The Sac and Fox Nation is an almost unknown
Native American tribe with a painful
history, a dying present, and a very uncertain future. Today there are fewer than
5500 registered members; the nation voted only in the last few years to lower the
bloodline to 1/8th Sac and Fox blood in order to gain membership to the tribe. The
number of full-blooded members is under 100, and the majority of them are too old to
produce more children. Within perhaps one or two
generations, it is likely there will no longer be a single
full-blooded member.
Why then, would anyone bother to document the history of this tribe? Because for
some of us, it is the story of our
ancestors and
heritage.
The Sac and Fox Nation, originally
Great Lakes peoples closely related to the
Kickapoo, consisted of two seperate
Algonquin-speaking tribes, the
Meshkwahkihaki (meaning
"people of the red
earth", later shortened to Meskwaki, and later still known as the
Fox tribe)
and the Asakiwaki (meaning
"people of the yellow
earth", later known as the
Sac tribe). The two tribes were always
fairly close, but entered into an official
alliance in 1734. Their language is Mesquakie-Sauk, an
Algonquin tongue consisting
of three dialects: Mesquakie (Fox), Sauk (Sac) and perhaps Kickapoo, though this
dialect is actually a seperate but similar language of a Great Lakes tribe by the
same name.
Oral tradition holds that both tribes originated in the
Saint
Lawrence Seaway in
Canada until a great flood caused them to settle on an island
near
Saginaw Bay,
Michigan, and surrounding areas. This was to
be their home, the Meshkwahkihaki tribe living mainly within the
forests, while the Asakiwaki lived nearer to the shores and open areas. During
this time, not much is known, except that the Asakiwaki, for the most part
farmers, had developed an exceptionally complex style of
threading
beadwork that was unmatched by
any other
tribe in North America, and the Meshkwahkihaki, mostly
hunters, produced most of the
leather goods. The two tribes were so
closely united as to be nearly indestinguishable from one another by
outsiders. For a while, they lived in peace, until the
Huron,
armed with
French weapons, along with the
Iroquois confederacy, drove them from their homelands and scattered the
tribe as far east as
New York and
southeast Canada, and as far Midwest as
Wisconsin,
Iowa, and
Missouri.
The majority, however, settled down near present day Wood River,
Illinois after defeating and displacing
the Illini tribe in 1769. For a little over 30 years, the tribe had a good run. The
white man didn't
even know they existed (which has historically been a good thing for any
indigenous people). Then one day,
two explorers changed their lives
forever.
During their return trip, on a stay in Camp Dubois (present-day Wood River, near
Alton, Illinois) from December, 1803 to May 14, 1804,
Lewis
and Clark discovered the allied Meshkwahkihaki and Asakiwaki tribes living in the
area. They had previously thought the area to be mostly uninhabited, and since both
tribes were not distinguishable from one another to the unfamiliar explorers, they
were simply refered to as the Sac tribe. Both parties had
entirely different takes on those fateful few weeks.
A former chief of the tribe relates:
"Our people were the first to greet Lewis and Clark as they came up the river in
their canoes. They were starved and in need of aid. They happily accepted our charity. If they had died on their return home, no one would
ever know of the wonders and peoples they had discovered.
Had we known then what we know now, we would have opened
fire on them without hesitation."
From Clark's Journal:
"Sunday 25th - At 11 o'clock 24 Sacs came past from St.
Louis, and asked for provisions. I ordered them 75 lbs. beef, 25 lbs. flour, & 50
lbs. Meal."
Monday the 26th of March 1804 - I visited the Indian camps. In one camp found 3
squaws & 3 young ones, another 1 girl & a boy, in a 3rd Simon Girty & two
other families. Girty has the rheumatism very bad. Those Indians visited me in
their turn, & as usual asked for something. I gave them flour &c."
Regardless of whose recollection was more accurate, Clark officially met with one of
the Chiefs on April 5th, 1804, who stayed at their camp for the entire night. It is
likely that none present could ever predict the
repurcussions of this
meeting.
When the Lewis and Clark Expedition finally reached home Sept. 23, 1806 and the
results spread, the
white man began to settle the areas
with big dreams and few manners. Fights with the
French and
American settlers became more
and more common. Over the next three decades, they were forced from one place to the
next, the majority settling in Saukenuk, Illinois and considered it
their sovereign homeland. Yet this did not last long, and soon great pressure was placed upon the tribe to move westward.
For perhaps the first time since their alliance, there was a split in the unity of
the tribe. Sensing the end of their ways, Chief Keokuk led most of the tribe
westward, into what he thought would be a peaceful
compromise. One band, under the 64 year-old Chief,
Black Hawk, refused, and decided to stay and fight for what was left of their once great expanse of land in 1832. The Black Hawk War was short, and bloody. Nearly all of Black Hawk's band were
killed by large numbers of
regulars and
militia. Those that survived were forced to join Keokuk's people, and share in
the grim fate that awaited their more pacifistic brothers.
