THE TREATY OF 1804

The Louisiana Purchase

The first decade of the nineteenth century marked a major turning point in the life of Black Hawk and the fortunes and ultimate destiny of the Sauk. The Louisiana Purchase of 1804 set in motion a chain of events that ultimately would lead to the defeat and removal of the Sauk.

In 1803, the United States purchased from France for approximately $15 million a vast tract of land west of the Mississippi River known as Louisiana, which Napoleon had acquired through a treaty with Spain in 1800. The acquisition doubled the size of the United States and included traditional hunting grounds of the Sauk in what would become Missouri and Iowa. During 1804, the United States took possession of this new area, substituting American administrators for European ones. Among those who lost their jobs was the individual whom Black Hawk referred to as his “Spanish father”—Charles Dehault Delassus, the Spanish governor of the upper portion of Louisiana. Delassus had shown considerable respect to the Sauk and had given them many presents as well as provisions over the years. Suddenly, however, Americans, of whom Black Hawk was highly suspicious, were in power and seemed to favor the Osage over the Sauk. The U. S. military, for example, stopped a Sauk war party of some 300 from attacking the Osage.

The Sauk also were concerned about the presence of increasing numbers of Euro-Americans on the Cuivre (Quiver) River north of St. Louis. In 1804, after four Sauk hunters killed three settlers, two Sauk chiefs journeyed to St. Louis to condemn the killings and inquire about a just retribution. The Sauk practiced a system of justice that included the option of paying a price for the dead person to the victim’s relatives, a concept practiced in England during the Middle Ages and known there as wergild (literally, “man-price”).

The two Sauk instead were sent home with orders to hand over the guilty men and arrange for a group of Sauk to attend a treaty council with William Henry Harrison, who had been appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to negotiate land concessions with the Indians. Harrison was also governor of the Indiana Territory and of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase (the District of Louisiana). He would become President of the United States in 1841, only to die one month later.

A small group of Sauk and Fox traveled to St. Louis to deliver one of the murderers and meet with Harrison. The Sauk apparently believed that the primary purpose of their trip was to resolve the killings. The prisoner was jailed and subsequently either escaped or was released before being shot and killed by a guard. It later was discovered that the killings of the settlers had actually been in self-defense, and President Jefferson forwarded a pardon. The notification, however, came too late to save the accused.

Desire for Land

The larger issue for the United States was its desire to acquire land from the Sauk and Fox, and that was what Harrison was charged to do. The details of what transpired in St. Louis are hazy. Somehow five Sauk and Fox, including the Sauk Quashquame, ended up signing a treaty that granted to the United States all of their land east of the Mississippi between the Illinois River in the south and the Wisconsin River in the north. The area extended east to the Fox River in Illinois. Also included was a section of land west of the Mississippi in Missouri. This area east of the Mississippi included the village of Saukenuk. In return, the Sauk and Fox received an immediate payment of $2,234.50 in goods and an annual payment of $1,000 ($600 to the Sauk, $400 to the Fox). The Sauk and the Fox were permitted to live and hunt on the land until the federal government sold it.

Many things were wrong with this treaty. The five signers almost surely did not understand the full implications of the agreement. Even if they did, the five individuals were not authorized to finalize such a sale. The Sauk required any transfer of land to be discussed by the tribal council (usually consisting of approximately 12 chiefs) and by the whole community. A consensus of both men and women was further required before such a sale could occur.4 Because these procedures had not occurred, few, if any, Sauk believed that they truly had sold off their land, and certainly not their revered Saukenuk. The Sauk continued to live on their land after 1804 in the same manner as before, and did so for many years, contributing to their belief that they had not sold the land.

In time, however, the Treaty of 1804 would come to affect the Sauk profoundly. In the aftermath of what came to be known as the Black Hawk War, Black Hawk would lament that the Treaty of 1804 “has been the origin of all our difficulties.”5