Introduction - Black Hawk
The year 2007 marked the 175th anniversary of the Black Hawk War, a 4-month military campaign by the US Army and Illinois Militia to prevent a band of Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) Indians from reclaiming their village at the confluence of the Rock and Mississippi Rivers. While details of the conflict - including the slaughter of hundreds of starving Indians after they had attempted to surrender - may be little remembered, the mythology of Black Hawk permeates the upper Midwest and, indeed American culture at large. In Wisconsin and Illinois there are hundreds of Black Hawk place names, including state parks, churches, schools, roads, hotels, and dental offices, and several heroic sculptures. Meanwhile, Americans across the country - including the four million people who identify as Native American - may follow the fortunes of Chicago's NHL Hockey team, thrill to the action-packed war film or Playstation game Black Hawk Down, or find themselves piloting an armored helicopter through war-torn airspace.
In this anniversary year, the Wisconsin Historical Society staged many commemorative events to foster a renewed appreciation of the Black Hawk War in forging, for better or worse, the modern United States. We chose the Black Hawk War as the first chapter of "Driving East" less to revisit the actual events of 1832 but more to examine how, why, and for whom Black Hawk has become such a potent cultural icon. What will taking road trip along the Black Hawk Trail today might teach us about mobility and manifest destiny in the present?