There's a town there, not a big one, a really small one that likely grows a bit during summer vacation. After all, that little town is right on the river, Wisconsin side, just across the mighty Mississippi, which is not channeled right there at all and therefore, even today, streaked with long, thin islands of cottonwoods.
Just down river at a De Soto tourist lookout, a sign claims there was a time--early 20th century--when on a good day in a dry season a man or woman could walk across the Mississippi, hard as that is to believe. But imagining a river a man could cross on his own two feet helps a great deal if you're trying to see what happened at that tiny river town 190 years ago. All those folks at river's edge were doing was trying to get to the other side, to a land in 1830 not yet called Iowa, a land they believed to be safe.
The renegade Sac chief Black Hawk simply wouldn't stay put where white men told him and his people to live. What he claimed in his own biography was that all he ever wanted was to live in peace at home on the Rock River a ways south in Illinois, the land where his fathers and mothers were buried. When white people took that land for themselves, the land of his ancestors, he fought back in a series of small battles, skirmishes really, fights historians still call The Black Hawk War. It was 1832.
That little Mississippi River town, hardly a town at all, is nested beneath a river bluff so tall and sharply cut toward the water that if it weren't for others it would seem an anomaly, a foreigner on prairie lands all around. But long ago a glacier cut a path through all that flat land and left that bluff and a string more behind, a long series of behomoth shoulders on both sides of the river, bluffs that must have been a trial to conquer, up and down and up and down, on horseback or walking, hundreds of warriors and women and children and old folks, some of whom, tired and worn, eventually resigned themselves to death before reaching the river and dreams of escape.
As Gen. Henry Atkinson's pursuit of "the hostiles" pushed west towards the river, they came up on an old man who could no longer handle those hills, a man who'd given up. Several histories make mention of him. He could speak English. He told the mounted militia where Black Hawk's people were headed, then directed them towards water for their horses and asked to be taken prisoner. The soldiers argued about whether it would be better simply to kill him or let him alone to starve. After a few moments, he was shot--right there on some sloping bluff, barely able to stand, he was executed. He would have been an encumbrance.
As all of Black Hawk's people were during those first days of August, 1832, an encumbrance to a nation stretching and growing and flexing like kid, east to west, shore to shore, all the while taming wilderness land that seemed to them full of nothing but freedom.
When Black Hawk returned to the Rock River earlier, the land where his ancestors were buried, he came back with a thousand of his own. They'd been hunting out west, but when they returned, the land of his fathers and mothers was drawn and quartered into white man's country. Their home was no more theirs.
What happened in the neighborhood of that little town on the Mississippi stretched into a massacre that took two days to finish. A battle ensued, Black Hawk's starving, exhausted people were outnumbered and outgunned, while a steamboat outfitted with canons and cavalry picked off men and women and the children on their backs, folks who tried to swim or cross the river on makeshift rafts. What's more, the Sioux, old hated enemies, waited for them in Iowa, in the employ of the soldiers. They quickly and mercilessly dispatched any and all they could.
During those two days on the river, as many as 500 of Black Hawk's people were slaughtered, right there at a where today there's just a little town you can't miss beneath a mammoth bluff.
Here is President Andrew Jackson in 1830--"On Indian Removal."
But don't worry. You'll find it anyway on a gorgeous snaking road, highway 35, that clings to the Mississippi, a town that still carries the name locals gave it 180 years ago after the massacre--Victory. Look for Victory.
Just down river at a De Soto tourist lookout, a sign claims there was a time--early 20th century--when on a good day in a dry season a man or woman could walk across the Mississippi, hard as that is to believe. But imagining a river a man could cross on his own two feet helps a great deal if you're trying to see what happened at that tiny river town 190 years ago. All those folks at river's edge were doing was trying to get to the other side, to a land in 1830 not yet called Iowa, a land they believed to be safe.
The renegade Sac chief Black Hawk simply wouldn't stay put where white men told him and his people to live. What he claimed in his own biography was that all he ever wanted was to live in peace at home on the Rock River a ways south in Illinois, the land where his fathers and mothers were buried. When white people took that land for themselves, the land of his ancestors, he fought back in a series of small battles, skirmishes really, fights historians still call The Black Hawk War. It was 1832.
That little Mississippi River town, hardly a town at all, is nested beneath a river bluff so tall and sharply cut toward the water that if it weren't for others it would seem an anomaly, a foreigner on prairie lands all around. But long ago a glacier cut a path through all that flat land and left that bluff and a string more behind, a long series of behomoth shoulders on both sides of the river, bluffs that must have been a trial to conquer, up and down and up and down, on horseback or walking, hundreds of warriors and women and children and old folks, some of whom, tired and worn, eventually resigned themselves to death before reaching the river and dreams of escape.
As Gen. Henry Atkinson's pursuit of "the hostiles" pushed west towards the river, they came up on an old man who could no longer handle those hills, a man who'd given up. Several histories make mention of him. He could speak English. He told the mounted militia where Black Hawk's people were headed, then directed them towards water for their horses and asked to be taken prisoner. The soldiers argued about whether it would be better simply to kill him or let him alone to starve. After a few moments, he was shot--right there on some sloping bluff, barely able to stand, he was executed. He would have been an encumbrance.
As all of Black Hawk's people were during those first days of August, 1832, an encumbrance to a nation stretching and growing and flexing like kid, east to west, shore to shore, all the while taming wilderness land that seemed to them full of nothing but freedom.
When Black Hawk returned to the Rock River earlier, the land where his ancestors were buried, he came back with a thousand of his own. They'd been hunting out west, but when they returned, the land of his fathers and mothers was drawn and quartered into white man's country. Their home was no more theirs.
What happened in the neighborhood of that little town on the Mississippi stretched into a massacre that took two days to finish. A battle ensued, Black Hawk's starving, exhausted people were outnumbered and outgunned, while a steamboat outfitted with canons and cavalry picked off men and women and the children on their backs, folks who tried to swim or cross the river on makeshift rafts. What's more, the Sioux, old hated enemies, waited for them in Iowa, in the employ of the soldiers. They quickly and mercilessly dispatched any and all they could.
During those two days on the river, as many as 500 of Black Hawk's people were slaughtered, right there at a where today there's just a little town you can't miss beneath a mammoth bluff.
Here is President Andrew Jackson in 1830--"On Indian Removal."
What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion?I didn't mention the name of that town on the river, that tiny burg beneath the monster bluff. It's so small it's not on a lot of maps. Maybe that's a good thing.
But don't worry. You'll find it anyway on a gorgeous snaking road, highway 35, that clings to the Mississippi, a town that still carries the name locals gave it 180 years ago after the massacre--Victory. Look for Victory.
2 comments:
On the west-side of Hwy 35, down the road from Victory south, is a county park called Blackhawk Park. I took my two sons there to ice fish for 24 plus years. Both had Mr. Armbruster for American History in high school. He took his history classes to the battle site [Blackhawk Park] each year. While ice fishing, I often heard the details of the battle .
Incidentally, I attended Bad Axe Independent Lutheran Church located near the Bad Axe River just west of the Bad Axe Massacre.
Every turn in the road is a post card.
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