generations.  Kasper and his sons, including my great, great grandfather Johann Georg "George", settled the land where this historic battle had taken place, and five generations later I was feeling the echoes of the fighting that had occurred on this land in my soul.

Early Hornung Homestead
Site of Battle of WI Heights

Black Hawk's Mound
Visible behind Homestead

After this startling discovery, I began voraciously learning everything I could about Black Hawk and his fated journey across Wisconsin, ending in the massacre at Bad Axe.  It's shocking to think that only two days earlier, if anyone had asked me what I knew about Black Hawk, I would have told them that I thought the Blackhawk Indians were a tribe that probably lived somewhere around the Cross Plains, Wisconsin area sometime long ago.  Now, I not only know that Black Hawk was a man, not a tribe of indians, but that his path and mine had been crossing and re-crossing my whole life.  My quest, my mission, still had not taken final form, but the untold story of my life now had a theme, a purpose.

Fast forward to 2014.  I have spent the past couple of years researching Black Hawk, and all the events of his life and death.  At first this was an all-encompassing search for knowledge which started to cure the phantom pains in the missing limbs of my past.  I received visions in my sleep, which are and feel different than simple dreams.  I began to feel the hunger and the pain, and the sorrow and the anger that were experienced by Black Hawk's band as they raced across the state.  I made several pilgrimages to the site of the Wisconsin Heights battleground, now a DNR-preserved region known as the Mazomanie Oak Barrens State Natural Area, which preserves some part of the history through trails and signage. The site is now on the National Register of Historic Places.  Many times I traveled to the site, asking my Spirit and Animal Guides for advice.  I told the story to my extended family, who joined me on a trip there, where we all prayed, remembered and honored the people buried in the effigy mounds, and gave food and tobacco offerings to the Mother Earth and Father Creator.

Gradually, my quest began to take the form of a journey.

I felt compelled – no, driven – to visit the many sites where Black Hawk and his band traveled on their final journey and to honor and pray for the spirits of the dead, asking for peace and offering positive energy in places that I felt still needed healing.  I call to the spirits when I reach these places and tell them my story, and tell them what I know about their story.  It is my hope that by walking the path of Black Hawk’s people I will come to understand them, and I can somehow comfort and help any souls who are not at peace.  I am no Shaman, but I can honor and remember The People with love.  By doing so, I hope to heal the pains that I have felt in learning this tale, and to share the tale with others so that he, Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, will not be forgotten.

I know I am not the first to take this journey.  I sincerely hope I will not be the last.  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)