Black Hawk summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Black Hawk.

Black Hawk, (born 1767, Sauk Sautenuk, Va.—died Oct. 3, 1838, village on the Des Moines River, Iowa, U.S.), Sauk Indian leader. Long antagonistic to whites, Black Hawk was driven into Iowa from Illinois in 1831. Defying the government orders to vacate villages along the Rock River in Illinois, he led a faction of Sauk and Fox Indians back across the Mississippi River the following year. This act led to the brief but tragic Black Hawk War of 1832. He himself survived the final battle, a massacre. The ruthlessness of the war so affected neighbouring Indian groups that by 1837 most had fled far west, leaving most of the Northwest Territory to white settlers.

Trail of Tears Summary

Trail of Tears, in U.S. history, the forced relocation during the 1830s of Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region of the United States (including Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Estimates based on

government Summary

Government, the political system by which a country or community is administered and regulated. Most of the key words commonly used to describe governments—words such as monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy—are of Greek or Roman origin. They have been current for more than 2,000 years and have not