Illinois under Black Partridge, Shequenebec sent a hundred from his stronghold at the head of Peoria Lake, Mittitass led a hundred from his village at the portage on the Rivière des Plaines. Painted black they came, inveterate since Tippecanoe.
"Look out for squalls," wrote John O'Fallon from St. Louis to his mother at Louisville. "An express arrived from Fort Madison yesterday informing that the sentinels had been obliged to fire upon the Indians almost every night to keep them at their distance. Indians are discovered some nights within several feet of the pickets."
Black Hawk was there. Very angry was Black Hawk at the building of Fort Madison at the foot of Des Moines rapids.
While Lewis and Clark were gone in 1804, William Henry Harrison, directed by Jefferson, made a treaty with the Sacs and Foxes by which they gave up fifty millions of acres. Gratiot, Vigo, the Chouteaus, and officers of the state and army, Quasquama and four other chiefs, attached their names to that treaty in the presence of Major Stoddard.
"I deny its validity!" cried Black Hawk. "I never gave up my land."
Now Black Hawk was plotting and planning and attacking Fort Madison, until early in September a panting express arrived at St. Louis.
"Fort Madison is burned, Your Excellency."
"How did it happen?" inquired the Governor.
"Besieged until the garrison was reduced to potatoes alone, we decided to evacuate. Digging a tunnel from the southeast blockhouse to the river, boats were made ready. Slipping out at night, crowding through the tunnel on hands and knees, our last man set fire to Fort Madison. Like tinder the stockade blazed, kissing the heavens. Indians leaped and yelled with tomahawks, expecting our exit. At their backs, under cover of darkness, we escaped down the Mississippi."
