War to the Knife with the Sauk #1

By David Wrolson

I mentioned in a previous post that in my readings on Fort Snelling one surprising thing that jumped out at me was the enmity between the Sioux and the Sauk(and Fox) tribes.

This warfare was at such a level that when the remnants of the Sauk and Fox fled west away from the whites across the Mississippi after the Black Hawk War the Sioux attacked them in their time of distress and killed many of them.

I found indications that the Sioux were patrolling the western shore of the Mississippi to prevent the Sauk from crossing the river and escaping the whites.

However, their warfare straddled both before and after the Black Hawk War of 1832 with the scene of the fighting apparently concentrated in Iowa.

Sauk Chief Black Hawk shown below: