I just received a copy of The Saukie Indians and Their Great Chiefs Black Hawk and Keokuk. My copy is one of those print-on-demand books–the original was published in 1926, and was written by Amer Mills Stocking. This is a book of poetry, and it tells the stories of Keokuk and Black Hawk. What little I have read of it seems to be pretty accurate, or at least it agrees with other accounts.
Here is part of it:
“The Black Hawk returned to his riverside cabin,
Where he lived throught the long, golden days of the summer.
The faithful Asshawequa saw he was failing,
And said: ‘He is old. Very soon he will leave us.
Sowana, the Great and Good Spirit, will call him.’
A party of Iowas came on a visit
To the place that they had once accounted their homeland
Ill feeling forgotten and all wrongs forgiven,
They held wiith the Black Hawk a council of friendship.
The spot where they met was north-west of his cabin
And there the old warrior directed his body,
When death should o’er take him be decently buried….”
I am pretty sure I don’t understand poetry. Maybe this is really good, maybe it is really bad.
I’m similarly no expert on the art of poetry, but the parable of timely reconciliation it conveys is an inspiring one.