about
twelve or fifteen families of squatters arrived and took possession of
the Sauk village, near the mouth of the Rocky River. They immediately
commenced destroying the Indians' bark boats. Some were burned, others
were torn to pieces, and when the Indians arrived at the village, and
found fault with the destruction of their property, they were beaten and
abused by the squatters.

"The Indians made complaint to me, as their Agent. I wrote to General
Clarke,[60] stating to him from time to time what happened, and giving a
minute detail of everything that passed between the whites (squatters)
and the Indians.

"The squatters insisted that the Indians should be removed from their
village, saying that as soon as the land was brought into market they
(the squatters) would buy it all. It became needless for me to show them
the treaty, and the right the Indians had to remain on their lands. They
tried every method to annoy the Indians, by shooting their dogs,
claiming their horses, complaining that the Indians' horses broke into
their corn-fields--selling them whiskey for the most trifling articles,
contrary to the wishes and request of the chiefs, particularly the Black
Hawk, who both solicited and threatened them on the subject, but all to
no purpose.

"The President directed those lands to be sold at the Land Office, in
Springfield, Illinois. Accordingly, when the time came that they were to
be offered for sale (in the autumn of 1828), there were about twenty
families of squatters at, and in the vicinity of, the old Sauk village,
most of whom attended the sale, and but one of them could purchase a
quarter-section (if we except George Davenport, a trader who resides in
Rocky Island). Therefore, all the land not sold, still belonged to the
United States, and the Indians had still a right, by treaty, to hunt and
live on those lands. This right, however, was not allowed them--they
must move off.

"In 1830, the principal chiefs, and others of the Sauk and Fox Indians
who resided at the old village, near Rocky River, acquainted me that
they would remove to their village on Ihoway River. These chiefs advised
me to write to General Clarke, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at this
place (St. Louis), to send up a few militia--that the Black Hawk and his
followers would then see that everything was in earnest, and they would
remove to the west side of the Mississippi, to their own lands.

"The letter, as requested by the chi