. Had they
been determined upon war, they would neither have encumbered themselves
with their wives and children, nor have openly recrossed the
Mississippi, near to Fort Armstrong, when they knew there was an officer
of the United States army, with a body of troops, stationed at that
point, for the express purpose of preserving peace upon the frontier.
Such movements would have been at variance with the well known military
policy of the Indians. Judging from the success of General Gaines, in
removing this same band, in 1831, without blood shed, to the west side
of the Mississippi, it has been supposed, that a pacific conference
between the commandant of Fort Armstrong and Black Hawk, in 1832, before
he had commenced his ascent up Rock river, would have resulted in the
peaceable return of the Indians to their own hunting grounds. The
condition of things at that time, warrants such a belief, and the
subsequent declarations of the Indians, strengthen the opinion, that had
the experiment been made, it would have been successful. It is true,
that the commanding officer at Fort Armstrong, sent two messages to
Black Hawk upon this subject; but the first is represented by the
Indians to have been an _order_ for them to return; and the second, that
if they did not, they would be pursued and _forced_ to recross the
Mississippi. These efforts failed, but it does not follow that a
friendly council upon the subject, would not have resulted differently.

Many causes operate in bringing about an Indian war, and in plunging the
government of the United States, prematurely and unnecessarily, into it.
There is generally upon the frontiers a class of persons who have
nothing to lose, and much to gain by such a contest. It gives them
employment and circulates money among them. With such pioneer loafers,
an Indian war is always popular. Then there is the "Indian Hater,"[11]
a numerous and respectable body of men, to be found upon the frontier
settlements, who, from having suffered in their persons and property by
the barbarities and plunder of the Indians, have come at length to look
upon them as no better than the wild beasts of the forest, and whose
many atrocities make it a moral duty, on the part of the whites, to
exterminate by fire and the sword. Again there is the regular _squatter_
and land speculator, whose interest is always promoted by a war, because
it usually results in driving the Indians further back from the
frontier. Interm