Bøger af Black Hawk

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Black HawkorAutobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, By Black HawkEmbracing the Traditions of his Nation, Various Wars in which he has been engaged, And His Account of the Cause and General History of theBlack Hawk War of 1832I was born at the Sac village, on Rock river, in the year 1767, and am now in my 67th year. My great grandfather, Nanamakee, or Thunder, according to the tradition given me by my father, Pyesa, was born in the vicinity of Montreal, Canada, where the Great Spirit first placed the Sac nation, and inspired him with a belief that, at the end of four years he should see a white man, who would be to him a father. Consequently he blacked his face, and eat but once a day, just as the sun was going down, for three years, and continued dreaming, throughout all this time whenever he slept. When the Great Spirit again appeared to him, and told him that, at the end of one year more, he should meet his father, and directed him to start seven days before its expiration, and take with him his two brothers, Namah, or Sturgeon, and Paukahummawa, or Sunfish, and travel in a direction to the left of sun-rising. After pursuing this course for five days, he sent out his two brothers to listen if they could hear a noise, and if so, to fasten some grass to the end of a pole, erect it, pointing in the direction of the sound, and then return to him.

The old chief had some dogs killed and made a feast preparatory to resigning his scepter, to which all the nation were invited. Great anxiety prevailed among them to know what the three brothers had seen and heard. . When the old chief arose and related to them the sayings and doings of his three sons, and concluded by saying that the Great Spirit had directed that these, his three sons, should take the rank and power that had once been his, and that he yielded these honors and duties willingly to them, because it was the wish of the Great Spirit, and he could never consent to make him angry.

Black Hawk was born at Sac village, on Rock river, in the year 1767, a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe. His status came from leading war parties as a young man, and from his leadership of a band of Sauks during the Black Hawk War of 1832. This is his Autobiography.

Black Hawk, so named after the sacred medicine bag he carried with him, was a warrior and a leader of a tribe of Sauk Native Americans in the American Midwest circa 1800. He rose to leadership during a tumultuous time for his people, as they were pressed on all sides by the warlike British, the ruthlessly expansionist Americans, and the grudges and jealousies of neighboring tribes.He lived as a warrior for much of his early life, when the War of 1812 between the British and the Americans forced the Sauk to take sides and enter the fray. Angered by the Americans¿ demands they sign shaky treaties to cede their land, the tribe fought for the British until the toll of the war forced the tribe to bow out.After the war, Black Hawk signed a peace treaty with the Americans, but a series of misunderstandings once again brought tensions between the Sauk and the Americans to a head. When a group of under-trained Illinois militia mistakenly opened fire on the Sauk, Black Hawk began what is known as the Black Hawk War, leading raids against American forts and settlements in an effort to reclaim their ancient land.Even though Black Hawk managed to convince other tribes to join his cause, the war was quickly lost and Black Hawk captured. He was then taken on a tour of the vast East Coast cities in an attempt to impress upon him Americäs overwhelming might. Despite his status as a former enemy, he was treated with dignity and respect by his captors before they granted him a small house and plot of land in Iowa to live out the rest of his days.His autobiography was dictated to a translator, Antoine Le Clair, and written down by his amanuensis and publisher, J. B. Patterson. The story Black Hawk tells is a vivid one of life on the prairie, rich with tradition and meaning, but riven equally by war and bloodshed. As he reminisces about the bucolic life he and his ancestors once led and compares it with the hardships his people are facing, his sorrow becomes palpable; and as his days draw to a close, the reader sees that even to Black Hawk, the fate of his people appears inevitable.

¿My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon and cultivate as far as necessary for their subsistence¿¿ When the United States was still a young nation, a Sauk leader named Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, stood up for the rights of indigenous people to live on their ancestors¿ land.

 This story is told in the words of a tragic figure in American history - a hook-nosed, hollow-cheeked old Sauk warrior who lived under four flags while the Mississippi Valley was being wrested from his people.The author is Black Hawk himself - once pursued by an army whose members included Captain Abraham Lincoln and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis. Perhaps no Indian ever saw so much of American expansion or fought harder to prevent that expansion from driving his people to exile and death.He knew Zebulon Pike, William Clark, Henry Schoolcraft, George Catlin, Winfield Scott, and such figures in American government as President Andrew Jackson and Secretary of State Lewis Cass. He knew Chicago when it was a cluster of log houses around a fort, and he was in St. Louis the day the American flag went up and the French flag came down.He saw crowds gather to cheer him in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York - and to stone the driver of his carriage in Albany - during a fantastic tour sponsored by the government.And at last he dies in 1838, bitter in the knowledge that he had led men, women, and children of his tribe to slaughter on the banks of the Mississippi.After his capture at the end of the Black Hawk War, he was imprisoned for a time and then released to live in the territory that is now Iowa. He dictated his autobiography to a government interpreter, Antoine LeClaire, and the story was put into written form by J. B. Patterson, a young Illinois newspaperman. Since its first appearance in 1833, the autobiography has become known as an American classic.

A rediscovered, defiant work of Native American literature, presented here on the 175th anniversary of its first publication Upon its publication in 1833, this unflinching narrative by the vanquished Sauk leader Black Hawk was the first thoroughly adversarial account of frontier hostilities between white settlers and Native Americans. Black Hawk, a complex, contradictory figure, relates his life story and that of his people, who had been forced from western Illinois in what was known as the Black Hawk War. The first published account of a victim of the American war of extermination, this vivid portrait of Indian life stands as a tribute to the author and his extraordinary people, as well as an invaluable historical document.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.