Had I borne them longer without
striking, my people would have said, 'Black Hawk is a woman--he
is too old to be a chief he is no Sauk.'" After a brief
imprisonment at Fortress Monroe, where Jefferson Davis was
himself confined at the close of the Civil War, the captives were
set free, and were taken to Philadelphia, New York, up the
Hudson, and finally back to the Rock River country.
For some years Black Hawk lived quietly on a small reservation
near Des Moines. In 1837 the peace-loving Keokuk took him with a
party of Sauk and Fox chiefs again to Washington, and on this
trip he made a visit to Boston. The officials of the city
received the august warrior and his companions in Faneuil Hall,
and the Governor of the commonwealth paid them similar honor at
the State House. Some war-dances were performed on the Common for
the amusement of the populace, and afterwards the party was taken
to see a performance by Edwin Forrest at the Tremont Theatre.
Here all went well, except that at an exciting point in the play
where one of the characters fell dying the Indians burst out into
a war-whoop, to the considerable consternation of the women and
children present.
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