Surrender of Black Hawk

Date: August 27, 1832 • Location: Washington, United States

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1832.

Black Hawk (pictured), the leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrendered to U.S. authorities to end the Black Hawk War.

Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa, known in English as Black Hawk, was a Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man and then a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.