"Warriors! Face the rising sun!" With this war cry, fifteen-year-old Black Hawk, son of Pyesa, Chief and Medicine Man of the Sauk and the Fox, led a band of youthful braves in an attack against their enemy, the Chippewas.

Although Black Hawk came from a long line of warriors, he abhorred scalping and killing. However, his courage and fine generalship against marauding tribes was unquestioned and at the death of his father, Black Hawk became leader of the Sauk and the Fox.

As Head Chief and Medicine Man, he wanted only that his people be left unmolested in their beloved village of Saukenuck—the largest Indian settlement in America—and that they be allowed to retain their hunting grounds. He also tried to untie the five Indian nations for their mutual protection, since they were all caught in the white man's struggle for power in the West.

In 1804 when his people were tricked into a fraudulent treaty whereby they gave up their lands for the paltry sum of $1,000 a year, Black Hawk attempted to negotiate for fairer terms. However, his flag of truce was fired upon so that he was left no choice but to embark upon the ill-fated Black Hawk War.

Ultimately this great-hearted leader conquered his enemies with his pen. For Black Hawk left his published autobiography in which he justifies his actions that gave him the reputation as a bloodthirsty savage. But there is also evidence that he was a reluctant warrior who spent his life in vain attempts to protect his people not only from the whites but from themselves.

From the dust jacket