Chief Black Hawk was a leader and warrior of the Sauk Native American tribe in what is now the United States. While he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle, he was not a hereditary civil chief of the Sauk, but was an appointed war chief, and was generally known in English as Black Hawk. During the War of 1812 he fought on the side of the British. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors against settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War.
Black Hawk was a War chief of his band of Sauk during the late 1700s and early 1800s. This was not a great time to be indigenous in this country. It was heartbreaking to watch the natives try to understand the new arrivals to their land, only realizing too late, that these newcomers cared not at all about understanding them, and just wanted them out of the way.