Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1886 — BLACK HAWK’S GRATE. [ARTICLE]

BLACK HAWK’S GRATE.

The Famous lowa Indian’s Peculiar Burial—Half Above Ground. Dr. J. F. Snyder has -written an article for the Magazine of American History on the Indian chief Black Hawk. He says: Considering these facts it seems strange that the particulars of his death and burial should have been unknown to Mr. Schoolcraft, and so meagerly recorded by him, when he could so easily have obtained correct information of every circumstance attending the event. The death and burial of Black Hawk, particularly the ceremonies attending the inhumation of so noted a personage of such importance in the history of the Indians, to illustrate their mortuary customs, we would expect to be minutely reported in Mr. Schoolcraft’s great work. But he disposes of the famous chiefs last days and final interment in the following brief terms (volume 6, page 454): “He was safely conducted to his home on the distant Mississippi, where he lived many years a wiser and a better man. After his death his tribesmen gave to his remains those rites of sepulture which are only bestowed upon the most distinguished men. They buried him in war-dress, in sitting posture, on an eminence, and covered him with a mound of earth.” This is all I have found in the great historical work of Mr. Schoolcraft concerning the death and funeral rites of one of the most celebrated of recent Indians. No dates are given, nor is the location of “his home on the distant Mississippi” indicated; nor is there any mention of any ceremonies performed at his grave, or any fact stated to guide us in estimating the magnitude of the “mound of earth.”

Capt. Jas. H. Jordan was a trader among the Sacs and Foxes before Black Hawk’s death, was present at his burial, and is now residing on the very spot where he died. In reply to my letter of inquiry he writes as follws: “Eldora, lowa, July 15, 1881. “Black Hawk was buried on the northeast quarter of southeast quarter of section 2, township 70, range 12, Davis County, lowa, in the northeast part of the county, on the Des Moines River bottom, about ninety rods from where he lived at the time he died, on the north side of the river. I have the ground where he lived for a door yard, it being between my house and the river. The only mound over the grave was made from some puncheons split up and spread over two forked poles thrust into the earth, one at his head and the other at his feet; these were then sodded over with bluegrass, making a ridge about four feet high. A flag staff some twenty feet high, on which was a silk flag, was planted at his head, and it hung there until the wind wore it out. My house and his were only about four rods apart when he died. He was sick only about fourteen days. He was buried right where he sat the year before, when in council with lowa Indians, and was buried in a suit of military clothes, made to order and given to him, when in Washington City, by General Jackson, with hat, sword, gold epaulets, etc., etc.” From another old settler of that neighborhood, Mr. Isaac Nelson, the following reply was received: “Hickory, lowa, June 24, 1881.—I came to lowa in the spring of 1836, and was two or three times near Black Hawk’s house, but never went in to see him. * * * He was buried in a manner on the top of the ground, but his feet were about sixteen inches in the ground and his head about a foot above the surface. He had on a suit of military clothes; four nice new blankets were wrapped around him, a pillow of feathers was under his head, a plug hat on his head, and an oldfashioned Brussels stock around his neck. You may ask how I saw all of this when he was in his grave. I will try to describe the way in which he was buried, and then you will understand it. A forked post had been planted at his head and one at his feet; a ridge pole was laid in these' forks, and then puncheons put over him in the shape of a roof and the earth thrown on, which made a raise of two or three feet above him. The whites had taken out two ends' so we could see through. The grave had been inclosed with pickets some eight feet high, planted in the ground with joints broken; but these the whites had forced apart so that we could easily creep in. His feet were to the east, and his head to the west. At his feet was a shaved oak post with painting on it, and at his head a- pole with a nice silk flag. All the grass and weeds were kept out of the inclosure and for some distance around the outside. He had no coffin, but was laid full length upon a board with four fine blankets around him.”