A Stroll on the River

On the south side of LeClaire Park there are three rocks with plaques that memorialize events or people. As I walked that side of the park today, I stopped to read one of the plaques: "In Commemoration: The Blackhawk Purchase Treaty."

The treaty was signed in 1832. A little background: the Europeans had just won the Blackhawk War against the Sauk, the Fox (aka the Mesquawkie) and the Ho-Chunks (i.e., Winnebagos). Chief Blackhawk himself was in captivity.

If armed robbery is a purchase treaty, then this was a purchase treaty. "Here's my gun. I want your wallet. That's our treaty."

One of the few easily-established facts of history: how it's written, and how it's read, depends on who is doing the writing. And the writing is always done by the victors. The monuments are erected by the victors. Do you think those figures on Mount Rushmore were selected by Native Americans?

So whites wrote the history. And built the memorial. And it was thus the "Blackhawk Purchase Treaty". Not armed robbery.

But it was armed robbery.