What Keokuk had hoped for was a common misconception in the waning days of American
Indian Nations. They were relocated under pretense that they would have a new home,
peace, and be able to retain their old ways. Not so. Again and again they were
relocated, only to find that in each new location, a few months or years later, that
they would have to move again, sometimes to an entirely different
state or
territory. When they were forced to move across state lines, the receiving state, in a fashion typical of the day, would assemble a militia at the Governor's orders and attempt to
kill as many of the pilgrimage as possible before they reached their
destination.
The same events would happen even if they were only crossing through a state to
reach their newer land. One such slaughter was at the hands of
Wisconsin, who slew
thousands and only in the late 1990's finally issued an official
apology. The apology consisted of a framed sheet of paper, on which were written
a few trite sentances, and a
gold memorial coin. Such was the value of those innocents who were slain. The other states have yet to apologize.
Further and further the tribe was pushed from their homeland, to
less and less desirable terrain. From
Iowa to Kansas, and still later from
Kansas to
Oklahoma. In November of 1869 that the first Sac and Fox Indians arrived in Indian Territory in what is now called Lincoln County,
Oklahoma. The group traveled for 19 days from Osage County,
Kansas, in 17 government wagons where they finally were placed at a reservation near
Stroud, Oklahoma. Yet more bitter irony; they had to purchase their land, and the county was named after one of the most horrific figures to them,
Abraham Lincoln, a
well-known hater of the American Indian, who ordered the deaths of some 5,000 Sac and Fox on the same day he signed
The Emancipation Proclamation. By the time they reached the 750,000 acres their meager funds afforded them, a mere 418 surviving Sac & Fox remained. 220 males and 228 females.
Once at their final destination, the US Government sought to
civilize the Sac
and Fox by establishing the Sac and Fox Agency in charge of the land, placing
Christian mission schools to educate the members, forbidding them to speak their
native language, and condemning their
traditional religious practices. Originally,
the Sac and Fox were governed by a clan
system, but historical clan leadership was replaced with a
constitutional government in 1885. Today's surviving clans are
Fish,
Ocean,
Thunder,
Bear,
Fox,
Bear,
Potato,
Deer,
Beaver (originally the Underwater Panther Clan),
Snow, and
Wolf. As nearly all of their
traditions,
folklore, and history were passed down in an oral fashion, the tribe lost nearly all of its roots. Yet
a devoted few suffered the punishments for maintaining the old ways. It is from them that any history outside of
archeology and government records has been saved.
One would think that here the story would end, that it is from those few remaining souls, the traditions of the tribe were revitalized, and that they finally had peace in a land that, if they could not call
home, they could at least call their own.
Such was not to be the case.
Around 1870, there is evidence in files of the Oklahoma Historical Society that the
tribe had to move twice because the government surveyors had marked the eastern and
southern boundaries incorrectly. Once again, the white man wanted their land.
Pressured by the Sac and Fox Agency, the tribe was made to sign an
agreement in 1890,
turning over
half of their land to the US Government. roughly 385,000 of their 750,000 acres
were claimed in a
white settlement run on September 22, 1891. Still later, for
reasons unknown, the Federal Government then decided to abolish the elected tribal
council Jul 17, 1909.
One discontented group of Sac and Fox returned to the Tama, Iowa area where they
purchased land and remained as a separate tribe. The Sac and Fox of Iowa, who call
themselves Mesquakie, list a about 700 on their tribal roles. There is also a Sac
and Fox of Kansas and a Sac and Fox of Missouri, each tribe with fewer than 200
members. The Sac and Fox of Oklahoma is by far the largest of the four and lists
around 2300 persons on the tribal roll.
Today the Sac and Fox Nation is in a desperate struggle to retain what few shreds of
identity the ravages of history and violence have left them. Active members number
only in the hundreds. The annual powows are a conglomerate of several tribes, and
generally visiting tribes outnumber the Sac and Fox by as many as three or four to
one.
Dancing and
Regalia contests are held at the
Pow Wows, but one will not find
traditional garb of the Sac and Fox anyplace but the libraries, and the dances are
long forgotten. The tribe itself is predominantly Christian, most have long
forgotten even the folklore of their old traditions, much less the ceremonies. Only
the
elders of the tribe maintain any sense of the
Old Ways, and the younger
generations more often than not have little interest in learning them. The land
surrounding them is dying, and the tiny town of Stroud has barely changed since my
Grandmother was born there in 1922. Most of the tribe members do not even live upon
the reservation anymore; the
permanent population ranges somewhere in the low
double-digits on a good year, single-digits on a bad year.
I am not full-blooded Sac and Fox, but still take great pride in what my heritage
once was. This has been the story of a once
proud and noble people, my ancestors, my
people...
NOTABLE SAC AND FOX FIGURES:
Jim Thorpe - Olympic Gold Medallist
Chief
Black Hawk