author
Sauk chief Black Hawk
1767–1838
A Sauk war leader remembered for resisting U.S. expansion in the Midwest, he became one of the best-known Native leaders of the early 19th century. His life also survives in a rare autobiography that gives readers an Indigenous perspective on war, displacement, and survival.
1 Audiobook
Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk
by Sauk chief Black Hawk
About the author
Born around 1767 at Saukenuk, in what is now Illinois, Black Hawk was a Sauk leader and warrior whose Sauk name is often rendered as Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak. He was not a hereditary civil chief, but he gained influence through his role as a war leader and through the respect he earned within his community.
He is most closely associated with the conflict known as the Black Hawk War of 1832. After U.S. pressure and disputed land cessions forced many Sauk and Meskwaki people west of the Mississippi, he led a return into Illinois with a band that included families as well as warriors. The campaign ended in defeat, and Black Hawk was taken prisoner before later being released.
One reason his voice remains so important is that his life story was published in 1833 as an autobiography, making it one of the earliest book-length Indigenous life narratives connected to the United States. He died on October 3, 1838, in what was then Iowa Territory, but his story continues to be read as a powerful witness to Native resistance and the upheaval of the American frontier.