Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.

The **Black Hawk War** was a brief conflict fought in 1832 between the United States and a group of Native Americans led by the Sauk leader **Black Hawk**. The fighting took place mainly in what is now Illinois and Wisconsin. The conflict grew out of disputes over Native American lands east of the Mississippi River. Under the disputed Treaty of St. Louis of 1804, the United States claimed that the Sauk and Meskwaki had surrendered a large area of their territory. Black Hawk rejected the legitimacy of the agreement and resisted efforts to permanently remove his people from their traditional homeland around Saukenuk, near present-day Rock Island, Illinois.

In April 1832, Black Hawk led several hundred Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo men, women, and children across the Mississippi River into Illinois. Known as the **British Band**, the group hoped to return to their former lands and raise crops, but American officials viewed their movement as an invasion. Illinois militia and regular U.S. Army troops were mobilized to force them back across the river. After an encounter at **Stillman’s Run** in May ended with the militia retreating, fear spread among settlers and the conflict intensified. Over the following months, there were a number of battles and attacks as Black Hawk’s increasingly hungry and exhausted followers attempted to escape north and west toward the Mississippi.

The war effectively ended with the **Battle of Bad Axe** on August 2, 1832, when American troops attacked Black Hawk’s followers as they tried to cross the Mississippi River into safety. Many Native Americans, including women and children, were killed during the battle and the attempted crossing. Black Hawk escaped temporarily but surrendered later that month and was imprisoned before eventually being released. The Black Hawk War accelerated the removal of Native peoples from the region and opened more land to American settlement. The conflict is also remembered because several Americans who later became prominent participated in it, including future president **Abraham Lincoln**, who served as a militia captain but did not take part in combat, and future Confederate president **Jefferson Davis**, then a young U.S. Army officer.